IF foreigners can come into a nation and convince its youth that the only way forward is to destroy everything their nation has bequeathed them, as happened in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, it means the youth who are the designated defence forces of any nation, are greatly lacking, and have failed in their duty to protect the nation.
Sometimes it is because they have no sense of purpose, they have no bond with their true selves, their nationhood and their national destiny.
Sometimes all they learn in schools is in praise of the Western capitalist world, its ethos and its demons.
The media which is dominated and saturated by images of the Western capitalist world, the videos, DVD’s, and music, is their daily bread…nay deadly bread, and eventually all this steals into their minds, hearts and souls.
It is not coincidence that our children today ever watch ZTV only when there is no alternative.
They feed on the Dstvs’ multiple channels, the internet and so-called social networks.
Who they become is not of our making, but of those who dominate their mind space.
It is acclaimed that there are ‘universal democratic values’.
In this kind of set up, the children and youths are ripe for the picking.
They are tinder dry and all the enemy needs to do is to light a match and it’s a wildfire.
The values they encounter are not ours.
In their circles it is the ‘in-thing’ to denigrate your leaders, it is taken as a sign of being liberated and progressive, pro-democracy so-called.
They are prided as free souls, and groomed that it is normal to look down on their customs as backward and oppressive.
The values which say ‘Honour thy mother and thy father’, are out of fashion, the values which say, ‘your body is the temple of the Lord’, the values which say ‘love others as you would have them love you’, the values which say your culture and traditions have a purpose, and which still insist your history defines you, are regarded as outdated, inimical to them even.
The children and youths are thrown into a cauldron of ‘facelessness’, they are lulled into believing that they belong to Uncle Sam and the Commonwealth and that they can always take refuge with him should the ‘despots’ at home and the ‘primitive’ parents, stop them from enjoying the benefits of belonging to the free world, chief among them being licentiousness and lasciviousness; avariciousness, pornography, cheap sex, unbridled cohabitation, homosexuality, political license and drugs.
In other words: the nation family from which you originate dare not interfere with your desire to wallow in Western decadence, so the children are primed.
Egypt is in shambles following the so-called ‘Arab spring’, Libya is in tatters and Tunisia is unsuccessfully trying to saw together the shredded seams, and those in Hong Kong have not yet learned the lessons from the so-called Arab springs.
The toll in grief and the losses in human and material terms is unquantifiable.
You don’t know a good thing until it is gone for good.
The youths in those countries could not rise to the defence of their nations and instead joined forces with the enemies of their people because they only belonged to their countries physically, but their minds, hearts and souls belonged to Uncle Sam and the Commonwealth.
These are salutary lessons, children without a soul will be swept away by the ever present winds that seek to control each nation on earth so that their granaries never run dry and their oil reserves are never exhausted.
Let them be Zimbabweans.
Let them know what Zimbabwe is worth, not only in terms of its ecstatic physical beauty or massive resources, but more fundamentally because of its soul, what it represents morally, ethically and aesthetically, that it is a nation that has made an outstanding contribution to mankind’s struggle for justice and equality.
It is a beacon that shines brilliantly to herald and entrench the truth that the inherent dignity of each human being is priceless, is inalienable, it is worth dying for.
Our children have every reason to stand tall and proudly protect this eternal legacy.
If this is achieved, no-one can recruit them into any spring, autumn, winter or summer, Arab or African for that matter.
The names can be different at different times, but what never changes is that these are vicious attacks on stable states which are calculated to destabilise in order to facilitate foreign looting of a nation’s resources.
It signals the end of nationhood and independence and a return to the anarchy of modern day colonialism without the flag.
If we do not honour the inherent dignity of our children which makes them feel deeply Zimbabwean, which feelings make them yearn to honour and protect Zimbabwe’s dignity, we will lose them to those who have long prepared an evil agenda for them, the hawks that seek to steal that which is so precious in any nation.
Our children naturally seek to lead a purposeful life, and naturally they gravitate towards their Zimbabwe.
When the British colonized us just over a century ago, successive generations of Zimbabwean youths, rose to the occasion and defended their nation by waging the armed struggle.
Today Zimbabwe’s youth can do us proud by fulfilling their role as the nation’s defence forces.
In these moments we enjoy peace and security as a nation, we are the envy of many a nation, but we cannot afford to take it for granted.
Others worked for it by waging a principled armed struggle, so we have to continue to work for it if we are to preserve it.
Our children are the defence forces designate.
Let us not rob them of their destined, joyous duty and responsibility towards their Zimbabwe.
Dr Mahamba is a war veteran and holds a PhD from Havard University. She is currently doing consultancy work.