PATRIOT’S IDEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE BY TINASHE MUKORI🇿🇼✍️
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In recent times, there has been quite a fascinating and politically interesting phenomenon manifesting itself in the Zimbabwean body politik which, when contemplated and correctly interpreted, has enormous ideological connotations and ramifications in our nation. We have keenly observed the coalescing of many people with mostly the same economic interests to form affiliate organizations to ZANU PF or otherwise, whose names are suffixed and appended with “4ED”, in direct support of the incumbent, giving tremendous credence to President ED’s Economic Development policies in pursuit of Vision 2030!
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PURSUANT TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL OBLIGATION TO INFORM, LET’S DISSECT THIS PHENOMENON FROM AN IDEOLOGICAL FRAME OF REFERENCE!
✍️When President ED Mnangagwa was unceremoniously relieved of his duties as Vice President by the Former President R.G Mugabe, he left the country for South Africa from where he wrote a letter to the people of Zimbabwe which I believe was extremely defining ideologically. Instructive to note is paragraph three from last in the letter, in which he stated his Vision for Zimbabwe in very categorical terms!
✍️He stated that he would want to see a rejuvenated Zimbabwe that gives each citizen the opportunity to prosper, to take care of their families, a country that encourages Zimbabweans to invest in their economy and contribute to the development of infrastructure for future generations. He then concluded by saying, “Let not your hearts be troubled, for peace, love, unity, development and prosperity are around the corner. I will be communicating with you soon and shall return to Zimbabwe to lead you!”
✍️As history would have it, within the ensuing two weeks after we received that letter from exile, Zimbabwe experienced one of the greatest unprecedented, extraordinary and seamless political mobilization of all times, reminiscent of the liberation struggle in which all native people coalesced around one objective that brought all Zimbabweans from all walks of life together to welcome the return of President ED Mnangagwa!
✍️For once, we witnessed the true spirit of unity, commonality of purpose, a clarity of vision, that oneness and togetherness in its purity as Zimbabweans flooded the streets everywhere across the globe to chant mdara achauya!!!
✍️His inauguration ceremony was attended by all Zimbabweans regardless of political affiliation and the euphoria that punctuated the occasion bore striking resemblance to that of April 1980 when we gained our independence!
HOW WAS THIS POSSIBLE???
✍️It was possible because in his letter to Zimbabweans, he was able to precisely articulate our Zimbabwean ideology, itself a derivative of the ruling ZANU PF ideology which has been dominant in the country since our Independence. It is a national ideology that united our forefathers to take up arms, sacrificed all and fought for our freedom.
✍️It was clear from his articulation that the borne of contention that led to his unjustified removal from office was marinated with ideological permutations, mainly with those around the former President advertently derailing the Zimbabwean ideological train that cemented us together and polluting it, something which was gradually antagonizing the Revolutionary Mass Party from the people.
✍️The Zimbabwean ideology by design is democratic market socialism or Socialism with Zimbabwean characteristics, generally known as “Gwara Regutsaruzhinji”. It is the cord that binds us together, configure our worldview and provides a framework for unity, cohesion, strategies, policies, programmes and oneness of purpose as a people.
✍️It is therefore oftentimes easy for a people that has shared national values and principles, all cemented in a single national ideology to identify with and defend the shared national interests of their motherland irrespective of political affiliation. This is what the contents of that letter we received on 8 November 2017 achieved and primed the Zimbabwean citizenry for his return!
✍️I therefore submit that this set the tone for what is happening now, the emergence of these organizations, “4EDs”. It is an indication of people finding each other, rallying behind the President’s Vision of Economic Development, himself a mature unifier and servant leader in propelling national development and has become an undisputed embodiment of Economic Development!
✍️Each Dispensation or Republic has a certain legacy that it has to historically ingrain and be remembered for. We applaud the First Republic for our Independence, high levels of education and a successful agrarian reform program. However, somewhere in the course of executing its mandate, the national ideology became a bit distorted and blurry and this had to be rectified in what became known as Operation Restore Legacy.
✍️The advent of the Second Republic ushered in a less loquacious but more organizational approach to matters of national interests, with President ED calling for less of politics, more of economics, and rendered exceptional national ideological clarity as to how this was to be achieved.
✍️From the onset, President ED sought to establish national concensus on key issues of national interest through national dialogue and summed up the importance of this through his famous statement : ” The Voice of the People is the Voice of God”. This was immediately epitomized by the formation of POLAD which sought to bring together, on a representative capacity, all presidential hopefuls of the 2018 plebiscite to table their ideas and visions for a prosperous Zimbabwe, putting politics aside and contribute significantly to nation building and come up with a National Shared Vision. Since then, he has employed transformational servant leadership skills and has endeared himself to the people as a listening President!
✍️Resultantly, most of the Economic Development policies and programs being implemented represents a distillation of the collaborative wisdom of the people, properly harmonised and channeled to leadership for inclusion in policy formulation.
✍️Consequently, we find many people aligning themselves with President ED’s Economic Development (ED) policies, and taking unflinching collective ownership of national programmes in a fish and water styled relationship, moreso in light of devolution and decentralization policy implementations!
✍️By nature, politics is a concentrated expression of economics. It therefore follows that people with well defined values, ideals and principles tend to affiliate themselves with political leaders or parties that advance their economic development (ED) interests. President ED, as the First Secretary of ZANU PF, has further demonstrated that ZANU PF is the only revolutionary party with a traceable history of championing the overarching aspirations of the hardworking people of Zimbabwe. This explains why many a people are organizing themselves under the banner of “4EDs” to rally behind the President’s Vision 2030!
✍️Each time the President takes to the podium , he speaks ideological! He has popularized the policy of inclusive Economic Development in succinct statements like “Leaving noone and no Place behind”. This resonates well with our national socialist ideology with Zimbabwean characteristics in which the centrality of the masses forms the motive forces for our development (Gwara Regutsaruzhinji). The welfare of each individual is a societal responsibility, with government providing germane leadership, central planning and qualified control of all processes pertinent to national progress.
✍️Not only that, President ED has been on record stating that “Nyika Inovakwa Nevene Vayo” . This has helped significantly in inculcating some ideological understanding broadly divorced from the materialistic basis of political mobilization that had saturated the Zimbabwean psyche.
✍️The mantra instructs all well meaning Zimbabweans that we have to have all our hands on deck and shoulders to the wheel to economically emancipate ourselves. We build Zimbabwe on our own, brick by brick, stone upon stone! Resultantly, many people are now identifying with President ED’s economic development policies and in their various humble ways, contributing in attainment of Vision 2030.
✍️At this point, it is vital to understand the mission of ZANU PF since time immemorial and even now under the astute and visionary leadership of President ED Mnangagwa , as stated by our constitution.
✍️ The Party aims to restore into the hands of the hitherto oppressed black majority population and, consequently, maintain total ownership, control and equitable distribution of Zimbabwe’s means of production, natural resources and the defence of the national sovereignty, propped by policies of indigenisation, empowerment and wealth generation for purposes of sustaining the independence of Zimbabwe; and for all of us, as a people, to remain forever masters of our own destiny.
✍️That said, the fact that we find many people assembling themselves according to their various economic clusters like Farmers4ED, Teachers4ED, Miners4ED just to mention but a few, bear testimony to the ability of President ED in mobilizing and rallying the people of Zimbabwe towards Economic Development as precisely elaborated in our mission and ultimately our national ideology that has stood the test of times!
WHAT AM I SAYING?
✍️I am submitting to you that the proliferation of such organizations and party affiliates attest to a broader national acceptance and the number of people who, in their quest for the attainment of their overarching aspirations, are rallying behind H.E President Mnangagwa’s Vision. He has, with precision, managed to render clarity to our national ideology, in the process uniting the people who are coalescing around a common goal of nation building.
✍️It may enthuse you to note that even the opposition itself is finding it hard to ideologically oppose the leadership of President ED, for at one point everyone in Zimbabwe espoused Gwara Regutsaruzhinji as an ideology. Some may have wandered away due national ideological deficit that was now permeating our motherland during the last days of the First Republic , but they are now returning back. By the way, we now have Returnees4ED!
✍️This may also explain the dismal failure by CCC to make public or elucidate their ideology since ZANU PF ideology under President ED represents that which every Zimbabwean aspire for regardless of political affiliation and hence others are nicodemously calling themselves CCC4ED!
✍️I posit therefore that Economic Development being championed by President ED represent one, if not all, of the vital pillars among our shared cardinal principles, shared Vision, core values, interests and national purpose that should be embraced by everyone in Zimbabwe, and hence Everyone4ED!
President ED is the embodiment of Economic Development!In fact, he is winning in the practice of inculcating and developing the best political culture and ideology, the two concepts that forms the “hearts and minds” construct of political mobilization!
In Him we believED
