Living in the Age of Mugabeism

This year's Africa Day celebrations, which must ideally continue well after May 25, should recognise President Mugabe's political and economic teachings.

Just like Marx, Lenin and Mao Zedong, his ideals will affect the development of many generations to come in Africa and the Third World at large. Successful revolutions have been driven by unflinching leaders and ideas. President Mugabe has such leadership accompanied by a credible ideology. His Statesmanship has been fundamentally shaped by the yearning to emancipate humanity.

His teachings, just like Nkrumah's and Garvey's, are the cornerstone of a progressively reconstructive African political and economic renaissance. According to Mugabeism, no people can develop without total sovereignty. This total sovereignty entails political and economic freedom guaranteed by unquestionable ownership of the means of production (agrarian land) and all other God-given resources of their native country.

China, the global economic and military giant, was born out of Chairman Mao's radical ideas and tough initiatives. But Maoism did not thrive in China just overnight. Crucial nationalisation measures, apart from facing bitter opposition from the West, also faced stubborn resistance from within his own country. Commanders like Peng Dehuai and Lin Biao with the assistance of his son, Tiger, even plotted to assassinate Chairman Mao.

Given the fact that this ambitious and rigorous period caused immense sacrificial suffering among the general populace, very few Chinese who lived through the Cultural Revolution had visions of modern China. Some people in our midst cannot see beyond today's challenges. The economic concept premised around politics of "total sovereignty first" as espoused by President Mugabe has been the automotive by which developed nations have reached their modern status.

These countries made a lot of sacrifices along the path to progress. Many patriotic generations suffered under the treadmill of industrialisation so that the West could boast of being mighty. The Napoleonic wars and the First and Second World Wars were fought over sovereignty. The Americans, Russians and Chinese are world powers today because they jealously guarded their sovereignty at a time when it was seriously threatened.

Black American civil rights activist Coltran Chimurenga once remarked to this writer, "No weapons of mass destruction can take out Mugabe's enunciation of the African creed. In his DNA, we can see the fulfilment of Garvey's dream. Our brothers here are blessed with a great leader." The forward-looking economic indigenisation programme has been a milestone in Africa, a continent that has been economically subdued for centuries.

Mugabeism is the philosophy that has evolved around the practices and teachings of the President since the early years of mass nationalism. It is not an unfounded myth on the fabric of our memories, but a real life experience of our times. Realisation of our history and traditional identity is of paramount importance before we undertake the construction of our future. Progress without realisation of the importance of our sovereignty would be make-believe, and would be lost before half a century; just as what happened to the now languishing Libyans.

Our Libyan brothers can never again achieve an economically egalitarian society unless they begin to uphold and implement the ideals of the Jamahiriya. But Mugabeism is our only path. Saviour Kasukuwere, as Youth, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Minister, once corroborated this assertion in an interview with New African magazine, saying: "There is one thing nobody can take away now: His ideas. They are going to be with us forever. Mugabe is the founder of our nation, his ideas and values are well understood by Zimbabweans, and because of that, whatever we are doing and whatever generations will do after many of us have departed this world, including the President, will not stray, off course.

"What makes China today is Maoism, the philosophy that Mao Zedong espoused and what he stood for. It remains the same. What President Mugabe is saying is far-reaching; it is wider than our nation. It is an African story. It is what Kwame Nkrumah stood for.''

Even businessman Mr Mutumwa Mawere, who is known to be caustic about President Mugabe's Zanu-PF party and Government, cannot deny the Zimbabwean leader's place in the pantheon of great statesmen: ''He has emerged as a strong voice of the excluded in the world.''