The Sunday Mail
A hypothesis some students of Philosophy encounter in their studies is the “irresistible force paradox”, or the “dilemma of omnipotence”.
It is posed thus: “Can an omnipotent god create a stone so heavy that the god cannot lift it?”
In other words, if a god is all powerful, he can create anything — including a stone so heavy that the same god cannot lift it.
Which means the god is not omnipotent after all. Hence the paradox.
The Chinese put it differently.
An old tale in the “Han Feizi” speaks of a salesman merchandising a spear and a shield. His claim is that the spear can pierce any shield, and that the shield can resist any spear.
Someone asks the salesman what would happen if that spear was thrown at that shield. There is no answer.
Occidental thought puts this philosophical paradox thus: “What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?”
This is a largely metaphysical proposition, though it seems to find expression in the world of politics, more specifically in the messy world of Zimbabwe’s politics.
For months the nation has watched as objects that claim immovability have faced off forces that claim irresistibility.
The battle has played out almost cryptically on social media with veiled attacks on political figures; quite publicly in the now-suspended expulsions of opponents; and in a Machiavellian manner in corridors of power, at restaurants and bars, and in farmhouses among other meeting places.
Whenever there seems to be a lull, or when the immovable object appears to be shifting or the irresistible force seems to have been halted, another maelstrom comes.
Sometimes the resumption in hostilities is ignited by part-timers like Bopela, Lumumba and Chivayo.
This time around, a far more serious existential issue is playing out, and it largely speaks to the role of such part-timers in the national discourse.
It has been triggered by a rather profound statement by the Secretary for Welfare Services for War Veterans, War Collaborators, Ex-Political Detainees and Restrictees.
Asher Walter Tapfumaneyi is a war veteran himself, and he joined the new military at Independence in 1980, rising through the ranks from private to brigadier-general.
I have met him just once and have interacted professionally with him a few times since, which is normal considering the brief he holds at a time the war veterans place in Zimbabwe’s body politic is so contentious.
Thus, I hold no brief for him.
Rtd Brig-Gen Tapfumaneyi is a reasonable man, but a passionate one: perfect qualities for a commander of men, ideal traits for a senior civil servant.
Anyway, he was quoted last week expressing his discomfort with the “new phenomenon of an elite youth that derives its power from parenthood (and) proximity to power, and not from the struggle or ideological affinity to (the ruling Zanu-PF) party”.
This is something I have heard people mutter about time and again, where the children and underlings of political bigwigs assume those robes for themselves without demonstrating any real understanding of the ideological narrative that informs public policy in this country.
In a sense, the argument is that we have congregants who claim they are holier than God, more Zanu-PF than Zanu-PF.
More often than not, that claim to patriotic sainthood is shorn of its pretensions by the unabashedly primitive and overtly acquisitive capitalist intentions of these young political part-timers.
On the other hand, there is a constituency of young Zimbabweans — among them those whom Rtd Brig-Gen Tapfumaneyi contends have the mistaken notion that ideological clarity is genetically inherited or passed on by osmosis — who believe the “old guard” is not giving them room to blossom.
Their position is that there are people within the older generations who are letting them down.
As said by Rangu Nyamurundira on this very page of The Sunday Mail today: “The unspoken emotion has only been let out via loud noises from frustrated young people who are unable to utilise their economic intellect and innovation.”
The inescapable conclusion is that there is some disconnect between war veterans and young Zimbabweans. There is mistrust and there is frustration.
All are valid emotions.
But the solution, really, is simple. And Rtd Brig-Gen Tapfumaneyi has provided it.
Let’s talk. Let’s have a heart-to-heart. A frank and constructive engagement.
One that is not informed by the destructive politics of selfish factionalists, or watered down by supposedly genetically acquired ideological clarity.
There has to be ideological clarity. There has to be mutual respect.
Our Constitution is very clear on what our founding values and principles are.
These should inform any and all engagement and activities we undertake as citizens.
There is no reason why war veterans and young Zimbabweans should view the situation as an “irresistible force paradox” or the “dilemma of omnipotence”.
This is workable.
After all, the war veterans were youths once, and today’s youths will be veterans of something meaningful in the future. It can only be hoped they will not be factional veterans!
No one needs to approach the good soldier’s invitation to a conversation as the opening of another war front in the anti-Zimbabwe factional fighting we are enduring.
Remember the old song by Ella Fitzgerald, “Something’s Gotta Give”. (Yes, Fred Astaire sang it first but I much rather prefer Fitzgerald’s version.)
She sings, “When an irresistible force such as you/ Meets an old immovable object like me/ You can bet as sure as you live/ Something’s gotta give.” Let us approach the conversation with that in mind: Something’s gotta give.
