THE latest move by Mr Nelson Chamisa, as he continues throwing
around his weight in his little domain, is quite sickening to say the least.
While many will not pay much attention to his interference in student
politics, which he has failed to shake off, what he is doing shows exactly
the type of person he is, a bully with no respect for structure or rules.
The behaviour of the likes of Chamisa is the reason we cannot afford
to forget the liberation struggle ethos — it forever remains important.
Sadly, those with vaulting ambitions have sought to deride and
belittle the achievements of our liberation war by disregarding what
was fought for — democracy and all it entails.
The liberation struggle, most importantly, taught us to love our
country.
It implored us to defend our country from its enemies.
We fought the war to dismantle the racist colonial State and replace it
with one that gave the people unconditional access to land, that allowed
people to participate meaningfully in the economic development of
their country, that gave people the right to choose their leaders and that
gave people the freedom to believe what they chose.
Colonialism robbed Zimbabweans of all of the above; it took away
civil liberties and rights.
It denied us a stake in our economy, freedom of association and
expression.
Imperialists exploited and expropriated.
The journey that we have walked thus far, from independence
to today, has been defined by the success of the Land Reform and
Resettlement Programme and the ongoing economic empowerment
programmes including all the freedoms we enjoy, unfettered.
It is important to keep these facts in mind when analysing the
situation that Zimbabwe finds itself in.
We are under threat from the West and its allies who are vehemently
opposed to the empowerment programmes that seek to better the lot of
the majority.
And their champion Chamisa has turned himself into a little dictator,
a law unto himself.
When a whole party begins to say; ‘if the president wishes it’, then
there is a serious problem.
As a nation, we have intensified the fight for economic independence
and redeemed ourselves from being economic puppets and perpetual
beggars gallivanting from one metropolitan city to another telling the
same old story of poverty.
And we have no appetite for weak leaders who thrive through
bullying like Chamisa.
Empowerment and the restoration of our rights has been a
fundamental goal in the development of African lives but people like
Chamisa will only set us back.
We have refused to be dominated economically by economic lords as
we were politically dominated by political lords yesterday
Economic domination is, indeed, a worse phenomenon than political
domination.
This is because, in the latter case, no political resources are
depleted by being shipped abroad, whereas in a situation of economic
domination our resources are day-by-day freighted to Paris, London
and New York, all as lowly purchased raw materials.
Thus, we need to harness our skills and become masters of our
destinies: characters drunk with desire for power and no sound policies
should steer clear of levers of nationhood.
If you are genuinely Zimbabwean, Chamisa must frighten you.
There is a warped idea of democracy that some people among us want
to be identified with because the Americans or some other Western
nation say so when in fact they don’t practise it at all in their countries.