Going from Gushungo to Garwe

Richard Runyararo Mahomva
Cde Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa’s rise to power as President of both the Republic of Zimbabwe and the ruling revolutionary entity, Zanu-PF, broadly affirms the magnitude of rejuvenation and legacy regeneration in the face of a plethora of misdirected efforts to de-construct the party’s burden of history.

Surely, the demise of Zanu-PF, whether through opposition engineering or through the embattled G40’s failed scheming in the recent factional wrangles, would have been tantamount to the fall of the nationalist legacy.

Cde Mnangagwa’s rise halts the opposition and G40’s failure to make the revolutionary party abandon its liberation philosophical character.

What is most apparent in the case of G40 was the cabal’s attempt to de-construct the liberation legacy, misname its custodians and vilify its values.

To do this, G40 applied a purge of all memory of the nationalist creed through a series of denigration of nationalist values using a mother-figure fabrication of Mrs Grace Mugabe.

This was a serious attempt to adulterate the dignity of Cde Robert Mugabe — a decorated Pan-African and nationalist icon.

In this context, Cde Mnangagwa’s ascent to the helm galvanises our nationalist stature.

Of note is that Cde Mnangagwa’s Presidency is bluntly articulate of a nationwide paranoia for change which was sustained by opposition propaganda and the party’s sole dependence on Cde Mugabe’s stubborn ideological consistency against neo-colonialism until G40 came into the picture.

The meddling in succession was immensely characterised by denigrating the image and person of Cde Mnangagwa in a bid to erase his credentials and whitewash nationalism.

His inauguration as President substantiated the density of Zanu-PF’s power consolidation dexterity, outsmarting the “Mugabe Must Go” mantra by regime change clubs.

It further reflected that the continuity of Zanu-PF is largely dependent on historical and philosophical altitudes and not personality cults.

This phenomenon affirmed the extent to which Zanu-PF cannot be displaced by superficial neo-liberal hegemonies.

Moreover, this transition made it clear that the voice of the people is louder than Twitter politics and fake praises to illegitimate pseudo nationalist figures.

The people-driven transition from a Cde Mugabe to Cde Mnangagwa is evidence of the unfailing and perpetual relevance of African nationalism in Zimbabwe’s politics; no matter how much people conveniently profess a sense of split patriotic consciousness.

An aftermath analysis of the pandemonium that almost scathed the longevity of Zanu-PF clearly substantiates this surrogate cabal’s underlying agenda to exploit the former President’s wife as approximate entity for political legitimacy.

What also emerges clearly from this settling dust is that the party had been captured by a new breed of “cadres” who could not approximate the relationship between power and the people as captured in “Nzira Dzemasoja”.

The criminal cabal sought to destabilise the ecosystem of Zanu-PF through erasing history under the guise of consolidating the youth dividend, while in fact driving a wedge between young Zimbabweans and the liberation war generation.

But we then saw how the young of Zimbabwe took to the streets in support of the actions of the liberation war heroes spearheading Operation Restore Legacy.

The operation showed that Zanu-PF transcends ageism, sexism, tribalism and racism.

The incoherent intonation of generational renewal peddled by the G40 faction will go down in history as a failed attempt to erase the significance of veterans of our struggle from the indelible templates of our national memory.

The same clique goes down the annals of history for its envisaged intention to isolate the former President from those who helped him build a legacy which almost vanished had it not been for a resolute initiation of the Zimbabwe Defence Force’s Operation Restore Legacy.

Without delving into the course and actualising stage of Operation Restore Legacy, it is prudent to unpack what this fast-drive to reforming Zanu-PF means.

First, this move marked re-establishment of Cde Mugabe’s legacy as an elder African statesman whose path to consolidating liberation will continue to be at the centre of the decolonisation movement and 21st century pan-Africanist ambitions of socio-economic and political development.

There is no doubt that Cde Mugabe remains a beacon of the bold attempt to dismantle the marginalisation of Africa’s densities of power and the continent’s peripheral recognition and attempts to subvert its right to self-determination.

Coup? What coup?

While the “coup-that-was-not-a-coup” narrative may be accommodated in ongoing debate surrounding the November wonder which led to Cde Mnangagwa’s rise, it is important for any sober thinker to understand that the ZDF would be irrational to fight a 93-year-old.

What value is there in fighting a 93-year-old man?

Does the so-called “overthrow of old Mugabe” by the military entail the coup d’etat of the party’s tradition as would have been the case if G40 triumphed?

So, whatever angle one approaches this matter from, the military intervention undoubtedly reaffirmed its historically symbiotic relationship with the people.

This has never been about disfiguring Cde Mugabe’s legacy.

Operation Restore Legacy must be understood as a model aimed at repositioning the iconic elegance of a revolutionary stalwart whose legacy was being usurped by opportunists with no credentials.

Consequently, it cannot be true that the initiators of this operation were only interested in dismantling Cde Mugabe.

This is because doing so would be a contradiction to nationalism.

Mediating agents

The mediating actors in the transition which gave birth to Cde Mnangagwa’s Presidency reflect patriotic convictions underlining the ZDF’s contribution.

An excerpt from Cde Mugabe’s last address to the nation substantiates this. “Whatever the pros and cons of the way they went about registering those concerns, I, as the President of Zimbabwe and as their Commander-in-Chief, do acknowledge the concerns they have drawn my attention to and do believe that these were raised in the spirit of honesty and out of deep and patriotic concern for the stability of our nation and for the welfare of our people.”

This statement further indicates that the former President respected citizens’ input into this transition, hence, it is no coincidence that his resignation letter came at an opportune time.

Above all, the role of Father Fidelis Mukonori, Presidential Spokesperson Mr George Charamba, and CIO Acting Director-General Mr Aaron Nhepera is key in this analysis because the three are symbolic of a transition that was corrective rather than vindictive, as pronounced in President Mnangagwa’s inauguration speech.

Iwe neni tine basa!

Richard Mahomva is an independent researcher and literature aficionado interested in the architecture of governance in Africa, and political theory