The Sunday News
Dr Obert Mpofu
Last week on Thursday after addressing the Second Zanu-PF National Youth League Assembly meeting at the Party’s Headquarters in Harare, His Excellency President Emmerson Mnangagwa left for Gaborone, Botswana.
The following day, President Mnangagwa joined other African Heads of State who endorsed the swearing-in ceremony of Botswana’s fifth democratic leader President Mokgweetsi Masisi in Gaborone.
Other Heads of State who attended President Masisi’s inauguration ceremony include Edgar Lungu of Zambia and Filipe Nyusi of Mozambique and representatives of other Sadc leaders.
President Mnangagwa’s visit to Botswana voluminously substantiates the fraternal Sadc courtesy accorded to democratic transitional process.
The just ended Botswana election was superintended by our own Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Retired General Dr Sibusiso Moyo. Zimbabwe also played a centrifugal role in contributing to the democratic outcome of the elections in Mozambique.
An empirical turn
The mediatory function of Zanu-PF in the electoral etiquette in the region nullifies the domestic polarised discourse bent on smearing the ruling Zanu-PF’s regionally appraised political decorum. The Party and the country’s newly earned political dignity in the region and beyond stems from the reputable political image of our leader, Cde Mnangagwa who has replaced personality of state management far beyond empty charisma and rhetoric cladded in mouthful of slogan and resolutions.
His commitment to driving economic development is evident of a statesmanship style which the Deputy Chief Secretary in the Office the President and Cabinet, George Charamba once referred to as a migration from hard-nationalism — “food for thought” to economic nationalism — “food for the stomach”.
To some this migration from nationalist essentialism has been misapprehended as a departure from enduring national interest and the deep-rooted anti-colonial economic framing lens.
To this effect, Cde Charamba emphasises that “No National Question excludes or turns its back on the core considerations of national liberation, national sovereignty and the national land issue.
The three form a baseline triumvirate for the modern national state”. Therefore no doubt that the enabling software to His Excellency, the President Cde Mnangagwa’s leadership is rooted and established on the creed of our struggle to restore the dignity which colonialism had robbed from us.
A looming Afro Third-Wave
Cde Mnangagwa’s interface with the Party’s national youth leadership firmly appendages his loyal commitment to ground the imminent reality of the nationalist movement’s continuity.
His leadership style to the next generation of leaders signatures a future which is girded on principle and a timeless tradition of preserving the African space and dignity in waging war against every force and energy determined to undermine our right to being.
The youth are the cog of the Party’s continuity and all the values it represents. The institution of youth in general represents the successive generational mandate which it shares with those of my generation.
This is why the inter-generational positionality of our values stands to be preserved as a key ingredient for the posterity of the continent’s future — which should be free from colonial dictates. In the spirit and letter of this given reality, the nationalist powerhouses of Africa (Zanu-PF mainly) must continue to rejuvenate, retrospect and introspect in order to lay a solid foundation for Africa’s future.
Carbone (2007) links this contemporary trend in the function of the Liberation Movements as key makers of “an African version of the global third wave of democratisation processes . . .” Also noteworthy is the role of global credit-line houses such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) who have lobbied for neo-liberal guided economic positionality of the post-colonial state. The Bretton-woods financial aid systems have been grossly tied-down prescriptive democracy and good governance.
The coloniality of power versus African sovereign dignity
The consequence of Africa’s wide democratisation has been marred with toxic opposition politicking and salient Western foreign-policy meddling.
In our very context, the Fast-Track Land Reform Programme has been at the centre of the animosity we have invited to our sovereignty. As such, the ugly and illegal sanctions have been imposed on our country to support the sectoral interests of the opposition to foster regime-change.
President Mnangagwa’s re-engagement position has since been widely supported by the Sadc family of nations in synch with their ideological rooting and anti-colonial world-view. This reveals the extent to which Zanu-PF procures its mandate from the collective regional position to challenge neo-colonialism.
This is the reason why the re-engagement as a foreign policy tool has been blatantly insulted by the Western powers who have misconstrued our country’s reach-out efforts as a sign of weakness. To this end, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International-Trade Retired General, Dr Sibusiso Moyo has expressed the much-need patriotic displeasure to US Embassy.
Last week the US envoy acted on behalf of the opposition MDC-A through open cyber-attacks on the Government for hosting the Sadc Anti-Sanctions nationwide programme. Clearly, the conduct of the US Embassy did not only depict its profuse disrespect for Zimbabwe’s sovereignty, but its anti-sanctions political messaging signalled its uttermost disparage of the Sadc’s position against the sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe.
Sadc’s support to Zimbabwe in the fight against Zidera reaffirms the organic political soul of the region which demystifies the morality of Western interests in our sovereign political affairs.
This is why it makes sense for Sadc as an anti-colonial collective to demand the removal of the EU and Zidera sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe. These illegal sanctions are an antithesis to the spirit of African liberation inspired self-determination. For the first time under the leadership of President Mnangagwa our fight against neo-imperialism has attracted regional backing.
Therefore, it is not astonishing that the US is reacting the way it has done. The continued attacks on the anti-sanctions proposition by the opposition and its Western proxies is telling of a deliberate asymmetrical warfare against the region’s long-standing and unequivocal aspirations.
The lobby for the continued imposition of sanctions is not only reflective of the opposition’s fight against Zanu-PF, but the proposition to keep sanctions alive in Zimbabwe is a fight against the region’s united effort to fight against the hangovers of imperialism.
It must be noted that the need to consolidate the position on sanctions by MDC-Alliance in cohorts with the US Embassy is not new. The move reflects the perennial ideological position of the opposition and is telling of the role of the Chamisa party as an accessory of imperial hegemony.
Clearly, it is undisputable that Zanu-PF still represents the broader continental aspirations as it continues to be a hub of rethinking the colonial matrix of power. On the diametrically opposite, it is somehow apparent that the slanders of the 25 October Movement can only be antagonists of “African solutions for African problems.”
This is why the bloodline of their existence has been merely colonially financed.
From the outset, the MDC was founded to manufacture false property and human-rights to ease the validate the Zidera and EU sanctions. By its very eccentric outlook and cradle, MDC is a nucleus and a proxy of neo-imperial supremacy.
The contradictions in our polity distinguish thus far distinguish Zanu-PF not only as a movement of liberation, but as a pivot to core national values and a pedestal of every institution opposed to colonialism.
The loins of this ideological charisma have been further affixed to the leadership of President Mnangagwa who has taken an unflinching role in reclaiming the spirit and essence the anti-colonial movement.
Amandla!
– The author, Dr Obert Mpofu is Zanu-PF’s Secretary for Administration. He is also a member of the Zanu-PF Politburo.
