When Zim’s nationalism becomes ‘a problem’

Tichaona Zindoga Political Editor
SO Zimbabwe’s nationalism is the problem?

This is according to Ed Cropley, a British journalist who wrote a loaded piece on the succession issue in Zimbabwe, which has just seen the elevation of Cde Emmerson Mnangagwa to the post of first Vice President of Zimbabwe replacing the fallen Joice Mujuru.

This development puts Cde Mnangagwa as the likely successor of President Mugabe should the latter decide to call time on his long and illustrious career as the leader of Zanu-PF and the country.

Cropley’s article carried by Reuters is titled, “With or without Mugabe, Zimbabwe still hostage to nationalism”. The article was written before the announcement of Cde Mnangagwa’s ascension but it very much predicted this outcome, albeit with much regret. It will be useful to highlight some of the salient points of the piece: First, Cropley’s characterisation of the new Number Two. Cropley portrayed Cde Mnangagwa as a shady character who sat, during the just-ended 6th Zanu-PF National People’s Congress “quietly in the crowd, a green baseball cap pulled low over his eyes.” Mnangagwa stood, “to gain most from the departure of (ex VP) Joice Mujuru (but) betrayed nothing by his face and gentle clapping – a survival tactic honed during decades of service from teenage guerilla to minister of defence, finance and justice…”

Mnangagwa, according to Cropley, is “inscrutable”. And what does he represent politically?

Cropley takes great issue with Cde Mnangagwa’s cap, which he divined “spoke volumes” specifically because it had the “portrait of a grim-faced Mugabe” and bore the words “Indigenise, Empower, Develop, Employ” Zanu-PF’s campaign message in the last elections which it won crushingly against the opposition. There is the problem.

Says Cropley: “If, as analysts expect, the inscrutable Mnangagwa is named new vice president and Mugabe’s de facto successor, the country will likely see more of the nationalism that has hit investment in the last six years.”

He also explains that “Mnangagwa’s one speech enforced the message from his clothing. Besides formally recognising the black in the national flag as a symbol of Zimbabwe’s indigenous people, the 68-year-old unveiled revisions to the party’s constitution aimed at emphasising the party’s adherence to the ‘total ownership and control’ of Zimbabwe’s natural resources.”

According to Cropley, this was “a key insight to the party’s direction as it contemplates life beyond Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s only leader since independence in 1980.” It did not help matters, to Cropley, that Mnangagwa declared that “We’ll remain masters of our own destiny.” “Such adherence to the mantra of indigenisation is worrying for businesses eager to tap the southern African country’s mineral wealth, and for Zimbabweans desperate to attract foreign capital needed to kick start their flat-lining economy,” says Cropley. This piece opened by noting that Cropley’s article was “loaded”: it means it is pregnant with meaning and significance. The one underlying meaning is that the British establishment is wary of Zimbabweans being masters of their destiny and in other words being independent and self-determining.

The spirit to seek the same independence and self-determination is what led to the people of this country to take up arms against the settler establishment and the “mother country”, Britain resulting in Independence in 1980. Beginning in the 1950s, a new political trend to seek independence swept throughout the country, uniting workers, peasants and students in the demand for self-rule. This is what is called nationalism, which Cde Mnangagwa voiced when he promised that Zimbabweans would remain masters of their destiny. This rang alarm bells in the ears of the British: and the one important thing it confirmed was that Zimbabwe’s nationalism is more than President Mugabe who has been a pain on the side for the former colonial master. Why would someone find it “worrying” that an independent country seeks to control its own destiny?

Why would someone take issue with the centrality of the colour black on the party and national flag?

Why, in Cropley’s scheme of things, “businesses eager to tap the southern African country’s mineral wealth” have to precede “Zimbabweans desperate to attract foreign capital needed to kick start their flat-lining economy”?

All these questions point to the significance of the succession question in Zimbabwe. It would seem that Zimbabwe’s detractors have taken in the full import of the choice of Cde Mnangagwa, which presents unpleasant prospects for them hence the mourning and whining of Ed Cropley. Mnangagwa is just another Mugabe, for them that sought a departure from the nationalist cause.

Do Zimbabweans share this disappointment?

No, they don’t!

This is why the ascension of Cde Mnangagwa can only be salutary and his message, both verbal and semiotic, welcome. There was a genuine fear, on the part of Zimbabwean patriots, that this country would be set back as a neo-colony with the ascension of unprincipled, corruptible and unpatriotic elements. It is little doubt that this is the outcome the British and their friends wanted: a situation where the black people of this country, the owners of the land of their ancestors, do not occupy the deserved central position but are subordinated to foreign interests that use their land and exploit their minerals. Therein lies the whole irony in Cropley’s submission. He wishes Zimbabwe would not be “hostage to nationalism” but hostage to foreign capital! But Zimbabweans reject such a travesty and this is why they defeated the agents of foreign capital, the MDC, in elections last year, on the strength of the words on Cde Mnangagwa’s baseball cap which, as Cropley observes, speak volumes of the people’s idea of self-determination.

There is another point to make regarding Cropley’s article and it is significant in the understanding of Zimbabwe’s self-determination and relationship with outsiders, mainly the west. Cropley would have the world believe that the only salvation for Zimbabweans will come from foreign (read western) capital. This is not only a lie, but a racist lie, that masks the very fact that it is the very foreigners, especially little, resource famished countries like Britain, that are more desperate to exploit resources from rich countries such as Zimbabwe for their own survival.

They would have it believed that, by rejecting these parasites; Zimbabwe is “ignoring the economy”. One can imagine a pervert in some evil jail telling his intended victim that by continuing to reject his sexual, homosexual, advances, the victim is rejecting his well-being! Judging from how Zimbabwe’s usual detractors at home and abroad have bemoaned the elevation of Cde Mnangagwa at the expense of Joice Mujuru who was given to treacherous, quisling politics, one can only conclude that Cde Mnangagwa was the right man for the job.

Meanwhile, the mission to indigenise, empower, develop and employ which the Ed Cropleys of the west are afraid of should continue inexorably for the benefit of the black people of this country.