DEFENCE UNITS ARE NEEDED - How the philosophy of peaceful NON-VIOLENCE is KILLING Us ~ Part 1

Over the next two posts we shall discuss the thorny issue of 'non-violence'; both in relation to its context and with regards to its practical use in the liberation struggle for a new Zimbabwe.


Please note this is not a mindless rant against the theory of a peaceful change process; it is a point saying every idea is useful; until it proves more dangerous to those using it than the alternatives.

Machiavelli once stated..."For among other evils which being unarmed brings you, it causes you to be despised..."

Being 'unarmed' causes you to be despised...Yet why would that be the case?

We can ask endless questions about the events in SA where our people and others were attacked.

Why are the poor continuously being incited to fight the poor? Who is to be held accountable as the source of this raging violence in South Africa ?

We could spend hours and days asking these questions; they might get answers but we will still have no remedy.

We could offer precise political / sociological analysis... Such as provided by http://www.zimgreats.com/

Zimbabweans are the second largest group displaced after Mozambicans. The number of deaths vary but Mozambicans are the largest group, then Zimbabweans then Malawians. So far 42 foreigners have been killed but we are not sure how many of them are Zimbabweans – that’s for the past 11 days only. Otherwise the number will go to 60 to 70 if you include from the beginning of the year. The number will significantly increase if you include the 400 Somalians who have been killed ... The apartheid propaganda taught South Africans to think that they were better than anyone... It seems the coming of democracy never changed this perception ...when they see foreigners doing things better ... The hate of foreigners was implanted in them ... They were also taught self hate, to loathe the black skin ...they are still trapped in that time warp. This blah blah of resources has nothing to do with it, The South African govt has perpetuated this ...their abuse of foreigners for a long time ... their Home Affairs and police departments... have been rated the worst in human rights abuses against foreigners – training South Africans that you could do what u want to a foreigner and you would not be held accountable.

Indeed it will give us valuable insight, but again no real remedy.

Here at the Zimbabwe insurgency blog we argue the far simpler point... that in nature, the weakest, the most powerless and the most defenceless are always the ones victimized.

Why were poor Africans set upon rather than the real problem makers ...the corporate culprits and the corrupt politicians???

Let us be clear our modern human society exists at two levels, there is the level of fiction, the nice sounding pluralistic rhetoric of democracy and 'rainbow nations', the oft pronounced UN ideal of utopian human brotherhood.
Then there is the level of fact the mundane grind and savage reality of dog eat dog... everyday life.

An example of this division between the rhetoric and the reality is the influence of Western capitalism on Africa's Independence...we are constantly told of its merits, it is the social economic system that shapes our world and drives our aspirations (even the socialists bow to it without any viable system of their own).

Every day we Africans shut off our brains and are lulled closer to our end by the sweet sounding rhetoric of wealth creation, growth and progress...HOWEVER...look below the sugar coated surface and you will see the reality; that at many levels the hybrid spawned of this synergy of cultures is one of the most inequitable, shallow, brutal, inhumane and savage systems ever produced.

But one thing CAPITALISM does do, is it clearly sets the divide between ....the POWERFUL and the POWERLESS.

When we talk of DEFENCE UNITS we do not just mean military units alone...We mean ...social defence (treating fellow Africans with respect and not viewing each other with colonialisms eyes as threats, competition; or as an inferior species), economic defence ...(what are Zimbabweans doing thinking they are safe living in South African slums when other communities organize economically and live in well guarded suburbs?); political defence ...(creating institutional safeguards against ANY type of Executive tyranny)

Have we been crying to OTHERS for help for so long, that we have forgotten how to truely help ourselves?

Everyone has watched over the past few weeks how the US ambassador James McGee was treated by the OPFOR security forces compared to how ordinary Zimbabweans are treated at home and abroad.

As much as the OPFOR regime want to destroy this man, they are too scared to touch him. A regime that kills and tortures its own population with impunity... scared of one man???? WHY????

THE SHORT ANSWER IS THAT this man represents POWER ...My brothers and sisters POWER - IS POWER - IS POWER and it is not messed with.

This world has a pecking order...

Zimbabweans suffer because for years the educated idiots inside and outside the opposition have failed to set up any alternative defence, or welfare, or economic infrastructure for the people.

Whilst getting their copious amounts of donor funding from their COLOUR REVOLUTION sponsors ...they have preached the same foolish foolish gospel; that elections organized by the military dictatorship will bring the desired change.

That ...'powerlessness and victimhood sells...that all Zimbabweans must do is display our corpses and broken bodies and great suffering to the world and it will buy international sympathy and the more of that we have; the closer we get to freedom' ABSOLUTE RUBBISH.

...WE ARE POWERFUL PEOPLE NOT POWERLESS VICTIMS...we want A NEW ZIMBABWE to ARISE... then let us work HONESTLY AND FEARLESSLY to achieve it... Acting accordingly to safeguard our freedoms.