adminNyathi is the name associated with treachery and treasonous behaviour and character of the war for the independence of Zimbabwe. Unfortunately, the name only has a brutal meaning to those who fought and participated in the great war of our independence and not to the majority of us “born frees”.
There is no literature on this, no books, no references and even if one searches for it on the internet, one will find virtually nothing, making this painful act of genocide an oblivious nonentity. The launch of the military history research project by the Minister of Defence, Emmerson Mnangagwa, on November 1, this year, therefore, is an important safeguard of the continuation, revival, resurrection and revitalisation of that part of our human existence, in as far as war is concerned.
It has the objective of creating national and international political conditions that favour the protection or extension of vital national values against existing or potential adversarial distortion. The launch also came in the wake of a new report put out by a 30-member United States of America Council on Foreign Relations headed by former Secretary of State, Condolezza Rice and former New York City Schools Chancellor, Joel Klein, that instigated, framed and found great link between lack of adequate school curriculum and national security.
In cognisance of such developments in industrialised nations of the north, the nation is hereby compelled to ensure and integrate the instruments of power towards a single understanding of the basis of our freedom and sovereignty. Naturally, in the absence of a well articulated and thought out and coherent history, it may be difficult to attain synergy.
Hence, the road to correct the skewed historical accounts of our various attempts and efforts at rediscovering our place in the past and a position in the future has to be led by our defence forces and nation at large. Information, as a major instrument of power in a country, presents a template and temperature of national cohesion and security.
As the global political system shifts and transfers power from the “capital rich” to the “information rich” and that power in world politics being another dimension of what Joseph Nye calls “co-optive power”, meaning that one country makes another country to do what it wants without using force, our nation should understand military history as an element of power and a psychological dimension in interstate interaction.
As witnessed throughout our many years of reading our foreign written military history, the fine line between Press freedoms and maintenance of law and order is now difficult to navigate. A school of thought advocating for self regulation of the media, for example, as opposed to mandatory regulation, has developed. Burton Buzan notes the following on the conundrum about democracy and free speech, “if free speech is a necessary condition for democracy, but also a licence for antidemocratic propaganda, how does one devise a security policy for democracy?”
History may mitigate the situation in this circumstance. In view of the power of information, particularly from history, in shaping and dictating the outcomes and perceptions of society, historians have become objects of national security concern. This, therefore, calls for the creation of a mandatory military history curriculum written and directed by Zimbabweans for Zimbabwe’s optimal benefit.
It is in this context that the backbone of Zimbabwe’s information technology infrastructure should exclusively remain within historical perspective and control.
It is a widely accepted view in the academic world that history written by Zimbabweans forms part of the inherent efforts at self involvement in the process of rediscovering the roots of our national interests, national focus, national objectives and the embroidering of a national security strategy as epitomised by George Washington on September 19, 1796 in his farewell address when he observed that, “Any nation that serves another is not serious”.
Online Reporter