Zanu PF is the ruling party. The ideas of the ruling elite shape what we commoners do. Leftist scholars have written on this, showing how a revolution should aim at dismantling the ideas or the machinery of making and transmitting the ideas of oppression.
The struggle for ideas became part of the struggle for liberation. From the working class elites who wanted to get voting rights as well as enjoy the privileges of the white (wo)man to the rural poor who had been dispossessed of their land. It was a struggle between the new religion versus the traditional religion. The traditional religion, on seeing that it was losing members to Christianity, fought back accusing the new religion of causing the various mishaps, including diseases and pestilences that affected Zimbabwe (the Southern Rhodesia) in the 1890s. The struggle for ideas was escalated into open conflict, though it pitted the defenders of traditional religion versus the military that had come in to defend the new political dimension. Triumph, using the Maxim gun, was like saying the gun leads the brain. It was the technology that won. As such, the idea was not defeated, thus when African nationalism resurfaced in the 1940s it was clothed in certain ideas. The workers in the 1940s, premised their struggle around oppression. It seemed the working class ideology would take over. However, with time, the ideas expanded and questioned the why there was oppression in the first place and it was blamed on imperialism. This saw the coming in of anti-imperialist ideas. These ideas continue to date.
There were variations of these ideas in the 70s when Zimbabwe waged a liberation war struggle.
An attempt was made to have a school of ideology, where ideas would be processed or the students taught to formulate ideas.
The Herbert Chitepo School of Ideology never took off, but the question is, was it not necessary?
The struggle between the two factions in Zanu PF calls for an analysis of what the ideas shape the struggle. Have we heard any ideas spelt out. Is it wrong to say the fight is over who should be at the feeding trough?
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