This means that the vision of those that sacrificed their lives during the armed struggle has still to be met, 33 years later. For me, that should raise serious concerns for all progressive Zimbabweans.
We need to comprehend what has gone wrong and begin to do the necessary in order to reengineer our nation into a modern democratic state. The politics of egos and mammon have not worked.
We have a highly educated population and, reportedly, the highest per capita resource wealth in the world.
The question is; how do we reengineer our socio political system so that we can combine these two competitive advantages to produce meaningful results?
I do not think that democracy alone will be the solution, nor will a highly sophisticated constitution or an intelligent economic blue print. It will be more about the establishment of a very strong national vision, a strong ethical leadership and a fearless and collective responsibility by progressive Zimbabweans.
Personally, I do not expect a fundamental change in how we think in the short term, even after free and fair elections. We still have to kill the old demons of non-accountability, greed, corruption and the pursuit of selfish ambition at the cost of the common good. Purging these destructive habits will take some time.
I worry that we may be expecting too much change too soon and whoever comes into power will invariably fail, not because of incompetence, but because the ground is not yet ripe for a new planting season.
Our society has suffered immensely and deeply in the last 33 years and reversing the psychological impact of dictatorship may take the work of another, albeit a benevolent one.
I think we have rushed the new constitution and we are rushing to get out of the Zanu (PF) quagmire. This is understandable, given its retrogressive nature. However, as a nation with so much going for it, we need to sit back and reflect, so that we do not create another monster in the pretext of getting rid of the one that we know.
I have read the CV’s and seen some of the characters now competing for seats in Parliament and I am hardly inspired by their thinking. It appears that the most popular and vocal will be the ones who prevail because of the political leadership deficit that we suffer from.
It also quite evident that a good number of our new political aspirants are motivated more by potential personal gain than by public service.
They have hardly been prepared for political office, a huge responsibility that demands serious thought and virtues. It is therefore likely that we may change the government, but the politics will stay the same.
We have also effectively cut out the Diaspora from the political arena, yet it possesses significant talent to take us forward. As a result, the pool from which we continue to draw our future political leadership is limited. I am not saying there is no local talent, I am saying is that it limits our universe and therefore, our conversations about the future.
I doubt that large untapped mineral resources alone can create a sustainable competitive advantage.
This can only happen when we marry it with a focused human capital development strategy as the Chinese have done.
Our development must be accelerated by a very aggressive technology transfer agenda where we can use technology to leap frog ahead. More important, we need a new socio political values system.
I am not hearing this conversation from our aspiring future leaders . All I am hearing is how we must replace Zanu (PF). This poses a significant danger of unmet expectations and a continuing disconnect between our politicians and our aspirations. Our new democracy may not serve our urgent needs.
One thing that is critical now is the opening up of the media space so that we can begin to have open and robust debate on what future we desire. we have actually seen a crackdown of freedom to access alternative media platforms.
This is an indication that nothing has fundamentally changed. The challenge is in our hands. – Please comment and share your views by emailing: vtmusewe@gmail.com
Post published in: Opinions & Analysis