By Dr Masimba Mavaza | The nationalist dream of a world composed of self contained nation states remains powerful.
The Herbert Chitepo School of Ideology in order to acquaint the nation with the Party’s ideology takes the obligation to impart Knowlledge and a sense of patriotism.
The Chitepo School of ideology will equip them to fight the changing dynamics of neo-colonialism and defend the country’s sovereignty.
And, the structures of the Herbert Chitepo Ideological College are made up of experts drawn from different Government departments with plans in place to build an ideological school in future.
Detractors have been criticising the Herbert Chitepo School of Ideology saying that it’s a ZANU PF project teaching about the ZANU PF history.
What’s distinctive about nationalism is not so much its alleged dominance as its proven adaptability and persistence. Even in the heyday of the war of freedom and the independence fever nationalists held exclusive sway in Zimbabwe politics as they competed with and borrowed from advocates of imperialism, capitalism, communism and other ‘isms’ of modernity. Amid this ideological tumult, nationalists of all stripes appealed to a shared notion summarised by the Italian patriot Giuseppe Mazzini: ‘Every nation a state, only one state for the entire nation.’
Without the learning and imparting knowledge it became obvious that opposition politicians could weaponise this lack of patriotism and give the citizens false promise of self determination, it mostly turns to an enormous array of often contradictory claims over peoples, institutions and the nation at large. At stake is not merely territorial control but rather more enduring questions of classifying or reclassifying who belongs and who does not to Zimbabwe given national community in possession of its own state and paying allegiance to one’s country and be prepared to defend one’s country at all costs.
It’s tempting to believe that such issues have been ‘solved’ or rendered outdated by globalisation, but the nationalist dream of a nation composed of dedicated citizens remains powerful. The need to protect one’s nation from threatening forces, external or internal, remains a potent ideological call that cuts across contemporary national politics.
The underlying belief here is that these nationalist projects remain unfinished, so some serious education is needed to round out the jigsaw pieces and complete the nature of the true Zimbabwean. But nationalism is not a project that can be finished like a jigsaw puzzle; it is unfinishable. If there is a related metaphor, it is that of Tetris, a game with no solution. It is impossible to complete a game of Tetris, but people continue to try.
Tetris, video game created by Russian designer Alexey Pajitnov in 1985 that allows players to rotate falling blocks strategically to clear levels. … The goal of the game is to prevent the blocks from stacking up to the top of the screen for as long as possible.
Unlike Tetris The Chitepo School Of Ideology is bringing an end to such ignorance and to that end the school brings the education to the people.
Measuring the prevalence of ideologies is no easy task. There are polls and elections that guide us in charting the popularity of leaders or parties that are seen to represent nationalist ideologies.
Nationalism, simply, is identifying most closely with the nation and prioritising its own interests above those of other communities. It’s worth recalling this because the media paints a very different picture. References to nationalism are often cocooned by an aura of dread; patriotism, nationalism and extremism are virtually inseparable in some media commentary. This makes it difficult to gauge the prevalence of nationalism.
The Chitepo School Of Ideology remains one source of nationalism which has been encouraged. The lessons one gets from the school of ideology is in loyalty and pride in a nation. The school teaches that those who put anything ahead of their country are not the good citizens.
The school teaches the love of the country.
Why ZANU PF.
ZANU PF is introduced in the ideology school because it holds the country’s legacy. It is part of the country’s heritage. You can not talk of Zimbabwean independence without mentioning ZANU PF. As the party which brought independence one cannot celebrate independence without paying allegiance to the vehicle which brought the independence. Thus ZANU PF features in the curriculum of the Chitepo School Of ideology.
The pandemic has not stalled the programs of the School. They have rolled out lessons to Zimbabweans of all walks virtually. The disillusioned agitate for change, sclerotic bureaucracy is unpopular and vaccine politics signal that national self interest is not as peripheral as a cosy narrative of unity would lead us to believe. When taken to incorporate its various guises – patriotism, extremism and supranationalism – nationalism remains the dominant force. Yet it is multidirectional, not linear, and therein lies Our dilemma: which will triumph in the fight between nationalism and anti nationalism driven by the opposition.
Nationalism was born in Europe, because that is where the nation state was invented.
This axiom’ was taught, however, to generations of children. The Chitepo School of Ideology is pushing for the rewriting schoolbooks with the aim of homogenising language, culture and politics.
The school was given a befitting name Leopold Chitepo. One war vet remarked on the death of Chitepo.
“The whole ZANU community in Zambia felt like a black blanket had sealed their fate in a coffin when Chairman Chitepo was assassinated.
The ZANLA combatants at the rear in Zambia swore to finish off the work of liberating Zimbabwe which the Chairman had been executing.
People resolved to carry on with the struggle despite the major setback of the assassination.”
The school is designed to continue with that work and its war is the war of the mind.
Like Chitepo who now dwells and teaches in spirit the structures of the Herbert Chitepo Ideological College have already been set up with experts drawn from different Government departments with the aim of imparting ideology to the people.
The experts will move around all provinces educating people on various subjects among them the history of Zimbabwe, the origins of Zanu-PF as a party, assess the challenges faced everyday and chat a way forward among many other subjects.
The long term plan is to build a fully fledged college that will be responsible for imparting knowledge to the whole nation so that the party ideology remains entrenched among its rank and file. Unlike some party leaders in many provinces do spend their energy working against each other. That is not the way of the revolution. Unlike senior ministers who do not deserve the positions but favoured by the abundant grace of His Excellence the president who spend time denigrating each other and forcing the police to arrest those they hate the school takes out that mentality and replaces it with ideology and love for the nation.
We should as a party not be seen to be spending the whole year fighting each other instead of working together. That is the message that the school wants all to know and understand.
Cde Chitepo whose name was wrapped in the school was assassinated in a car bomb in Lusaka in March 1975.
He was one of Zimbabwe’s most revolutionary patriots, having given up the comforts of his job as Attorney General of Tanzania to lead ZANU’s external wing in the Second Chimurenga.
He was humble, unassuming, totally committed to the struggle, clear-headed, very articulate; a seasoned negotiator and diplomat, someone who fitted into any society whether local or international.”
It is against this background, Cde Geza said, the Wampoa College which started in 1976, was renamed Herbert Chitepo School of Ideology in 1977.
The mandate was to provide cadres with advanced political, military and ideological training for the transformation of our struggle and to bring about qualitative changes in the execution of the war with the establishment of liberated zones.
And, to establish new institutional arrangements – People’s Power Bases — in the liberated zones for the socio-economic, cultural and administrative development of an independent Zimbabwe and train cadres in regular warfare to defend the liberated and semi-liberated zones.
Cde Munyaradzi Machacha, a war veteran, and the Principal said in 2015 the death of Cde Chitepo plunged the whole region into mourning and in the then Southern Rhodesia, leaders such as Cde Robert Mugabe organised groups that were supposed to go to Nyanga to bury Cde Chitepo, but the Smith regime disallowed it.
They described Chairman Chitepo as a ‘terrorist more dangerous dead than alive’.
Hence, Cde Chitepo was buried in Zambia although his remains were reburied at the National Heroes Acre after independence.
“The party leaders had just been released from prison to facilitate the détente exercise when Cde Chitepo was assassinated,” Cde Machacha said.
“Both the détente and the assassination of Cde Chitepo was an attempt to foil the liberation struggle.
“However, this was not the case because Cde Chitepo’s death spurred thousands of recruits from Manicaland, Masvingo and the Southern parts of the country who were now determined to liberate the country.”
In his death four decades later his ideology is now transmitted in the minds of not only party members but the nation at large.
This is truer than ever in today’s independent Zimbabwe. Nationalism has lost its raison d’être because the nation is unable to remain sovereign on its own without its people. The surviving ideology in Zimbabwe is, under attack from the opposition which has no ideology. Nationalism persisted because even its detractors recognised the appeal of its tropes.’
In 2021 the experience of nationalism continues to be defined by the relationship between the political priorities of Zimbabwe and its people. The language of centre and periphery that describes the interrelationship between Cultural unionism and nationalisms has not disappeared but has remained in flux for decades.
The school of ideology is determined to make the Zimbabwean mind set immune to infection caused by the MDC.
So those who are offended by the school of ideology must remember that Ideology in education refers to the beliefs, customs, culture and values that give direction to education in areas of the curriculum, such as economics, politics, moral and religious, knowledge and truth, the aesthetic and artistic. You are nothing if you have nothing. The Chitepo School of Ideology invests Knowledge national pride understanding your country and dedicating your life to the country.
The school teaches that ideological power plays an important role in education and that it is part of a general trend in policy and social sciences to underestimate ideological and overestimate the role of political and economic power. The lectures from Chitepo School of ideology sketches a concept of power in general and especially of ideological power based primarily on the work of our freedom fighters. Those who have attended the Chitepo School of ideology are able to demonstrate the powerful role of ingroup favouritism, rather than hostility, in Zimbabwean Across the studies, the school shows that political ideology is a strong predictor of resource allocation biases and this effect is mediated by Zimbabwean patriotism and not by prejudice or nationalism.
patriotism is associated with donating more to Zimbabwe , as opposed to ethnic-minority or social groupings.
One journalist from the Patriot wrote
“MAKING way into people’s hearts has for long been a politician’s nightmare and not many of the country’s actors and actresses in politics can match the ease with which Hebert Wiltshire Pfumaindini Chitepo did it.—-
Chairman Chitepo, as he was affectionately known, is much more than that; he helped bring home the people’s dream.
He might have been long dead, having been brutally assassinated by the Rhodesians but by the time the country attained independence, his name had inspired many to wage the liberation struggle.
He was a great hero!
He was a man of the people, a legendary leader who not only shaped the liberation struggle but helped give meaning to it.
ZANU PF introduced the Herbert Chitepo Ideological College wHich is making waves and refreshing and educating Zimbabwe on their history and their pride.
Chairman Chitepo was much more than a leader!
He was non-racial and non-tribal.
Today, Chitepo’s vision lives among those who believe in their country’s history, present and future.
His ideas must permeate all levels of society, especially in times like these when we are rebuilding our country.
How do we build a nation that we want when we forget our rich history!
How do we unite a nation that has been divided by some individuals’ greed and insatiable thirst for primitive accumulation of wealth?
How do we move from a recent past that has been blighted by reckless tribal utterances meant to divide the people?
How do we repair our economy that has been run on the basis of dishonesty, deceit, and dereliction of duty and disservice to the country?
How does the great Chairman Chitepo fit into the whole matrix of making Zimbabwe work again?
Let us begin by introducing the Hebert Chitepo ideology in our curriculum in all our places of imparting Knowlledge.
Chairman Chitepo talks about internal and external discipline.
He talks about patriotism in letter and spirit.
He practiced the same with love and affection for his motherland.
Second, the Hebert Chitepo ideology must be made a compulsory subject from early childhood development to university.
Zimbabwe is our country and none but ourselves can serve it.
Chamisa treading in murky waters
Nelson Chamisa continues with what has been rightfully dubbed ‘the delusional foray’.
Here is a piece of advice for the young man.
Nations are not build on melodrama, flowery language or wishful thinking.
They are built on realities, goodwill and, most importantly, common sense.
Naivety will always be confronted by reality.
We are facing the reality as Zimbabweans that we are in the doldrums and that we have to concert our efforts in undoing the misdemeanours of the previous regime.
The Chitepo School of Ideology teaches us that “ZIMBABWE IS THE ONLY COUNTRY ON EARTH WHICH WE CAN CALL OURS.