Being Very Strong. Zimbabwe: The New National Security Paradigm

As the 32nd Independence Anniversary celebrations come to a close, being the good nationalists that we are; let's now go behind closed doors, away from the media and international scrutiny to talk about our failures. I volunteer that the government and all nationalists have failed Air Zimbabwe. This is my formulation:

 Air Zimbabwe's Boeing 767 - 200 Extended Range. Registration Mark: Zulu - Whisky Papa Foxtrot. Call sign: UM. The aircraft named Chimanimani.

by Kudakwashe Kanhutu

In a world with nuclear weapons, I am dismayed by the prospective ignominy of being defeated by our detractors without their having to resort to these ultimate weapons, or any other weapons for that matter. The first place I see this happening is when security is breached in fields that ordinarily should have no relation to orthodox national security. Indeed, times have changed. National security, properly conceived, now goes way beyond what happens on the battlefield; for the field has become much wider. Thus I am mortified that fellow nationalists seem not to realise this. It is critical that all nationalists understand the new pillars that undergird security. For brevity’s sake, I will rely only on one example although I can talk about a lot of other fields where failures will impinge on national security.

For my purpose this will suffice; the very fact that Air Zimbabwe is not flying today is a dagger to the heart of Zimbabwe’s national security. Yet I do not see a reaction in the same league as if an armed attack was under way. There is no recognition in our ranks that the national airline is as much a part of our security set up as our newspapers, our radio stations and our armed forces. There is no realisation of the shift in national security thinking. Our detractors now talk of a system of systems when talking about national security, since a disruption in any seemingly unrelated part eats away and weakens the whole structure. Attacks on these fringe aspects may seem insignificant but overtime will prove the death knell of the system. Therefore, if it becomes urgently incumbent in every nationalist’s mind that the way of preserving national security has shifted considerably, these sorts of insidious damages can still be remedied.

To go directly to the heart of the matter; there is no reason why, in a country that has millionaires in her nationalist ranks, the national airline can fail to fly because of an outstanding workers’ wage bill of around $40 million. I am outright saying here: there is no reason why the millionaires who claim to want to see the nationalist project succeed, should not – of their own volition – put money on the table to solve the national airline’s minor debt problem. The only reason I can think of is that they have not looked at the big picture and properly understood what role the national airline has played all along. Besides providing employment, Air Zimbabwe landing in Western capitals has been a symbol of stubborn defiance. A falsification of any propaganda claim that Zimbabwe is a failed state. It has been a significant foil to the prescient observation by Napoleon that “four hostile newspapers are to be more feared than a thousand bayonets.” Air Zimbabwe, flying anywhere in the world in the face of innumerable hostile newspapers, was a statement to counter all their malicious allegations against Zimbabwe.

Any negative effects the airline kept at bay will now feed directly into the system. Unemployment feeds into insecurity. Perceptions of disorganisation feed into insecurity. Let any newspaper now make an outlandish claim that Zimbabweans are so backward that not a single person there is trainable to become a pilot; who is to dispute that. Let anyone suggest the need for a civilising mission as they claimed in the colonial era, what do we have as an affront to that? Any charge of mismanagement of affairs is no longer unsustainable without the airline as our highly visible counter-argument. Those who know what is at stake will understand what I mean when I say losing the airline is very much the equivalent of giving our detractors our newspapers, radio and TV station.

Having understood each other on this count, I am then insistent that an unequivocal demand should be made on our wealthy fellow nationalists to produce the money required to return the airline to the skies. The national airline is a strategic asset that should be as non-negotiable to the true nationalist as our armed forces are. I will also say something briefly about the missed opportunity that should not be missed again once the airline returns to the air. The concept of ‘strategic inflection points’ dictates that the airline industry is now a field of alliances, once the airline is operating again, the government must without delay negotiate partnerships with airlines from countries we have no bad blood with. The only stipulation should be that our aircraft retain the national colours and thus maintain the value the national airline has for national security.

National security in its new permutation allows a reckless enemy to attack our symbols of nationhood and cause as much damage as a conventional military attack did in the old days. A patient enemy can just attack these symbols and wait for a nation to collapse due to the weaknesses ensuring thus, this is the whole logic behind sanctions. If we are scrupulous and diligent, we can counter these attacks on the new pillars of national security. What I refuse to accept is that sanctions are to blame for a national airline being unable to fly for want of $40 million dollars in a country with millionaires in its nationalist ranks. This is recklessness on our part.