Vince Musewe
“The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities which make it seem inconceivable that other ways are viable, that removes the sense that there is an outsideâ€. – Allan David Bloom, an American economist, said this and it is true indeed. The only way we can extricate ourselves from this web is to change our belief system as a society and create a new reality of who we can be and the possibilities staring at us.
I have participated in many debates with fake analysts and some ministers and what strikes me is how these individuals have been blinded by the unceasing rhetoric and propaganda of the Zanu (PF) machinery. They truly believe that there is no outside to our current paradigm – that this is all we can be.
They truly believe that we have many enemies out there working continuously to thwart our aspirations as a people – and that the West has caused the problems we face today. Nothing can be further from the truth – as we all know that it is the choices of the last 35 years that have created today’s problems.
A great nation
I truly believe that Zimbabwe can be a great nation once it leashes itself onto a different trajectory unhindered by the clutches of a history of oppression and fear. The archaic paradigm of victimhood, which accepts that we as Zimbabweans are incapable of creating our own prosperity, despite the fact that we have all the necessary knowledge spread all over the world and the necessary resources to do so, must be rejected and expunged from our minds.
We must vociferously reject this limiting mental model. We the younger generation have the responsibility of doing that. We must now create a paradigm that says that our country has all it requires to create a vibrant economy. We must also believe that we can shape a self-sustaining inclusive economy with full employment without relying on aid from the West, or the East for that matter. We must stop being slaves to the self-serving political rhetoric or to international capital. We can control our destiny as a country if only we believe.
In order to do that, we must look at other nations that have come out of worse conditions than ours. We can build a formidable economy if we choose to learn from countries such as Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Germany and others and acknowledge what they did right.
Unable to imagine
Yes, political leadership is crucial, but what do we do when our politicians are unable to imagine what we want? What do we do when they are limited in their thinking on how far we can go? When they have no vision beyond their lifetime and are only interested in power and what they can get from it now?
Zimbabweans in the diaspora must take the lead in creating a new narrative for the future that is bolder and significantly different from the past. They have the knowledge. We must turn the brain drain of yesterday into today’s brain gain – it’s not impossible.
The first step we must take is to build a compelling and inclusive vision of a better future. This must be a collaborative effort. Then we must leave it to our technocrats and professionals all over the world to tell us how. I would rather we spend time doing that now than waste our energy in useless politicking that does not deliver a single iota of value.
Our own savings
We must no longer think of primary product but must think of manufacturing things and value adding in both agriculture and mining as the core drivers of economic reinvention. We must think of industrial hubs underpinned by free enterprise and economic freedom. We must think of servicing Africa as our primary market and forget this idea that Africa can rise only to the benefit of countries such as China. We must think of regional integration in our infrastructure, ICT and energy sectors.
We have to target the growing African middle-class with high end products and not only expect these to be imports from Asia. This requires that our investment policies must be inward looking and we must rely less on FDI and the IMF as drivers of our economic growth. We also need to grow a local vibrant business sector fuelled by our own savings. Entrepreneurship, innovation and risk-taking with new ways of creating access to capital are therefore key.
For our nation to truly grow to its full potential it only needs us to change our attitude that government is not the driver of growth. Government is a net cost to society and the rapid growth that we need cannot be driven by bureaucrats or politicians, but by entrepreneurs, technicians and dreamers.
– Vince Musewe is an economist and author based in Harare. You can contact him at vtmusewe@gmail.com