Sunday News
By Richard Runyararo Mahomva
1 May 2016
Last week’s piece summarised how the element White liberalism intruded the idea of liberating Zimbabwe in pure nationalist and pan-Africanist terms. It was in that instalment where I highlighted the hidden agenda of what members of the colonial race present to us as generosity for what they perceive as our lack of civilisation.
This is shown in the way they make it appear as if their superficial acceptance of our historical difference with them is a virtue. Yet it is clear that their generosity through aid to Africa is financed by centuries of White ancestral theft to the continent. This is not new as exemplified by the neo-colonial agenda marshalled through foreign donor ‘development’ projects in Africa specifically in Zimbabwe. Whenever White aid is rendered it appears as if the former colonial state has demoted itself by understanding the African condition so that equality with the needy African states is achieved. Surprisingly, this has continued to be the key characteristic of Black and White relations above all Africa’s relationship with the West.
This rehearsed benevolence dates back to the time of the African struggle and was the main cause for the abortion of Africa’s aspirations for political and economic freedom in Afrocentric terms. This is the reason why our patriotism to the values of our past and the present at a national level are diverse and conflict with each other. The alternatives for the Afrocentric paradigm of patriotism is now nothing more than political slogans that only reflect psychotic partisan power interests. The same slogans are now the vehicle for Zimbabwe’s split patriotic consciousness.
This is the reason why other sections of the country’s population find it excruciating to have the national pledge introduced in schools. This thinking substantiates the case in point of Zimbabwe’s split patriotic consciousness. Msipa (2016) and Coltart (2016) have also provided an exhaustive debate which reflects this from a historical perspective.
Through their lives they have shown how individual commitment to the nation will continue to be shaped by class and race matters. Their memoirs further capture how inter-racial dialogue inevitably leads to the transmission of political orientations of the populace. This is why today we find Africans who are sympathetic to the cause of the White interests. It is this situation that has facilitated the betrayal of African liberation values at a time we need them the most to confront the future. However, it is interesting that in the face of such betrayals of African political identities we have revolutionaries that upheld their love for the good cause of African liberation to the bitter end.
Msipa’s memoir is quite elaborative on that aspect as it captures how he committed his life to the attainment of the country’s freedom. How that has shaped his patriotism to this day. Likewise, the concluding remarks of the book offer a critical introspection of what Zimbabwe needs to do in order to develop. He avoids glorifying the wrongs of our post-colonial political and economic facets of nationhood. As one reads Msipa’s memoir to the end it is clear that we need to work hard to restore Zimbabwe to its founding ideas of national uniformity, prosperity and freedom for all.
Without the boldness to escape self-interest split-patriotic consciousness will remain a threat to the virtues of those who chose to sacrifice their lives for Zimbabwe.
Regardless of all that the country has went through Msipa takes the reader back to what he wanted to achieve through his brotherly ties with some of his contemporaries. Using President Mugabe as a key example he explains how this country is a product of sacrifice, long-suffering and the will to bring about change for the betterment of the lives of our populace.
Msipa clearly indicates that patriotism of the populace is sustained by delivery of good governance. As long there is good governance it is easy for an Afrocentric paradigm of patriotic consciousness to be achieved. This way neo-colonial additives to the making of nationhood would be discarded.
As long there is discipline in the revolutionary party and less factional fragmentations within ZANU-PF it is easy for the Afrocentric patriotic paradigm to be achieved.
This is because so far it is the ruling party that carries the banner of the Afrocentric political ideology. This tempts me to revisit the Head of State, President Mugabe’s address on the need for essential discipline needed to build progressive universal patriotism:
Internal discipline is a state of order within a person that propels him to do the right things. It is a stage of individual development that resolves the contradictions within an individual. The pull to be selfish is counterbalanced by a greater pull to be selfless, the pull to drunkenness is countered by one to moderation, the pull to disobedience is negatived by that to obedience, and the pull to sexual givenness yields to sexual restraint, deviationism is corrected by compliance and individualism by collectivism. The individual must comply with the order laid down by the group.
Without the mentioned discipline understanding one’s belonging and duties to the nation’s universal patriotic consciousness shall be limited.
On the other hand, the issue of split patriotic consciousness is also important in enabling us to understand the position of coloniality’s transfer to our contemporary politics. This is better explained by shifting identities of White liberals like David Coltart. This is why it is necessary that when one reads Coltart’s character as entailed in his book they should attempt to answer one crucial question. At what point does Coltart become part of the Black cause and historical agenda? The answer there quite clear that his sympathy to the African was only for his fair personal political advantage.
Writing in independent Zimbabwe, Coltart mentions that he reached his Damascus moment in 1981 just like the biblical Paul who was persecuting the innocent (Coltart 2015: xiii). Reading this view from the book’s introduction triggers the reader’s curiosity on why the guilt of working to the service of coloniality arrived in Coltart’s conscience after independence?
Moreover, considering that the book “is an autobiographical political history of the last six decades of Zimbabwean history… (ibid), the political scientist in me is awakened to argue that the writing’s aim is to exert an effort into the ongoing power struggles in Zimbabwe. It further entails locating oneself in the changing courses of the political culture of the land. For example realising that being an apologetic beneficiary to racism at the end of colonial rule was no longer politically correct.
This is not different from some who started fingering the ruling party for corruption and despotism after they were shown their respective political exits.
In conclusion, Zimbabwe’s nation-building process requires historical honest if we are to move on and accept our patriotic differences with dignity.
At the same time acknowledging that we have a common aim of acting according to terms of the African decoloniality script.
This way we will be guaranteed of a safe departure from the paradigm of difference and various antagonisms for one another.