The Sunday Mail
Teddie Bepete
The need for ideological training for political party members is imperative. Our future can only be guaranteed by leaders with firm ideological trappings.
The untrammelled evils of slavery and colonialism, which in our Zimbabwe we only dispensed after much blood had been lost and so much pain endured, taught us that unity is the key to the sustenance of sovereignty and the success of revolutionary initiatives.
Remember that the story of the liberation struggle was authored on the page of Marxism-Leninism, an ideology that was blended with Maoism.
We became captive of Communist ideology, not simply because we were obtaining military aid from China and Russia, but because these revolutionary nations were — through their foreign policy — espousing a philosophy that appealed to our woes.
One observer once said, ‘’If you want to walk into the future, you must first walk into the past.’’
The sanctity of the founding ideals of our national struggle can only be preserved and perpetuated through education. The future can only be reached if the journey starts by treasuring the merits of our ancestors whose lasting physical-intellectual architecture, like Great Zimbabwe, has traversed history.
It should never be forgotten that a people’s history can never be portrayed in better terms by aliens. Its bearers carry that burden and that honour.
Burkinabe revolutionary Tomas Sankara taught us to uphold our indigenous experience when he articulated that, “We must learn to live the African way. Its the only way to live in freedom and with dignity.’’
It is only us who can understand what Chimurenga is, what land reform is, what Command Agriculture is.
Which is why we need leaders who are ideologically founded and grounded.
We do not need or want leaders who have potential to betray the people’s common sense and scare away investors by sowing policy and ideological discord; who are content to live off foreign handouts instead of bumper harvests in their own country, on their own farms.
What are the commissars doing to proliferate the founding ideals? Are these the ideals they are cascading to the members?
This era of maverick, self-styled half-pint revolutionaries, no matter how erudite they may be, must end!
Resort to the rod, the Bible says. Of course I am not up for another Crusade, but I am certainly up for a restoration of ideals that excorsies political demands that have an economic Armageddon. Who will take up the rod to spare the child that is Zimbabwe?
Can students take up the rod and drill spineless professors so that they see sense? If so, let it be.
We have witnessed unprecedent abomination to the sanctity of our revolution, abomination that brings absolute desolation to this holy place we call our home.
What does history tell us? Apostasy, adultery, treachery, witchcraft, corruption were forbidden by the Chimurenga legacy. And the liberation war was won because the people stood for what was right and they obeyed the covenants of the land. Some people may say this was war-time teaching that has no relevance to today’s experience, but nothing could be further from the truth.
Once again, we must defer to the iconic Sankara, who told us that, ‘’It took the madmen of yesterday for us to be able to act with extreme clarity today.”
From this point onwards, we have to prioritise formalisation of ideological education as a country.
We will only stop having aberrant political heretics practising revolutionary adultery in the name of “progress” and “democracy” if we begin cultivating a sound ideological faculty for party leaders.
Like Ernesto “Che” Guevara taught us, and continues to teach us from the grave, ‘’The first duty of a revolutionary is to be educated.”
We have to impart the ethos of the unimaginable feat of our heroic and revolutionary predecessors for the clarity of the actions of our future generations.
The only solution to our current political and economic challenges is ideological redemption.
China has learnt that lesson, and we would do well to go to that school as well. China’s education model dates back to the Cultural Revolution. Its stability and economic prowess are a result of full-time Marxist ideology driven initiatives.
To enhance its ideological faculty, apart from a number of state-owned ideological colleges, President Xi Jinping in 2016 reiterated that ideological work in colleges should be integrated into the entire education process.
He acknowledged that higher education shoulders the main responsibility of cultivating success and successors for the socialist cause.
With correct ideological alignment our, political leaders will be able to deliver as expected. It need not be Marxism. It need not be Leninism. It need not be Maoism. It need not be capitalism, liberalism or any other ism talked of today.
It needs to be Zimbabwe-ism: a well-grounded understanding of who we are, where we came from and where we want to go.
Not for selfish gain but for our children. If we start to profoundly treasure the unique aspects of our history, the diversity of our culture and the blood-bought ethos of Chimurenga, then will we be able to reach that beautiful future. It must be remembered that at the head of the stream is where crystal clear waters are found.
