Alex Magaisa

WHEN I got back home to work with my comrades two years ago I realised that most of them despised and did not read this paper, The Patriot.
I was shocked.
Not because they despised it, no, that was quite understandable given the language and thrust of the paper.
But that they despised it so much that they did not read it?
That surprised me a lot.
I had spent some of my casual time studying Chinese philosophy, in particular, the works of Sun Tzu and his seminal work, The Art of War.
It was a prized possession when I arrived and I tried to sell the idea of making it compulsory reading to my comrades.
I was not successful.
I was discussing with a fellow comrade when I was home recently and we talked about how the idea did not earn a good reception.
I learnt how with hindsight some of them were now catching up to the idea and have lately been frantically looking for copies of Sun Tzu’s text.
You see, I had figured out that our adversaries had developed their politics and strategies based on their war-time experiences and that Chinese tactics and strategies were an inherent part of it.
If you look closely at the co-operation between ZANU PF and the Chinese Communist Party you will discover that one element is an exchange of technical expertise and each year, ZANU PF, through Government, sends scores of civil servants for ‘training’ in China.
In the last year of the coalition Government, one of our people managed to squeeze in and when she returned she told me how amazed she had been by the teachings and that they had spent many hours studying Sun Tzu’s works.
She said, that little book of yours Doc – we used it a lot.
I felt vindicated, but it was just our conversation and my fellow comrades were not to know.
They had long dismissed Sun Tzu and they were often busy with the methods that had been used before, but without success.
Some said Magaisa, the academic was being too academic and he wants us to read books, like he does with his students!
But I mention Sun Tzu in relation to The Patriot for one key reason: one of the key principles of Sun Tzu’s strategies is that in any war, you must work hard to know your enemy.
I called this the ‘KYE’ (Know Your Enemy) strategy.
It is important in any war, to know your enemy’s strengths and weaknesses.
And reading The Patriot, a paper that was known to be heavily connected to the intelligence services, was obviously a critical part of gathering this knowledge. Believe you me they do it and do it very well, which is why they are reading this post and why they keenly follow debates on these and other platforms.
You have to give it to them – they knew way better than us, the importance of KYE and it is probable that they knew us better than we knew ourselves.
And yet contrast this with our side, where some comrades took pride in declaring that they did not read The Herald, let alone The Patriot!
And I have seen that this mentality persists, even to this day.
But it’s not too late to change.
It’s not too late too, to read and understand the work of Sun Tzu.
It is important reading for any strategic thinkers engaged in war and when I say ‘war’ do not immediately form in your mind the image of guns, bullets and blood, no.
War is just a euphemism for the battles that we constantly wage in life.
Indeed, life itself is a process in which we are forever at war and Sun Tzu’s work is a most useful guide.
Even when you are in business, you are at war with your rivals and competitors. And a football team is at war with its rivals.
The manager has to be strategic to win games.
I write in more detail about this and my failed attempt to introduce Sun Tzu and his strategic thinking into our party’s strategic approaches last year in my work that I call, ‘July 31’ – yes, I have had a very busy English summer of writing!
But if you love reading and learning more about strategies of overcoming challenges, I recommend Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.
Robert Greene’s 33 Strategies of War is also great, but Sun Tzu is the daddy of them all.
And if you are in the opposition, do take time to read The Patriot.
Not because it is a great paper, but because it is important to have knowledge.