By Dr Tafataona Mahoso

THERE is confusion among some youths and those in opposition circles on interpreting the success of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces’ (ZDF) ‘Operation Restore Legacy’.
Four excerpts illustrate this confusion:
“In November (2017) all Zimbabweans marched in solidarity with the army’s move to force (former president Robert) Mugabe to step down but only to realise now that it was a ZANU PF issue.
Mnangagwa is the first Vice-President in Zimbabwe who was fired from Government and bounced back as President with full support of Zimbabweans irrespective of political (party) affiliations and many, if not all people, had high hopes on him, but with this Cabinet, all hope seems lost.” — (Daily News, December 3 2017)
Confusion here centres around the allegation ‘it was a ZANU PF issue’, given the fact that the G40 formation called itself the new ZANU PF but was stopped for being not only anti-ZANU PF but also against the revolutionary ethos in Chimurenga!
So, definitely the Daily News writer is missing something, he is confused. He alleges that the masses mobilising on November 18 2017 did not know what they were doing.
The second excerpt goes as follows: “Opinions swung from one end to another and for some, it was full circle… Before (Operation Restore Legacy) there was general consensus on the baselines.
We were all hungry for change.
We all wanted Mugabe and all those around him to go.
A whole political industry grew out of these voices. But the means available to secure change were in the hands of those we also wanted out of power. Change did not happen.” — (Daily News, December 4 2017)
Confusion here centres around the allegation ‘we were all hungry for change…Change did not happen’.
In African Relational Philosophy (hunhu/ubuntu) of which Chimurenga is a practice, what is ‘change’?
What is revolution?
Does merely removing former President Mugabe ‘and those around him’ constitute ‘change’ to achieve which one would build ‘a whole political industry’?
The third excerpt comes from a time before ‘Operation Restore Legacy’.
“If we say let us go to war today (as ZANU PF youths against war veterans), how many war veterans are there?
They are very few.
We (the youths) constitute 65 percent of this country … So be ready and we are going to call you (to a fight) when the time comes.
Who are you (Chris) Mutsvangwa and (Victor) Matemadanda?
These (war veterans) are not going to do anything, we will give them a 100-metre race (against us the youths) and they will fail the run.
They are sick (and depleted) with sugar (diabetes).” — (Kudzai Chipanga, February 17 2016).
This third excerpt sums up the confusion in several ways:
l It raises the question of what exactly was meant by ZANU PF between 2014 and 2017 and prior to ‘Operation Restore Legacy’.
l It equates perceptions of physical exhaustion and death among war veterans with the actual state of revolutionary ideals, ideas, memory and history.
Yet African philosophy teaches that “Nzira hainanuri nokuti wakaitanga arasika kana kuti afa.”
l Worst of all, it mistakes a mere common age and generational cohort called youth, for the deliberate generation of a unifying ideology and programme.
Age, biology or chronology cannot be equated with values, with ideology, with philosophy.
Therefore Chipanga’s alleged 65 percent of the population could not count as long as it referred only to a cohort defined by age and not by unifying ideas, by a unifying ideology and by real practical programmes on a truly national scale.
The fourth excerpt does two things, which are important for understanding the depth of confusion over ‘Operation Restore Legacy’: It reduces history to a conspiracy and it however, demonstrates a serious contradiction between liberal neo-colonial law and African Living Law as follows:
“First Act: It must be understood that the real coup (in Zimbabwe) took place in 2008, when the military deprived Morgan Tsvangirai of clear victory.
Second Act: The 2013 election was rigged through complex multiple processes led by Nikuv, an Israeli company, charged with compiling the national voter’s roll that rendered the actual casting of a vote meaningless.
Third Act: The level of ear emanating from the 2008 presidential run-off election… influenced the 2013 voting pattern…
Act 4: This is the episode that has just unfolded ‘Operation Restore Legacy’.” — (Daily News, December 6 2017).
What the conspiracy theory misses is the fact that the legitimacy of the liberation movement that won the 1980 elections did not come from the elections.
The elections only served to confirm that legitimacy, to confirm the organic relationship between the povo and the armed liberation fighters.
More seriously, it was the freedom fighter’s gun supported by peasants which brought the ballot to the povo.
The bullet made possible the ballot for the povo.

Chimurenga as the liberatory practice of the philosophy of hunhu/ubuntu

The sense of law and justice which led Africans to fight for liberation through armed struggle did not come from English Common Law or Roman Dutch Law.
It came from African Living Law from the First Chimurenga of Nehanda, Kaguvi, Chingaira and others.
Our colonial miseducation as MaDzimbahwe made us forget that behind every major practice such as Chimurenga there is a philosophy and a theory.
The average person may not be able to outline the whole philosophy at all times because a truly organic philosophy becomes silent, is taken for granted, and may become commonsensical.
This makes it vulnerable to caricature, distortion and even destruction.
The most common symbol of African relational philosophy (hunhu) is the dariro, that is, the African circle of call-and-response, kushaura nokutsinhira.
In the dariro, a revolution can take place without being recognised as such by those whose viewpoint or philosophy is linear and is represented by the straight queue, the ladder and binoculars.
Binoculars are never used to look at oneself.
They are meant to define all others linearly as ‘those people’.

Enduring qualities of the dariro and the pungwe

Long before the invention of interactive digital technologies, Africans designed the dariro as the best structure to be used by those in search of mutual understanding, reconciliation and solidarity.
Dariro is a moral, judicial and aesthetic structure of such great flexibility that it had to be repeated in almost all African architectural structures, including Great Zimbabwe.
Dariro as an aesthetic structure puts the performer and the audience in one continuum.
The performer is part audience and part performer.
The link between the two lies in the so-called ‘call-and response’ mechanism – kuparura or kushaura nekutsinhira kana nekugadzirisa zvisingatsinhirike kuti zvizotsinhirika.
‘Operation Restore Legacy’ yakagadzirise zvanga zvisikatsinhiriki kuti zvitsinhirwe neruzhinji.
Therefore, the dariro is a political, educational, moral and aesthetic structure embodying the relationship between those chosen by the same daririo/dare to lead (kuparura/kushaura), on one hand, and those who have chosen them and who confirm their leadership through response (kutsinhira or kugadzirisa).
“Kutsinhira kutaura mashoko anotsigira zvataurwa nemunhu atanga kutaura.”
Kutsinhira is to respond to a chosen lead speaker in order to affirm, modify or correct what he or she may have started.
And yet, kutsinhira (also) kubaya muforo wechipiri (kana wetatu) negejo, uchitevedza wambenge wabaiwa pakutanga. In other words, kutsinhira is also used in ploughing.
The second, third, and fourth furrows must follow harmoniously and consistently where the first (the lead furrow) broke ground.
Finally, both the canal and the furrow mean that there is an agreed farm, a field or garden (munda kana ndima yakatarwa kare) belonging to the whole people.
The ZDF as the successor to the liberation movement, is the defender of that space, that territory, that inheritance.
The dariro leaves a space in the centre which symbolises the people’s collective stake, Dzimbahwe.
But where dariro is neutral in terms of concepts of authority, dare is the dariro transformed and elevated to the arena of collective power and authority as in Dare ReChimurenga and Dare RaMambo.
Dzimbahwe also means Dare RaMambo.
In other words, in the African circle or dare, those who lead have been chosen to lead.
When they lead the song, the dance, the path or the court case, they must also wait for the response (kutsinhira or kugadzirisa).
They may be told by the rest of the circle to stop, or they may be told to correct their lead tone, their movement, voice or words, if it is not possible for the rest of the dariro or dare to affirm what they will have sung or said or done in lead.
The farm or garden where the furrow or water canal is to be started must belong to the people and be known.
The problem with linear thinking is that it reverses the relational arrangement by demoting those who choose the lead singer, by demoting those who affirm the leadership of the selected leader, thereby allowing the lead singer to run away from the dariro and to pretend to be a solo performer or self-created gamba, or self-made celebrity!
The danger which such a run-away faces is called kupaumba, which is the opposite of kushaura.
Anoramba achipaumba haatsinhirike. Anonzi chirega kushaura.
l Joining the dariro is already a silent expression of willingness to sing or dance along; or willingness to learn to sing and dance along; or willingness to speak the language spoken in the dariro; or willingness to learn and understand that language; and willingness to abide by the consensus which may emerge from the process of the dariro.
– When there are more people, the circle is widened, but it remains a circle.
– If one or two or more people drop dead or are killed, the circle closes ranks or brings in more people.
– For African children, the circle meant that there were always several mothers, several fathers per child in the circle.
If my mother died, she was instantly replaced by her sisters, cousins, even brothers who became my mothers.
Therefore umai, ubaba, ukama or usahwira as relationships were larger than the individual mai or hama.
– At the level of the community or neighbourhood, the circle teaches that the harm inflicted on your neighbour’s child in that dariro is quite capable of being inflicted on your own child sitting in that same circle; the harm inflicted on your neighbour’s mother sitting in that dariro of mothers will sooner than later hit your mother, aunt, or sister occupying the same space in that circle.
– The circle therefore taught solidarity as daily commonsense and practice.
– The dariro meant all generations sitting in the same circle.
This meant continuity of heritage.
It also meant that there were no sunset laws which declared that a grievance would expire after 25-50 years or even 500 years.
A collective grievance of the family or community could only end by resolution, settlement, and reconciliation.
– Above all, the dariro represented synthesis, coordination, the aspiration for convergence and harmonisation.
Some classical African proverbs demonstrate this struggle for integrated relational thinking:
– “One palm nut cannot be opened twice.”
– “If someone kills an animal by accident, you do not also skin it by accident.”
– “One does not go about begging for precious palm oil with a gourd without an opening.”
– “There are no crossroads in the ear.”
– “The head has two ears but it never hears in twos.”
– “The stick of fresh sugarcane is sweet and delicious, but it is never stored in the granary.”