The Hebert Chitepo School of ideology! What’s the beef? What’s the chafing? Why much ado about naught? I know why.
It is precisely that Zimbabweans are politically callow; politically green behind the ear. It’s been 44 years since 1980.
The majority of our MPs and cabinet ministers were yet to be born and if they were born they were still toddlers.
They know practically zero about the pre-independence Zimbabwe. To them colonial Zimbabwe is a phantom.
Post-independence Zimbabwe to and for them dropped from heaven like manna. Frankly I have no beef against ideological orientation at a national level.
Practically all the countries in the world have political ideologies as a tenet. It is a guiding principle, a beacon.
The problem in Zimbabwe is that ideology is branded and politicised so that it has no national character and content: that is to say that it has a party content and nothing more.
Zimbabwe aresundered; they are precariously divided between the West and China, and Russia to a lesser extent.
When majority rule came in 1980 I had 23 years of political “orientation” having been in the thick of liberation politics at age seventeen and commuting from Rhodesia, Botswana and Zambia and thank Almighty I am still around and kicking.
National ideology is definitely not for mayors and chairpersons of local authorities. That is my point of departure from the ruling party.
These folks are politicians who are elected by voters and are sponsored by different parties and the parties while subscribing to a national ideology, have a different approach to it and there is nothing wrong about that in a nation where democracy thrives and the rule of law is upheld.
The mayor of Bulawayo, David Coltart, a veteran politician in his own right, registered his absence from the orientation workshop by delegating his deputy to represent him (well let us say the Bulawayo City Council and not necessarily himself).
That was very smart of him.
I would have taken the same position as Coltart’s.
This underscores my assertion that it is the politics of this country that is toxic and obnoxious.
It is party to party politics as if the country is a high court handing down a judgment between contesting parties.
When we got ourselves into political activism the first thing we did perhaps unconsciously or by intuition or by a combination of both these two, was to comprehend what we were doing and why we were doing it. Mind you, we were under the tutelage of Kenneth Kaunda (KK) and Julius Nyerere (Mwalimu):
The best there ever were in the liberation politics of the day! Our present day cabinet ministers know practically nothing about ideology.
They are looking at spreading butter on their side of the slice of bread. Hence I see Coltart’s position.
I wouldn’t call his position racism although politically he and l never drank from the same trough.
National ideology and political party ideology have never been kindred let alone compatible bed fellows.
The UK is a good example of an indelible national ideology. We could say the same about the US except that USA is tempered with world domination.
In fact China is head-and-shoulders above the rest as she does not seek to interfere with the political order of any nation in the world.
A national ideology is a far cry in Zimbabwe not least because it is an alien concept as for the reason of the country‘s toxic politics.