events unfold before our eyes.
The world over, Zimbabwe is seen as a trouble spot, which she is. Now we are rated the country with the highest inflation (even poor countries like Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, even those in war zones like Angola and DRC, are not suffering such a fate). The other countries in the Third World, including those in South America, are surprisingly faring well.
We have turned ourselves into the weeping daughters and sons of Africa and we expect the world to hear us, “Come deliver us from Mugabe”, yet we have made no consensual effort in trying to do so ourselves. Remember, Mugabe and his cronies, during the Smith regime, realized that they were being oppressed, they rose up and fought.
Of course it won’t be easy, for his patriotic force will beat us, imprison, torture and kill us – but with determination we will prosper. It is not the little crumbs from the Zanu ((PF)) table that fills our stomachs, what we need is the sweat that drips from our heads as we work for our own emancipation. It is the blood of gallant sons and daughters of Zimbabwe that we need to sacrifice, to be liberated from the Mugabe syndrome.
They say, “No Zanu (PF) card; you are an enemy of the State”. Belong to any opposition party and you deserve to die. You are correct about being discriminated against and forced to belong to them for survival. But passive resistance does not pay, we need to be more engaged, old and young – the battle will be won by the combined effort of all. After all, our history has been one of noble resistance and triumph against the odds.
But most of your recent resistance, though noble in intention, had been less than noble in execution and outcome. The mass protests called by MDC, NCA or ZCTU have all yielded nothing, the leaders scuttling back to the drawing board to assess reasons for the failure. The failure lies in the majority being apolitical and non- partisan when it comes to bread-and-butter issues. This is so because people are afraid of being beaten, arrested, tortured and killed. If we love ourselves that much, then we deserve the suffering that is inflicted on us by Mugabe.
Waiting for Mugabe to die is a defeat for all of us. Mugabe should not die before we are unshackled from the bonds of oppression. He should be made to account for his sins whilst he still lives.
Why have we suffered thus, one might ask? Because you have been dishonest, allowed yourself to be abused by your political party and your government; refused to sanction your government for its inability to represent your interests; stopped believing in yourself, believing that the government will solve your problems; and because you mistakenly believed that Zanu (PF) is solely responsible for your plight and selfishly believed that Zimbabwe belongs to the party alone, and you’ve fought for that party rather than for the common good.
Whose interests were served by the ethnic cleansing, Gukurahundi? What about ESAP, the 2000 farm invasions, the killing and muggings of opposition party cadres and civil society members? Whose interests did Operation Murambatsvina serve? What of the recent price blitz? Someone got political mileage! We hail our President for being such a courageous man – he takes the bull by its horns, we say – whilst we ignore that by doing so he emasculates us, as he is serving his own interests. When prices were reduced, the people went all the way to praise the government, but where are we now?
We have stopped sending our children to government schools, for we know what they are like; we have stopped going to government hospitals, for we know what is not there. Roads have become tracks; farms have become war-training zones.
Some of you were encouraged to seek the party card rather than a school certificate.
I say all the above to remind you that if marginalization means disempowerment, you have been historically marginalized, both by the colonizers and more so by the government.
However, to blame the government for your suffering is not fair, we have disempowered ourselves. Waiting for the president to die will not end your disempowerment and misery; we need structural changes.
You were told that if we take the farms from the white men we will prosper, and you believed. That we needed to eliminate dissidents from our country; we massacred brothers and sisters in Matabeleland. We demolished poor people’s houses in 2005 and we beat to maim whenever people demonstrate peacefully against a government that is at war with its citizens.
You were told it was all the fault of Blair and Bush, and still you did not ask what that meant. You rather believe all they say, for they ‘libel-rated’ this country.
You have surrendered your right to think and act in your own interests. Rather than fight for your rights, you are fighting to win positions of authority for some people, yet your children are scavenging for leftovers in South Africa and surrounding countries. Yet we call that sovereignty. Crime, murder, corruption and disease will haunt you, day and night. Your TV hosts are being paid to tell lies.
To be fair, sometimes you listen to reason and perhaps admire it, but you don’t act on it. You act on unreason, and so long as you continue to do that you will always be suffering – with Mugabe or after Mugabe.
You are ignoring, at your peril, some glaring truths. You have no political and economic power, all are vested in Mugabe. That is what we must be fighting for. Nobody gives you justice, you have to fight for it.
MCLYDEZ B. CHAKUPETA, Brickdam, Georgetown
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