I bet the majority of today’s ZANU-PF supporters would have defended colonial rule!

It is always fascinating, though admittedly disturbing, to watch the kind of misplaced loyalty and inexplicable blind devotion exhibited by a significant number of today’s ZANU-PF supporters.

The sheer willingness of these individuals to defend, justify, and even romanticize a political party and government that has authored some of the most indescribable suffering and devastation in Zimbabwe’s post-independence history is both baffling and tragic.

What is even more ironic is that these defenders are themselves victims of this system—millions of ordinary citizens struggling to survive in abject poverty, unable to afford basic necessities, and robbed of the dignity that should come with being citizens of a sovereign nation.

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What compels someone living without electricity, clean water, functional healthcare or affordable education to vociferously and even violently defend those responsible for such a calamity?

What drives an unemployed, hungry, and hopeless Zimbabwean to launch verbal and physical attacks on those who dare to demand accountability from the ruling elite?

How does one explain this pathological allegiance to a regime that has long ceased to serve the interests of the people?

These thoughts ran wild in my mind today as I scrolled through social media, witnessing the vicious attacks directed at war veteran, former ZANU-PF Central Committee member, and ex-MP Blessed Geza.

His bold call for national stayaways to demand President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s resignation sparked a frenzied backlash.

Geza was not only insulted and ridiculed, but anyone who expressed support for his stance was also met with waves of hostility and abuse.

There was no attempt to engage with the substance of his argument—no debate on whether the government had indeed failed the people—but rather a frenzied rush to crucify him and suppress the message.

In these reactions, I saw a Zimbabwe that is increasingly allergic to truth, blinded by a cult of loyalty that mirrors the worst of history’s oppressors.

Whether one agrees with Geza or not is not the issue.

The question we should be asking is: why is there such aggressive resistance against those who are calling out an undeniably corrupt, incompetent and predatory regime?

Why should someone be vilified for standing up against a leadership that has bled our nation dry through the wholesale looting of public resources?

How can people who can barely afford a loaf of bread find it within themselves to defend a government whose lavish elites continue to enrich themselves while the rest of us wallow in destitution?

By now, who in Zimbabwe does not know about the notorious Zvigananda—the politically connected crooks awarded dubious multi-million-dollar tenders, often without due process, to siphon public funds into their private coffers?

Who is unaware of the industrial-scale smuggling of our precious minerals—gold, diamonds, and lithium—by syndicates closely linked to the corridors of power?

Who can claim ignorance over the disintegration of our hospitals, the collapse of our schools, and the decay of our infrastructure?

These are not natural disasters.

They are the deliberate outcomes of state-sanctioned corruption, theft, and mismanagement.

And yet, those who expose or resist this are branded enemies of the state.

We have reached a point where people fighting for justice and a better Zimbabwe are being labeled traitors by the very victims of injustice.

Online, the so-called Varakashi—ZANU-PF’s trolling machinery—are working overtime, not just to defend the looters of our wealth, but to relentlessly attack those seeking a dignified life for all.

These trolls, often young and some educated, have chosen to become agents of oppression, fighting tooth and nail to silence dissent and preserve a system that actively suppresses their own futures.

The question that haunts me is: how can they live with themselves?

As I read through the venomous responses posted by these Varakashi, I could not help but ask myself a chilling question: which side would they have been on had they lived during the colonial era?

Would they have cheered on Ian Smith as he declared that there would never be majority rule in a thousand years?

Would they have been the ones tipping off the authorities about the whereabouts of freedom fighters?

At the rate at which they excuse the repression of today, would they not have gladly justified the injustices of the Rhodesian regime?

The disturbing reality is that if someone can so easily rationalize the arrest, torture, or silencing of government critics today—if they can endorse the plunder of national resources by a well-connected elite—then they certainly possess the moral vacancy to have supported colonial rule.

What makes their behavior any different from those Rhodesians who defended white minority rule because they benefitted from it or were too afraid to oppose it?

In fact, the ferocity with which many of these ZANU-PF supporters attack dissenting voices today mirrors exactly how the colonial regime responded to nationalist agitation.

The desire to crush any push for change, to eliminate resistance, to silence the voices of the oppressed—all of this we saw under Rhodesia, and all of it we are witnessing again under a party that claims to have liberated us.

What frightens me more is imagining the damage these Varakashi would have done to the liberation struggle had they been around in the 1960s and 70s.

With their numbers and blind loyalty, would they not have betrayed the freedom fighters, exposing safe houses, leaking plans, and even pulling the trigger themselves?

The idea that such people are now central to a party that wants to be seen as the embodiment of independence is a painful betrayal of those who died for Zimbabwe’s freedom.

Maybe Geza is right after all.

Maybe ZANU-PF is no longer led by those who fought for Zimbabwe’s liberation, but by those who once served the colonial system itself—its intelligence arms, its death squads, its propaganda machine.

Allegations that some of today’s top officials were once part of the brutal Selous Scouts and Special Branch, who hunted and killed freedom fighters, should not be dismissed lightly.

Could this explain why they seem so comfortable presiding over a government that operates more like a Rhodesian continuation than a people’s republic?

What is even more tragic is how this betrayal is not just ideological—it is material.

The same people who risked their lives for freedom are now watching their grandchildren die in poorly equipped hospitals, attend underfunded schools, and flee the country in search of survival.

The promises of independence—dignity, prosperity, equality—have been trampled underfoot by those who wave the liberation flag with one hand while looting with the other.

Zimbabweans who believe in justice, freedom, and equality must rise above the propaganda and tribal politics.

We must choose to be on the right side of history, not just by remembering the past, but by fighting for a future where no one is above the law and no one is left behind.

If we do not, then we risk becoming the very thing we once despised—defenders of a cruel and exploitative system.

Now is the time for a new kind of freedom fighter—not with guns and grenades, but with voices, votes, and vision.

We must speak, organize, and resist before even those rights are taken away.

The chains may no longer be colonial, but they still bind us all the same.

And if we continue to protect our captors, we will have no one but ourselves to blame.

• Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to WhatsApp or Call: +263715667700 | +263782283975, or email: mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com, or visit website: https://mbofanatendairuben.news.blog/