𝗭𝗜𝗠 𝗢𝗣𝗣𝗢𝗦𝗜𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 𝗡𝗢𝗪 𝗣𝗟𝗔𝗚𝗨𝗘𝗗 𝗕𝗬 𝗬𝗢𝗨𝗧𝗛𝗙𝗨𝗟 𝗗𝗘𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗜𝗔.

Today, I listened to Ostallos on Uncle Ged's platform, and I must say that I like how he speaks on historical issues and leftist politics. For example, he gave an eloquent explanation of "bereka mwana”; however, when it came to countering criticism, he failed to put forward any convincing rejoinders. He seemed more caught up in blaming the incumbent for their party's failures while praising the same failed strategic ambiguity which killed the hope of skeptics and party-hopefulls.

A case in point, Padare asked him if by blaming ZANU PF for the disintegration of CCC, he was admitting that their party lost the war to ZANU PF? He failed miserably to give a counter to this incisive assertion by Padare. I was especially disappointed that such a great historical narrator with great knowledge of his organization, failed to proffer a reasonable explanation as to why he obsesses over blaming ZANU PF for the internal failures of CCC, if he is not admitting that their adversary successfully penetrated their lines to kill their king.

Sadly, it's not only him who fails to argue persuasively, but most opposition members suffer from the same lack of mental dexterity. It's once in a while that you see a glimmer of hope in people like Smartez, who sadly eventually succumbs to faith belief in party dogma more than reason.

The reason for this intellectual deficiency is that, unlike the EFF in South Africa, which seeks iron to sharpen their iron [weapons], the Zimbabwean opposition does not sharpen its iron with iron.

When you look at EFF, what lifts their discourse, is that they seek out confrontation with the best of those who oppose them, be it in court or “the battle of minds” on social media.

The problem with our Zimbabwean opposition is that they fear debate and so, like Hopewell, they block, hide and censor robust opponents and spend their time talking in echo chambers and wallowing in the praise and worship of their cult followers, who lack the capacity to interrogate their ideas.

When they speak, they don't listen to alternative voices; all they do is advance their religious dogma, hailing their dictator in an occultic manner. By doing so, the opposition has attempted to sharpen steel with the cloth of their followers, and over time, this has dulled the edge of their weapons. As a result, in battle they are being slaughtered.

The Zimbabwean opposition is now a shadow of its former self, unable to cut in battle or adapt. Even the so-called intellectuals of old - Arthur Mutambara, Tendai Biti, and Welshman - are now relics in the intellectual arena, and now Gafa stands as the embodiment of intellect, to their miseducated party youth.

Be it as it may, as much as ZANU PF also has a generation of shallow youth who lack ideology, at least that party has the Herbert Chitepo School of ideology to resurrect weak minds, and those who are unwilling to learn are then used as the charcoal to tamper, forge and sharpen the intellectual daggers.

In the end, the dumb ones stay at the bottom as smelter ash, where they will be used to make the bricks and cement of cell groups and mass mobilizations. In as much as I agree with Ostallos that ZANU PF leadership is now old and lethargic, funny enough, those old foxes were still able to out-fox the youthful but dull opposition, in the battle of ideas, as we saw with the collapse of CCC.

This illustrates that a wise mind in a rusty body will always beat youthful bodies trapping a mind rusted by dormancy and religious dogma.

It's a scientific axiom that the brain, just like AI, needs to keep learning from more challenging data sets and problems, in order to grow its neural networks to learn to solve problems. And when a neural network or brain neural pathways lack stimulation and challenges, they lose agility and decline. This is sadly what has brought dementia to our opposition and young minds like Ostallos.