Patriotism: Preaching Water and Drinking Wine?

By Rejoice Ngwenya Besides being a Freelance Writer in Zimbabwe, Rejoice runs his own policy dialogue ‘think tank’ called Coalition for Market & Liberal Solutions: COMALISO More articles by this writter...

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A mist of self-deception has for long engulfed self-proclaimed life presidents in Africa, that anybody that does not echo the chords of their discorded, tyrannical hymn sheets is 'unpatriotic'. Perhaps they may be right, that if one, according to my Collins Dictionary, does not 'vigorously protect one's country and way of life', they fall under the category of what Robert Mugabe repeatedly calls ‘sell-outs.’ But then patriotism is not synonymous with blind faith, or dogmatic allegiance to one man's selfish wishes.

One cannot package patriotism and shelf it, only to retrieve it at the whim and desire of a dictator. It is neither meant to be a consideration for subservience and servitude nor a preserve of an incumbent president. When citizens are dazed and anaesthetized with calculated repression, they cannot be said to be patriotic. When Zimbabweans are said to be resilient and resistant to the transgressions of their forceful rulers, they do not pass the test of patriotism.
Patriotism is not situational, a self-proclaimed clarion of nation state bravado, waved and engraved on national coats of arms. We cannot claim that since Cubans have 'resisted' American 'sanctions' for forty-five years, they are patriotic. It is Fidel Castro who has soothed his ego for that long and gropes around in the political wilderness for collective national stupidity that he terms patriotism. Can we label Ugandans and Libyans, who have laboured under the yoke of skewed pan-African fundamentalism as patriotic? It is Yoweri Museveni and Muamar Gaddafi who have framed the definition of the word and displayed it on their fireplaces. We could not claim that Kenyans, under the poisonous political excesses of Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi were patriotic, or that Malawians of the Kamuzu Banda era, the Zambians of the life and times of Kenneth Kaunda; the Mozambicans of Samora Machel and of course the Zimbabweans of Robert Gabriel Mugabe - were and are patriotic!

Patriotism is a spiritual condition of belonging, an acceptance that one's culture, national boundary, identity is unique. It is not an expression of superiority, but a humble acceptance of belonging. Patriotism without high self-esteem is superficial. When your ego has been bruised and brutalised, you lose self-respect. When your liberty has been vandalised, your privacy ransacked by those who are elected to protect your liberty, your patriotism is punctured. We Zimbabweans are patriotic not because we have 'resisted' Tony Blair, or snubbed George Bush. We have absorbed the curses and insults of xenophobic South Africans, Tswanas and British in pursuance of our dreams that have been bludgeoned by those who were elected to govern us. When a citizen ceases to command respect within his or her boundaries, and takes the option of enforced exile, they cannot be accused of being unpatriotic. Patriotism is not an exchangeable commodity that loses or accumulates value as one crosses the border. It is not about one man and his anointed cronies parceling it out at political rallies in exchange for delirious ululation.

Patriotism is a birthright, inalienable and life long. Presidents of Africa who masquarade on the grand regional, continental and global political stage as defenders of patriotism, but back home their citizens have no bread, milk, sugar, petrol, water, medical drugs, electricity, civic and political rights cannot claim a morsel of knowledge of what patriotism is about.

For Zimbabweans, patriotism is not according to the rulebook of ZANUpf and Robert Mugabe, no, it is what we feel. In Zimbabwe, the word has been desecrated, adulterated, poisoned, infringed, shredded and diluted with obscene and obnoxious, if not primitive and archaic political patronage. Let African dictators keep their version of patriotism in the annals of their forgettable, yet impeachable history. To us, it's simply - superficial, when they say it.