April 18: Five unhelpful preoccupations and five preoccupations to aspire to
WITHOUT renewed relevance and meaning, the day may soon be just a holiday celebrated by the ruling elite and a meaningless non-work day for the rest.
Independence Day is supposed to be one of those milestone markers in the timeline of our nation. e actual festivities of April 18, 1980 were pure celebrations of victory from colonial rule, and hope for the future. But today, April 18 ought to be a mark of progress, and what we have done with our independence.
In this piece, I outline five preoccupations that will depreciate April 18 as a milestone marker, and five aspirations that could help turn the tide.
War
ose who did not go to war will not be saluted? 30 years from now, when all who fought the liberation battles are no more, shall we be ineligible to elect a president? Or should we then fight another war to have electable people? Should our April 18 highlight be blasting liberation war songs on our national broadcaster as our mark of celebration? Nostalgia and psychological conditioning as strategies have limits.
Politics
I learnt in my Gender and the Law class that all is political; even the personal. I also learnt that he who does not participate in political processes surrenders his destiny to the participants. Yet the true import of this seems distorted.
Forty-one years into independence, political identity seems to be the dominant identifier in Zimbabwe. With it, the political party dichotomy has defined our very existence: from who gets a sack of maize in Gutu to who is eligible for a job. We have mutated otherness from blank and native pre-1980, to political party identity in 2021. It is almost as if the independence is not meant for all.
Ceremonies
Last week I attended a meeting that had some government officials. One official said the leadership of their Ministry may not be able to attend to the issues we needed to be attended to timeously, as they were all busy with preparations for Independence Day celebrations. Lavish, costly and attention distracting ceremonies! Are they the focus?
Political independence
e first is attainment of political independence, which enables control of the means of production. en economic emancipation. Preoccupation with celebrating a 1980 political victory, and indifference to the many victories yet to be won, is retrogressive. Independence is incremental. Forty-one years later, it is now past opportune to ask: are our people now economically independent?
The glory of yesteryear
No doubt Zimbabwe’s immediate post-independence approach of reconciliation is commendable, and defines the very ethos of coexistence, which the liberators were fighting for.
e global attention and significance were encouraging. Investment in education paid off. How short-lived that was! Now the fellow citizen is the enemy. Do we ignore the injustice of the now and celebrate the glory of yesteryear?
So those five are unhelpful. What must we aspire to?
Nation building and vision-setting
Collective ownership of a country and processes is a supreme aspiration. But what is it that makes Zimbabweans proud to be? What is it that brings us together?
Nationhood means shared vision. Vision setting is not document setting; it is the visions ingrained in the hearts and minds of each Zimbabwean. It is that vision that permeates our private individual work, and our work at organised society level. It is an attitude; it is a mind-set. is, we must aspire to.
National identity
at 41 years into independence we are talking about defining patriotism, means we are far from defining a national identity and nationhood. e distorted version of patriotism that is now being shoved down our throats, including through a patriotism law, is not what builds a nation. Neither is national identity railroaded through a superficial national dress.
Robert Mugabe focused on building power and idolising himself. e news bulletins would religiously start with “ e President and the Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, and the First Secretary of ZANU-PF”.
Michela Wrong in her It’s Our Turn to Eat captures this of Kenya’s Daniel arap Moi under whom in the 1980s, every bulletin on the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, would start with news of the president: “Today, His Excellency the President Daniel arap Moi (...) We would then be told about what the president had been up to”, writes Ferdinand Omondi.