Zim@44: Grateful for friends’ sacrifices towards our independence
BECAUSE colonialism only loosens its hold when the knife is at its throat, those who sacrificed their lives for the freedoms being enjoyed today should be thanked and expressions of gratitude should be made, whether they are individuals, groups or freedom loving states.
Therefore, with the surety of an Old Testament prophet, this writer is convinced that there is nothing that could have been done to defeat colonialism besides using military confrontation and violent struggle to ensure victory.
Zimbabwe, formerly Southern Rhodesia, was a terrain of brutal and ideological contestations during the war of liberation from 1966 to 1980. They were violent militarily and also ideological.
Without the violence that accompanied the struggle for independence, the freedoms of many Zimbabweans would today have been blanketed with imaginary thoughts without regard of what reality would have informed.
Because colonial powers justified their violent conquests by claiming they had a legal and religious obligation to control the land and culture of indigenous people through legislated violence, likewise, their defeat was supposed to be premised on violence.
As revolutionary philosopher Frantz Fanon proposed that the potentiality of violence derives from the colonial context which the violent act is seeking to uproot. Therefore, the struggle for independence through armed violence changed the complexion of the colonial establishment, signifying that colonialism could be defeated.
It was tough for Zimbabwe’s nationalists, liberation fighters, peasants, collaborators and intellectuals to envision independence without the help of anti-colonial forces and pro-freedom elements.
Ideological friends
The victory of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution by the peasants and working class in Russia changed the trajectory the world was going to take for the next seven decades. What is key is to understand that the Bolsheviks had different ideological orientations with the colonial West.
Where the colonial west encouraged its settler administration establishments to exploit and benefit from the vast array of raw materials in the colonised territories, the Bolsheviks cultivated the gospel of freedom for the colonised peoples.
The communist ideology emanating from the Bolshevik victory set the stage for the rise of the Soviet Union as a world power that would go head-to-head with the collective west and the United States post-World War II or during the Cold War.
In 1949, another pivotal moment occurred. In China, the communists took power under the leadership of Chairman Mao Zedong, and this was a significant expression that guerrilla organisation in collaboration with the peasants could overturn oppression.
Thus, both victories in Russia and China sent strong signals to the colonised territories in Africa that the capitalist system of exploitation, that, in pursuit of profit would encourage materialism over freedom, was defeatable. Communism became a global idea that mutated to become a movement.
For this reason, the ideology of equality that Russian and Chinese communists embraced became real to Zimbabwean nationalists, workers and intellectuals who sought to prosecute the struggle for independence and spread wealth equally for the people.
Towards Zimbabwe’s struggle for independence, Russia and China provided political and military training to liberation fighters, financial and logistical support, and morale through critical literature that kept the ideas of fighters and peasants together, focused on liberty.
No single freedom fighter was ever trained in the West, though there were committees that raised funds to support and sustain the execution of the struggle. So, when Zimbabweans interact with Russians and Chinese, it ought to be remembered that they were the first friends who supported us in ensuring that the colonial system and the capitalist ideology were crushed in this hemisphere.
Remember Frontline States
Contributions of all countries that helped in Zimbabwe’s struggle must not be discounted. No one should rewrite this history of sacrifices. Algeria, Botswana, Cuba, Guinea-Bissau, Egypt, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia, among others, were all involved in Zimbabwe’s struggle for independence.
These countries, since the 1960s, were committed to end white minority rule in Africa and the apartheid system in South Africa. They were midwives to Zimbabwe’s independence.
It should never be forgotten that the Frontline States and the African bloc helped dismantle a white settler state in Zimbabwe that had successfully mobilised the working class, petit bourgeoisie, bourgeoisie, and so-called “poor whites” behind them through the use of the racial ideology of white supremacy.
Racism was the key factor that necessitated the continuity of the colonial regime, and furthermore, many white people in general supported the fulfilment of the purposes of the white settler state, which later crumbled.
Unavoidable embarrassment
Historically, those who follow the embarrassment of western countries when involved in war, remember that each time imperialists are put in a cul-de-sac they start contemplating going to the negotiating table.
In recent years, this has been the case between the USA and the Taliban in Afghanistan; Israel is doing the same with the Hamas resistance in Cairo, Egypt; and soon the same will happen in Ukraine when NATO will start negotiating a peace deal with Russia. In these instances, the West does so to avoid battlefield embarrassment and humiliation.
In the case of Zimbabwe, the Ian Smith settler establishment pushed for negotiations through Tanzania, Zambia and Mozambique as it could not contain the pressure nor countenance the embarrassment of having a fully equipped conventional army being defeated by guerrillas.
This led to the idea of the Lancaster House talks which the Frontline States also supported, and the conference kicked off at a time the stranglehold of the Smith regime on Zimbabwe was loosening.
The refusal to surrender by the colonial army exposes the racist aspects of the imperialist plan of wanting to cling to power even in the face of defeat. The unavoidable humiliation and embarrassment of the colonial settler government, even today, causes immense imperialist discomfort upon realising that when the freedoms of the masses are upheld, no one can stop their immediate realisation.
What is to be done?
After independence from the West, most African nations who have never had the right courage like Zimbabwe to reclaim its land, are beginning to notice that their countries and people are being subjected to new forms of colonialism.
In the name of globalisation their wealth is being stolen while their cultures are being threatened with western values that have no place in their social milieu. There are existing new forms of domination or subordination that are happening in which Africa needs to learn to resist.
Political independence that is not accompanied with economic independence is meaningless. Zimbabwe is now in a new transition, which is a social struggle, to rid the imperial narratives, while upholding its history, acknowledging that to be successful over neo-colonialism, the help of other states is key.
Therefore, the memory of those that contributed to Zimbabwe’s independence should be retained, enlarged and kept for posterity. This is the premise of projects like the Museum of African Liberation where government, in other dimensions, is expressing its gratitude to all states that made this independence possible.
Dependence and interdependence of progressive states should remain the binding factor essential in ensuring that when single-minded idealists fight colonialism and neo-colonialism, their unity is key for purposes of victory.