Tendai Ruben Mbofana
There is a deeply uncomfortable, almost taboo question that continues to haunt the conscience of many thoughtful Zimbabweans.
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Yet it is one we routinely prefer to bury under convenient political rhetoric.
Did Ian Douglas Smith and his colonial regime love this country more than those governing independent Zimbabwe today?
To ask this is not to pine for the indignities of racial segregation or to absolve a minority administration of its obvious systemic injustices.
We constantly look back and measure today against our colonial past because the post-independence regime came into power on the back of removing that very system.
They fought a protracted liberation war, in which thousands lost their lives, and pledged a vastly better, more just life for ordinary Zimbabweans.
It is only logical, then, that the question inevitably returns: have those promises been fulfilled?
It is, rather, an exercise in brutal self-examination.
When we look at the physical and economic scaffolding of Rhodesia, we see a nation engineered with extraordinary precision and long-term vision.
Despite facing comprehensive United Nations sanctions and international isolation, the colonial state built an industrial powerhouse.
It established a diversified manufacturing base, developed sophisticated mining operations, and forged an agricultural sector so robust it earned the country the title of the breadbasket of Africa.
The Rhodesian dollar remained strong, infrastructure was maintained meticulously, and power grids, rail networks, and healthcare facilities—even within their segregated limits—were built to function with seamless efficiency.
Corruption under that regime was strictly controlled, bound by rigorous bureaucratic oversight and a fanatical commitment to state preservation.
When Smith famously resisted black majority rule, claiming he was defending “Western civilization” and preventing a decay in standards, his rhetoric was rightly condemned as racist paternalism.
Yet, looking at the trajectory of our nation over the past four decades, a painful question arises.
Was his deep-seated fear that native rule would lead to catastrophic regression entirely unfounded, or have our own actions served to validate his worst predictions?
The contrast presented by independent Zimbabwe is as stark as it is tragic.
Where the colonial administration built, the post-independence ruling class has systematically dismantled.
Where there was once a thriving formal economy delivering stable salaries and structured employment, we now witness a landscape of total economic devastation.
Approximately 90 percent of our population lives in poverty, and 85 percent of all employment has been forced into informal trade.
Millions of educated, hardworking citizens have been reduced to street vending, surviving hand-to-mouth on the dusty pavement while selling cheap imported trinkets just to afford a single meal.
Public services have experienced a total collapse.
Our public healthcare system is a tragedy where hospitals lack basic painkillers, clean water, and functional equipment, leaving the poor to die preventable deaths while the ruling elite fly abroad for medical treatment.
Our once-enviable education system is starved of resources, and our infrastructure—our roads, water systems, and power grids—is crumbling into complete irrepairable decay.
Worse still is the rampant, unbridled corruption that defines modern Zimbabwe.
While the colonial state managed resources to build a nation for its favored few, the post-independence state is plundered to enrich a politically connected handful.
The country loses over $4 billion every single year to gold smuggling and illicit financial flows.
Every single day, flamboyant “tenderpreneurs” throw around millions in cash and flaunt luxury cars on social media.
We watch in helpless indignation as they parade this unearned wealth, despite possessing no identifiable commercial, agricultural, or industrial enterprise.
This is not national development; it is organized lootery.
Is it not deeply embarrassing that those we denounced as foreign colonizers—many of whom, like Smith, were actually second or third-generation sons of the soil—built a functional, self-sustaining nation, while we, the self-proclaimed liberators, have reduced it to a welfare case?
Does our relentless destruction of our own country not suggest that the colonial regime cared more for its survival than its current rulers do?
The most painful realization of all is that our post-independence failure threatens to rewrite history.
By destroying what was handed to us, we inadvertently provide moral justification to the very racist policies used to deny us self-determination.
Every time a hospital runs out of water, every time a power grid collapses, and every time billions are smuggled out of the country by political elites, we play directly into the colonial script.
We are proving our former oppressors right—and that is the ultimate betrayal of our liberation struggle.
- Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to contact him on +263715667700 or mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com