The Sunday Mail
For three straight years, Zimbabwe has been found to be the country with the highest over-15 literacy rate in Africa.
Though first on the continent, nearly ten percent of Zimbabwe’s population is still considered to be illiterate.
Nonetheless, the positive figure is quite something to be proud of, and whenever these statistics are mentioned the analysts always tell us of the importance of building on this solid foundation that President Mugabe’s Government has laid for the nation since Independence in 1980.
However, there is a vast difference between mere literacy and getting a quality education, one that can be used to take Zimbabwe forward.
Thankfully, the quality of education here is generally of a high standard, and even then there are continuing efforts to further improve it to meet our changed and changing circumstances as a nation.
But there is one major problem with President Mugabe’s drive to ensure universal literacy and education.
Though noble, it means that we now have many Zimbabweans who are educated beyond their intelligence, and they are an existential threat to Zimbabwe as a viable nation-State proposition.
Those educated beyond their intelligence do not know what to do with their education, and as a consequence they make themselves into what can only be termed “useful idiots” for our own destruction.
The origin of the term “useful idiots” is a bit unclear.
Some attribute it to Vladmir Lenin when he was referring to well-educated Westerners, who are bred on a solid diet of individualism and wrapped in the social constructs of dyed-in-the-wool capitalism but who supported Bolshevism Communism more than the Bolshevik Communists themselves.
They were educated, but they were idiots: useful idiots blissfully unaware that their blind support for Bolshevism would eventually spell the end of their own home countries.
Others say Lenin did not specifically refer to these educated dunces as useful idiots, but rather that he said these people “will sell us the rope with which to hang them”.
Researcher Edvard Radzinsky attributed this phrase to Soviet artist Yuri Annekov, who is said to have remarked that these “useful idiots” were “labouring to prepare their own suicide”.
Whichever way, the end meaning is the same.
Zimbabwe has its useful idiots. Well-educated dupes who labour day and night for the demise of their own country while making pretences of sophistication premised on their being among Africa’s most literate people.
These useful idiots include the “civil society” activists who take dirty dollar from whatever source so that they can conduct what they claim are programmes to protect illegal vendors who have invaded every pavement in the capital city.
These useful idiots include the hired crowds that then wear bibs bearing sponsored messages as they march in our streets and claim to be ordinary vendors who are being stopped by Government from perpetuating their illegalities as they resist regularisation of their operations.
These useful idiots are “researchers” who feed the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia cooked up data so that they can pursue their agenda of banning Zimbabwe’s diamonds from meaningful international trading under the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme.
These useful idiots are the report writers, lawyers and activists who are pushing for Australia to get the Kimberly Process deputy chair post ahead of the United Arab Emirates, as if there is still anyone in this world who does not know what kind of doom that will spell for Zimbabwe.
These useful idiots are those cheering on the rented politics of the Mujurus, Mutasas, Gumbos, Tsvangirais, Bitis and Mangomas, pushing agendas totally contrary to our aspirations and values as so simply stated – and resoundingly approved by the majority of the people of Zimbabwe in 2013 — in the Preamble to our National Constitution.
The useful idiots are found in civil society, in the business classes, in oppositional politics and in the private media. Zimbabwe’s enemies have enough in their arsenal to keep us on our toes without us also having to contend with the thoughtless actions of some of our own citizens.
These are educated men and women, educated beyond their intelligence and willing tools in their own demise.
EDITORIAL COMMENT: Useful idiots — Educated beyond their intelligence
The Sunday Mail
For three straight years, Zimbabwe has been found to be the country with the highest over-15 literacy rate in Africa.
Though first on the continent, nearly ten percent of Zimbabwe’s population is still considered to be illiterate.
Nonetheless, the positive figure is quite something to be proud of, and whenever these statistics are mentioned the analysts always tell us of the importance of building on this solid foundation that President Mugabe’s Government has laid for the nation since Independence in 1980.
However, there is a vast difference between mere literacy and getting a quality education, one that can be used to take Zimbabwe forward.
Thankfully, the quality of education here is generally of a high standard, and even then there are continuing efforts to further improve it to meet our changed and changing circumstances as a nation.
But there is one major problem with President Mugabe’s drive to ensure universal literacy and education.
Though noble, it means that we now have many Zimbabweans who are educated beyond their intelligence, and they are an existential threat to Zimbabwe as a viable nation-State proposition.
Those educated beyond their intelligence do not know what to do with their education, and as a consequence they make themselves into what can only be termed “useful idiots” for our own destruction.
The origin of the term “useful idiots” is a bit unclear.
Some attribute it to Vladmir Lenin when he was referring to well-educated Westerners, who are bred on a solid diet of individualism and wrapped in the social constructs of dyed-in-the-wool capitalism but who supported Bolshevism Communism more than the Bolshevik Communists themselves.
They were educated, but they were idiots: useful idiots blissfully unaware that their blind support for Bolshevism would eventually spell the end of their own home countries.
Others say Lenin did not specifically refer to these educated dunces as useful idiots, but rather that he said these people “will sell us the rope with which to hang them”.
Researcher Edvard Radzinsky attributed this phrase to Soviet artist Yuri Annekov, who is said to have remarked that these “useful idiots” were “labouring to prepare their own suicide”.
Whichever way, the end meaning is the same.
Zimbabwe has its useful idiots. Well-educated dupes who labour day and night for the demise of their own country while making pretences of sophistication premised on their being among Africa’s most literate people.
These useful idiots include the “civil society” activists who take dirty dollar from whatever source so that they can conduct what they claim are programmes to protect illegal vendors who have invaded every pavement in the capital city.
These useful idiots include the hired crowds that then wear bibs bearing sponsored messages as they march in our streets and claim to be ordinary vendors who are being stopped by Government from perpetuating their illegalities as they resist regularisation of their operations.
These useful idiots are “researchers” who feed the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia cooked up data so that they can pursue their agenda of banning Zimbabwe’s diamonds from meaningful international trading under the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme.
These useful idiots are the report writers, lawyers and activists who are pushing for Australia to get the Kimberly Process deputy chair post ahead of the United Arab Emirates, as if there is still anyone in this world who does not know what kind of doom that will spell for Zimbabwe.
These useful idiots are those cheering on the rented politics of the Mujurus, Mutasas, Gumbos, Tsvangirais, Bitis and Mangomas, pushing agendas totally contrary to our aspirations and values as so simply stated – and resoundingly approved by the majority of the people of Zimbabwe in 2013 — in the Preamble to our National Constitution.
The useful idiots are found in civil society, in the business classes, in oppositional politics and in the private media. Zimbabwe’s enemies have enough in their arsenal to keep us on our toes without us also having to contend with the thoughtless actions of some of our own citizens.
These are educated men and women, educated beyond their intelligence and willing tools in their own demise.
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