The Sunday Mail
Major Action Mandingo (Retired)
DURING his visit to Boston in 1921, Albert Einstein made a famous statement. “Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of minds to think,” he said. This statement by one of the greatest scientists of all time quickly came to my mind when over the past few weeks, I saw and heard Nelson Chamisa of the MDC, trading as CCC, trying to steal history from ZANU PF.
Martin Luther King Jnr would later add that: “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.” Something tells me that Chamisa completely missed the true essence of education. It’s baffling, if not scary to think that they actually call him an Advocate!
How can a supposed Advocate think that he can suddenly steal history, steal a revolution, steal a Chimurenga, steal a narrative and even steal a nation’s identity? It’s clear that Chamisa belongs to that school of thought where memorisation is mistaken for learning. He went to school to memorise and remember facts, a situation that Einstein found to be tragic. Listening to Chamisa as he tried to sound intelligent in his addresses, one could easily see that either he was never taught to think intensely or he just refused to be taught to think critically as Martin Luther King Jnr would put it. He suffers from serious deficiencies in intelligence and is devoid of a character that can win the minds of even the average thinker.
Maybe we should not blame poor Chamisa. In their book, “Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track,” authors Russel Ackoff and Daniel Greenberg point out that today’s education is seriously flawed as it focusses more on teaching rather than learning. People like Chamisa are the most appropriate targets of the competence-based curriculum framework that the Second Republic in Zimbabwe is passionately implementing.
But can history be stolen and how exactly did Chamisa try to steal history from ZANU PF? Isn’t it that history belongs to everyone and the liberation struggle was fought to liberate everyone in the country? Well, somehow, Chamisa thinks he can steal history from ZANU PF and for some strange reasons he actually thinks he can play the whole country a fast one! I have warned repeatedly that this little boy’s lack of ideology and desperation will make him do incredulous stuff. It seems like he has switched on the lunacy button and the drama is now in full swing. Speaking recently, Chamisa told his stunned supporters that his party, trading as CCC, was in full support of the historic land reform programme that was initiated and carried out by the revolutionary party, ZANU PF. Let me quote him verbatim and thereafter, expose this futile attempt at stealing history.
“I have come back to say Mugabe, Nkomo, Tsvangirai and Dabengwa, I have commenced finishing the work you started in Zimbabwe. Triple C means Chimurenga CheZimbabwe Chechina. The First Chimurenga was a revolutionary uprising. The Second Chimurenga was about freedom and the Third Chmurenga was about giving land back to the people of Zimbabwe. I unreservedly agree with the land reform minus the other challenges of violence, but the Fourth Chimurenga is now about restoring citizens’ dignity, freedom, liberation and democracy stolen by politicians.”
After making this statement, Chamisa must have thought this was going to be a game changer because he doesn’t think intensively and critically. To start with, we all know there is no consensus in the MDC trading as CCC to openly support the ZANU PF-led land reform programme. The majority of the leaders in the opposition party were stunned by Chamisa’s unplanned statement, but all they could do was to whisper in the dark about their concerns because they fear the little boy.
Anyway, for now we will leave the issue about the simmering discontent in the party so that we pay undivided attention to the attempts at stealing history by Chamisa.
Chamisa started the above statement by saying; “I have come back to say Mugabe, Nkomo, Tsvangirai and Dabengwa, I have commenced finishing the work you started in Zimbabwe.” With all due respect, Mugabe, Nkomo and Dabengwa didn’t start anything with regards to liberating Zimbabwe. Yes, these nationalists played an important role in the history of this country but crediting them with starting the revolution that freed Zimbabwe in 1980, is just being dishonest, if not mischievous. And throwing in Tsvangirai’s name among these nationalists is just stretching the lunacy a bit too far.
We all know the First Chimurenga was spearheaded by heroes and heroines such as Mbuya Nehanda, Sekuru Kaguvi and King Lobengula among others. We know Chamisa is desperate to find a place in the Chimurenga narrative, but he should never fool himself that he will be allowed to re-write this country’s history.
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We won’t allow his selective amnesia, anchored on desperation, to alter the Chimurenga narrative.
But what game exactly is Chamisa trying to play by roping in nationalists like Mugabe, Nkomo and Dabengwa into his narrative? He is trying to appropriate the country’s national heroes so that he is seen in the same light and at the same level. It’s a futile attempt at evoking history and memory so that he can fit into the Chimurenga equation.
Chamisa went further stating rather foolishly that: “Triple C means Chimurenga CheZimbabwe Chechina.” As a former freedom fighter from the Second Chimurenga, this statement was an insult. It’s clear from the statement that Chamisa does not fully appreciate and understand what the word Chimurenga means. He is fond of joking with serious matters and I think we should never allow him to cross the line.
How can a British and American funded opposition party in Zimbabwe claim anything to do with the Chimurenga? How can western-sponsored puppets think they can smuggle themselves into the Chimurenga narrative? Does Chamisa really think that the re-branding from red to yellow means that they now qualify to call themselves revolutionaries? Does he really think he can fool us just by waking up one day and giving the MDC a new trading name?
He concluded his mischief by saying: “I unreservedly agree with the land reform minus the other challenges of violence, but the Fourth Chimurenga is now about restoring citizens’ dignity, freedom, liberation and democracy stolen by politicians.” What Fourth Chimurenga can a puppet opposition party talk about? What kind of reckless talk is this? Chamisa should not push us too far!
Let me make myself very clear. It’s a welcome development that Chamisa is finally acknowledging the importance of the liberation struggle and the land reform to Zimbabwean politics, but the acknowledgement is not enough. His party’s umbilical cord to the West is still intact. The puppet is still sucking from the poisoned breast.
It’s clear that Chamisa knows the facts about the country’s liberation war, but like I indicated at the beginning, his mind was never trained to think intensively and critically. Someone told him of the importance of national symbols as agents of psychological and social change. He has a vague idea that national symbols are not just for display but can yield significant psychological and social effects. However, he has no idea how exactly he can deploy the national symbols so that his party can be accepted as a genuine Zimbabwean-born political party.
All this gibberish about supporting the land reform programme unreservedly is anchored on the desperation to fit into the Chimurenga narrative. It’s not and the fallacy that Chamisa has suddenly found his ideological bearings or has finally seen the light remains just that.
If Chamisa wants to be taken seriously, he should stop playing cosmetic politics. We can see he is putting all manner of lipstick on a frog, but that won’t change anything. He can give the MDC many trading names, he can change the colours a million times, he can change the party’s symbols a thousand times and come up with hundreds of slogans, but all that won’t change the fact that he is fronting a puppet party that will never rule this country.
The attempts by Chamisa to steal history from ZANU PF and smuggle himself into the Chimurenga narrative have clearly shown that the MDC trading as CCC has no capacity to come up with its own homegrown and people-centred policies and programmes. We never thought Chamisa would be so desperate as to seek salvation and relevance using ZANU PF history.
