For revolutionary political parties, the very structure of their thought has been conditioned by the contradictions of the concrete, existential situation by which they were shaped. Their ideal was to be free, for them to be free was to oppress the masses. This phenomenon derives from the fact that the oppressed, at a certain moment of their existential experience, adopt an attitude of “adhesion” to the oppressor. ZANU-PF was conditioned by the psychopathic Ian Smith and MDC-T conditioned by ZANU-PF.
The apparatuses used to torture the poor black masses by Smith were the same apparatuses inherited by ZANU-PF and mercilessly unleashed on long suffering Zimbabweans. Think of Gukurahundi,
Murambatsvina, un-explained murders, torture, and lack of freedom ofspeech and above all, FEAR.
An astute eye will notice that MDC-T, again, not to be outdone, once in GNU, will retrogressively metamorphosis into ZANU-PF in disguise. The shadow of their former oppressor will be cast over them.
For all these years, most of us have adapted to the structure of
domination in which we are immersed, and have become resigned to
it, are inhibited from waging the struggle for freedom so long as we feel incapable of running the risks it requires. Robert Mugabe ran the risks; there he is – by default, life President of Zimbabwe. Morgan Tsvangira ran the risks, there he is, Prime Minister of Zimbabwe.
The oppressor … “discovering himself to be an oppressor may cause
considerable anguish, but it does not necessarily lead to solidarity with the oppressed. Rationalizing his guilt through paternalistic treatment of the oppressed, all the while holding them fast in a position of dependency.” We are not in solidarity with ZANU-PF. We may be nearing that level again with MDC-T.
The two political brokers in Zimbabwe, ZANU-PF/MDC-T will only be in solidarity with us when they “stop regarding us, the oppressed, as an abstract category and see us as persons who have been unjustly dealt with, deprived of our voices, cheated in the sale of our vote – when they stop making pious, sentimental and individualistic gestures and risks an act of love. True solidarity is found only in the plenitude of this act of love, in its existentiality, in its praxis. To affirm that we are persons and as persons are free, and yet nothing tangible to make this
affirmation a reality, is a farce.”
If the poor masses are oppressed in their own country, they can not achieve their total freedom because “one of the gravest obstacles to the achievement of liberation is that oppressive reality absorbs those within it and thereby acts to submerge human beings’ consciousness. Functionally, oppression is domesticating.” To no longer be prey to its force, the oppressed must emerge from it and turn upon it.
“It is men that change circumstances and that the educator himself needs educating”. Well, if the emperor and his cronies have got no clothes, someone has to tell them.
“No pedagogy which is truly liberating can remain distant from the oppressed by treating them as unfortunates…..” We, the long suffering masses, must be our own example in the struggle for our own redemption.
“Any situation in which “A” objectively exploits “B” or hinders his and her pursuits of self- affirmation as a responsible person is one of oppression. Such a situation in itself constitutes violence, even when sweetened by false generosity, because it interferes with the individual’s ontological and historical vocation to be more fully human”. If votes are stolen, the masses are exploited and denied their pursuits of self-affirmation as a responsible people.
We are the long suffering masses of Zimbabwe and peace loving subjects of oppression. We condemn any forms of violence. Since
when has been the oppressed the instigator of violence? “Never in
history has violence been initiated by the oppressed. How can we be the initiators, if we are the result of violence? How can we be sponsors of something whose objective inauguration called forth our existence as oppressed?”
“Violence is initiated by those who oppress, who exploit, and who fail to recognize others as persons – not by those who are oppressed, exploited, and unrecognized. It is not the unloved who initiate disaffection, but those who can not love because they love only themselves. It is not the helpless, subject to terror, who initiate terror, but the violent, who with their power create the concrete situation which begets the “the rejects of life”. It is not the tyrannized who initiate despotism, but the tyrants. It is not the despised who initiate hatred, but those who despise. It is not those whose humanity is denied them who negate humankind, but those who denied that humanity (thus negating their own as well). Force is used not by those who have become weak under the preponderance of the strong, but by the strong who have emasculated them.”
For the oppressor, or (to be precise) for ZANU-PF, “it is always the oppressed (whom obviously they never call “the oppressed” but – depending on whether they are fellow party members, cronies and
beneficiaries – “those people” or “the blind and envious masses” “or “subversives” ) who are disaffected, who are “violent,” or “ferocious” when they react to the violence of the oppressors. Rhetorically, they will issue statements like; “MDC-T is the puppet of the colonialist” or “stooges or dogs of imperialists” (zvimbwa sungata).
“Yet it is – paradoxical though it may seem – precisely in the responds of the oppressed to the violence of their oppressors that a gesture of love may be found”. Women in Harare (WOZA) once demonstrated carrying roses. ZANU-PF responded by beating them and incarcerating some in prisons for months without trial.
“Consciously or unconsciously, the act of rebellion by the oppressed(an act which is always, or nearly always, as violent as the initial violence of the oppressor) can initiate love”.
“Whereas the violence of the oppressor prevents the oppressed from being fully human, the response of the latter to this violence is grounded in the desire to pursue the right to be human” As ZANU-PF dehumanizes the poor masses and violates their rights, they themselves become dehumanized; hence the dearth of universal acclaim of President Mugabe as the statesman of Africa.
However, as the oppressed, fighting to be human, take away the
oppressors’’ power to dominate and suppress, they restore to the
oppressor the humanity they had lost in the exercise of oppression. A resemblance of normalcy was restored in Zimbabwe by the coalition between ZANU-PF (oppressor) and MDC-T (oppressed). Blood shed was avoided. The persistent torture of the poor huddled masses was deferred to another day (pending the next general election).
“It is only the oppressed who, by freeing themselves, can free their oppressor. The latter, as an oppressive class, can free neither others nor themselves. It is therefore essential that the oppressed wage the struggle to resolve the contradiction in which they are caught; and the contradiction will be resolved by the appearance of the new man: neither oppressor nor oppressed, but man in the process of liberation.
If the goal of the oppressed is to become fully human, they will not achieve their goal by merely reversing the terms of the contradiction, by simply changing poles”. This is where we fear for MDC-T. They could be been sucked into the honey-comb by ZANU-PF - and how sweet it is!
This is the moment the ZANU-PF/MDC-T regime would “harden into a
dominating bureaucracy. The humanist dimension of the struggle
(against ZANU-PF) would be lost and will be no longer possible to
speak of liberation.”
We are waking up to a situation we would not like. “Hence our
insistence that the authentic solution of the oppressor-oppressed
contradiction does not lie in a mere reversal of position, in moving from one pole to the other. Nor does it lie in the replacement of the former oppressor with new ones who continue to subjugate the oppressed” – all in the name of Government of National Unity”
Unfortunately, to ZANU-PF, the new order – GNU does not go well with them. This restricts their former modus-operandi - domination. “Any restriction on this former way of life (one party state), in the name of a GNU, appears to the former oppressors as a profound violation of their individual right – although they had no respect for the millions who suffered and died of hunger, pain, sorrow, and despair.”
With Mugabe at the helm of power, ZANU-PF will never accept the
installation of a new regime. This is echoed by the military in
Zimbabwe. “This is explained by their experience as a dominant class. This experience creates in the oppressor a strongly possessive consciousness – possessive of the world and of men and women” “This is my Zimbabwe…!” Apart from direct, concrete, material possession of the world and of people, the oppressor consciousness could not understand itself – could not even exist.”
“The oppressor consciousness tends to transform everything
surrounding it into an object of its domination. The earths, property, production, the creations of people, people themselves, time- everything is reduced to the status of objects at its disposal.”
For the oppressor, money is the measure of all things, and profits the primary goal. What is worthwhile is to have more-always more- even at the cost of the oppressed having less or having nothing.
“The oppressors do not perceive their monopoly on having more as a privilege which dehumanizes others and themselves. They can not see that, in the egoistic pursuit of having as a possessing class, they suffocate in their own possessions and no longer are; they merely have. For them, having more is an alienable right, a right they acquired through their own effort, with their courage to take risks”. You hear them threatening “I am a war veteran; I am an ex- combatant; I fought in the liberation struggle; we have got degrees in violence!”
“If others do not have more, it is because they are incompetent and lazy, and worst of all is their unjustifiable ingratitude towards the “generous gestures” of the dominant class. Precisely because they are “ungrateful” and “envious”, the oppressed are regarded as potential enemies who must be watched”. In some instances, some poor and long suffering masses have been brutalised by the sheer power of ZANU-PF to such an extent that they shiver at mere mention of CIO and The Green Bombers.
The more the oppressor controls the oppressed, the more they change them into apparently inanimate “things”. “This tendency of the oppressor consciousness to “in-animate” everything and everyone it encounters, in its eagerness to posses, unquestionably corresponds with a tendency to sadism.”
The majority of ZANU-PF long suffering and exploited supporters are poor rural peasants. “The oppressed (especially the peasants) see their suffering, the fruit of exploitation, as the will of God – as if God were the creator of this organized disorder.” I have spoken to many peasants in last three years. They are resigned to their fate, and they often say “Ah, tingaite sei? Kuda kwaMwari (What can we do? It’s God’s will).”
“Submerged in reality, the oppressed cannot perceive clearly the
“order” which serves the interests of the oppressors whose image they have internalized. Chafing under the restrictions of this order, they often manifest a type of horizontal violence, striking out at their own comrades for the pettiest reasons.” The last general election saw this happening in Zimbabwe, for instance, in Uzumba –Maramba Pfungwe, violence erupted amongst MDC-T and ZANU-PF supporters. Legs were broken, huts burnt, cattle harm-strung and hundreds displaced from their homes.
“It is possible that in this behavior they are once more manifesting their duality. Because the oppressor exists within their oppressed comrades, when they attack those comrades they are indirectly attacking the oppressor as well.” In the same vain, the oppressed want at any cost to resemble the oppressors, to imitate them, to follow them. This is all done in the name of the party – ZANU-PF - Jongwe.
“Self-depreciation is another characteristic of the oppressed, which derives from their internalization of the oppressor’s hold of them. They often say, “ZANU-PF knows best, we don’t know anything about politics” Yet, they can still grab an axe and smash any other peasant who supports any political party, other than their own.
Despite their quest for free and fair elections, the oppressed (some of us, for the entire duration of our written or known history) had not been allowed to exercise our universal suffrage without enduring pain, grief, loss and sorrow. People should always be free to agree to disagree.
In Zimbabwe, we are approaching the cross-roads. President Mugabe, who is the glue holding together ZANU-PF, is getting old and it is inevitable that one day, he is going to exit the political arena through death or retirement. ZANU-PF would be left vulnerable. It would be uniquely susceptible in an election. Tribalism, power vacuum and factionalism will tear it apart. “The problem with political systems that are deeply divided on ethnic lines is that conspiracies are easy to conjure up and politicians and ordinary people alike refuse to engage their minds in serious debate, opting to spend endless hours discussing phantoms”
ZANU-PF will be left with a substantially reduced capacity to repress the MDC and the other smaller opposition parties and rig an election.
The history of nations is informed by the actions of each generation. One generation expects to inherit a legacy from another generation. With the exit of the old van-guard, Zimbabwe should embrace multi-party politics. Adhere to the rule of law, respect of the judiciary system and the constitution. The army should be non-partisan. The dreaded CIO should be an instrument used to protect the citizens of Zimbabwe, not to haunt and torture them. The principles and values of the armed struggle included democracy, freedom, liberty, equality, universal suffrage, justice and prosperity. Have we archived these aspirations?
Desmond Tutu once said “We want our society to be characterized by vigorous debate and dissent where to disagree is part and parcel of a vibrant community; that we should play the ball not the person and not think that those who disagree, who express dissent, are disloyal or unpatriotic”. On the contrary, “ZANU-PF rules this country and anyone who disputes that is a dissident and should be dealt with.” Enos Nkala (1980)
“We need to work as a nation state for the common good even if we
disagree about how to achieve this. We may disagree about the
means, but not about the end.” Zimbabwe is yours as much as it is mine. If we submit out of fear to the notion that the leaders own the country, then we are not citizens but slaves in our own country.
We must keep pushing for peace, liberty, equality and fraternity in our beloved Zimbabwe. To stop now would be tantamount to stripping the honour from those before who gallantly and selflessly fought for our independence – the likes of Ambuya Nehanda, Sekuru Chaminuka, Sekuru Kaguvi, Herbert Chitepo, Rekayi Tangwena, Josiah Magama Tongogara, Cde Joshua Nkomo, the General Solomon Mujuru and many more.
Cause is greater than personality!!!
Tendayi Hamadziripi Kwari
MDC Bristol
