THE white Rhodesian regime by all accounts waged a highly effective counter-insurgency war against the guerilla forces.
Its successes were across the military and intelligence spheres.
The kill ratio throughout the war was overwhelmingly in its favour. But come 1980, the Rhodesians conceded to majority rule.
The bitter ironic lesson of countering politically-motivated insurgencies is that you can win every battle in a war, but lose the war.
The Americans first learnt this lesson in Vietnam and lately in Afghanistan.
The reason is simply that ideas give rise to uprisings for freedom and self-determination.
These ideas are transduced from the people’s grievances.
It is about people thinking about their situation, deriving motivation from their suffering and annunciating what they need to do to bring about favourable change in their circumstances.
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So long as the grievances persist, the ideas will persist.
That is why a major component of counter-insurgency is the “hearts and minds” effort, the thinking being to emasculate the insurgency by denying it the fuel that feeds it: Ideas.
So in all their counter-insurgency efforts, the Rhodesians attacked the vessels that carried those ideas and the physical manifestations of those ideas — the guerillas and their political leadership.
They did not attack the ideas themselves because the ideas were in the hearts and minds of every black Zimbabwean who would not be worse than a second-class citizen in their own country.
White supremacist rule gave rise to those ideas and was guaranteed to do so as long as it persisted and did not concede to common sense and accept that all men are born equal.
In the end, the whites were fighting among themselves.
It is said that in counter-insurgencies, for every enemy combatant you kill, you create up to 10 more.
The Rhodesians were fighting for a white supremacist State, but it was this State and its impractical modus vivendi that had given rise to the insurgency.
The more they entrenched the State, the more they stoked the liberation struggle. Rhodesia guaranteed its own destruction.
Fast forward to Zimbabwe, independent and under the corrupt debilitating rule of Zanu PF and the dynamics remain the same.
Rhodesians refused to learn from history or they were so full of their delusional dream of a white supremacist State in the heart of Africa that they refused to learn from history or appreciate the global realities.
Zanu PF too refuses to learn from history and still believes that it can establish a thousand-year Reich of misrule and corruption.
Zanu PF has failed miserably in its mandate of leading the country.
Zimbabwe is acknowledged for the wrong reasons — highest ever recorded inflation, collapsed economy, record unemployment, token health and education sectors, the list is endless.
Out of this misery once again has arisen ideas about a better and brighter future for the country and its people.
Ideas about a future without the poison and decay of Zanu PF. These ideas are a direct result of Zanu PF misrule.
Therefore, continued rule of Zanu PF is untenable. Through its breathtaking incompetence, the ruling party guarantees its own demise.
Like the Rhodesians, Zanu PF fights not the ideas of something better for Zimbabwe, but those who carry the ideas of a better tomorrow and the manifestations of those ideas, those who fight as opposition activists.
The ideas are a product of Zanu PF itself and they will never die so long as the misrule and chaos continue.
Thousands have been imprisoned unjustly, others tortured, raped and hundreds killed.
Every election the most erudite of the population turn out in their thousands to vote against Zanu PF.
Today, Zanu PF lackeys have taken over the main opposition party, the Citizens Coalition for Change and this has occasioned great celebration in Zanu PF and its environs.
People attached to the ruling party believe that by derailing and disorganising the main opposition party, they guarantee themselves unending rule.
The Rhodesians did the same with great success, banning the nationalist parties.
They assassinated the leaders, imprisoned others, they even ran agents within the nationalist movements as Zanu PF does today in the opposition.
Given all of this, they still did not kill the spirit of independence.
It was a case of fighting the symptoms not the disease and as always, the disease lives to fight another day and eventually have its way.
What the Rhodesians and today Zanu PF, could not or would not see was that it was their rule that guarantee the continuation of the liberation struggle and today’s opposition politics.
Things are so bad in Zimbabwe and have been so for so long that people have to agitate for change.
So long Zanu PF remains the same sick caricature of governance it is today, there will always be a movement for change.
It is in the nature of human beings to fight to change their environment for the better.
Rhodesians' obduracy led to the prosecution of a long bitter war with a foregone conclusion.
The end of the Rhodesian regime was always going to be the same because its vision for the country was delusional in the late 20th Century.
Global geopolitics decreed so, as did regional socio-political developments.
The momentous question of the day was how many people were going to die before the whole farce came tumbling down around Smith and his cohort.
Zanu PF today has an unworkable model of governance, if it can be labelled so, for Zimbabwe.
What passes for governance in Zanu PF eyes is an egregious assault on every principle of good governance and decent human qualities.
The corruption, decadence, inhumanity, cruelty of our leaders is arrogantly paraded before our eyes.
The people are hurting down to every nook and cranny of their souls, the very experience of being in Zimbabwe is hurt.
Zimbabweans are crushed for the present and the future. It is no way to live.
Someday, the shameful edifice that Zanu PF has erected as the independent State of Zimbabwe must collapse under the weight of its own corruption.
The Rhodesians mortal failure was not according the black population their rights.
Zanu PF has failed to give people their rights and taken a decent living from them.
The oppression the people of Zim are living under today is the same as that under the whites the only exception is that it is no longer racial but political.
Today the people want their freedom, they want a decent life and an even better future.
This is what opposition politics is about today.
So long as these conditions obtain, there will always be a fight to change the government.
This change will come about someday.
Today, as in 1964, the question remains: How many people will die before Zimbabwe achieves its second independence?
Those celebrating the unseemly spectacle of the Ncubes, Tshabangus and Bitis squabbling over the carcass of the CCC are celebrating a battle in a war they are destined to lose.
It can be guaranteed that come 2028 elections, Zanu PF will not increase its share of the national vote, the spirit of oppositional politics will still be alive because the people do not have any other option.
At some point, Zanu PF rule will get so bad so arrogant that the tipping point will be reached it might be through the ballot, demonstrations or another assisted transition but it will come.
- Rigid Kondongwe is a political commentator. He writes here in his personal capcity.
