MDC-T for political, not economic Uhuru

this year’s event over the theme, they reiterated that they were going to participate under protest.
Such puerile pronouncements defy logic.
They openly betray a shallow-minded and diversionary political disposition to oppose for the sake of opposing.
It resonates well with their direction-less habitual opposition to any policy propounded by Zanu-PF, which saw them opposing the land reform programme, removal of sanctions and other people-centred programmes.
As in other cases, their opposition in this instance was widely misplaced and misguided.
As emphasised by President Mugabe during his Independence Day address, we do not celebrate the birth of Zimbabwe or anything else during this day but the unshackling of our freedom from usurpation by the white settlers.
In this sense, these celebrations have nothing to do with peripheral issues like the theme of the day but more to do with commemorating the reclamation of our independence from the brutal grip of British colonisers.
So for a whole political party, worse still its leader, to breathlessly expend energy ranting about their unwarranted opposition to a theme is rather unfortunate.
Nevertheless, one is tempted to ponder why the MDC-T decided to publicly register its undiluted opposition to a theme hinged on empowering black people for their social and economic benefit.
Surely, what is wrong with such a visionary theme?
Why would they oppose the social and economic upliftment of local people? Basically, the MDC-T was not solely opposed to the Independence Day’s theme but invariably opposed to the whole indigenisation and empowerment programme.
From day one, they have not hidden their opposition to this policy that seeks to dislodge the white man’s hegemony over our economy and their unbridled intention to replace it with their “Jobs and Investment Policy” or whatever they decide to call it.
The “Jobs and Investment Policy” proposes to facilitate huge foreign or white investments that will result in creation of huge employment opportunities for the black people. Its racial undertones do not hide that jobs are for blacks while companies and the economy are for whites as in the colonial times.
The MDC-T policy is clearly a platform to protect and nourish the white man’s stranglehold over our companies and the economy.
It celebrates the black man’s political independence but immediately frowns at his economic freedom and any themes that, therefore, echo the black man’s economic emancipation.
The question is, can we talk of political independence without economic independence?
Over the past 32 years of political independence our economic experience has shown that imperial powers have a firm control over our economy as they, through sanctions, engineered the economic downturn we are currently recovering from.
Surely, we can never be free as long as our economy is not in our hands.
But is the black man able to viably own companies and run the economy? Fortunately, in our short life as a politically free country, we have seen a respectable number of black entrepreneurs successfully creating huge companies that have expanded into neighbouring states and beyond.
Names such as Strive Masiiwa, Divine Ndhlukula, Nigel Chanakira, Philip Chiyangwa and Tawanda Nyambirai, among other black business luminaries, quickly come to mind.
Contrary to the MDC-T and the white man’s belief that black men are inherently incapable of running companies, the aforementioned black people have proven otherwise. Let us fight this economic servitude mentality to fully consummate our independence.