Zimbabwe: Crisis and Opportunity
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...By JIRIHANGA MUGADZAWETA
Published: July 19, 2010
If you are in your normal faculties, you will agree with me that our country is the throes of a manmade crisis. A stopgap government foisted upon us by Mbeki, more than half of the active workforce abroad, no local currency, a derelict central bank, crumbling infrastructure and the list goes on. All the indications around Zimbabwe are those of a true failed state but the hope is that for nations unlike human beings, there is life after death. The crisis that we are in at the present moment might be a blessing in disguise as it may present us with the opportunity to fix our national ills once and for all.
The current crisis in Zimbabwe might be well known but need elaboration. Elaboration because the causes thereof are often disputed the same as are their possible consequences. I shall explain. Most people are made to believe that the crisis in our midst was caused by the MDC with its western sponsors wanting to effect regime change in Harare. In our usual gullible selves, we swallow the propaganda hook, line and sinker – shame! The crisis might have already appeared in bolder relief in 2000, but the signs and symptoms had begun showing as early as 1980 with the populace either too loyal or ignorant to see, feel and act decisively.
The events that led to the current crisis are quite conspicuous for those with long memory and long sight. It may be a burden to have a long memory but it helps when recalling the most important events of the past. Contrary to the lies routinely churned out by the Zanu propaganda machinery, the country’s crisis has its roots in the very actions of the misguided rag-tag party. Contrary to their emblem, Unity, Peace, Development, the party has ironically done the very opposite of that at list for the country. Added to that, it has made sure that our country’s resources are deployed towards closing whatever democratic space there appears to be despite claiming to be the champions of it.
Zanu was not formed from nowhere. It was a splinter of the nationwide Zapu and was to all intents and purposes, a tribal party formed by those who thought that it was improper to be led by someone from Matabeleland. Such divisive mentality reared its ugly head when it mattered most, at independence. After the bloody and controversial election of 1980, Mugabe was determined to delete Nkomo and his entire support base. The infamous Gukurahundi was launched under the thinly veiled guise of fighting dissidents in Matabeleland. It came and went in its wake leaving 30,000 dead. The episode sow bitter seeds of tribalism with subsequent elections in Matabeleland turning out to be a mere census as the populace voted en masse for just anyone but Mugabe. This created a gulf that has to be diplomatically filled by any subsequent leader regardless of the ticket on which they ride to the State House.
Zimbabweans have never been united ever since independence. Mugabe has been continuously annexing other parties and tribes to his Zanu and Zezuru as if he has a divine mandate to do so. Nkomo and his Zapu were swallowed in 1987 only to reappear in a rag-tag shape in 2009. The same is being tried of Tsvangirai’s MDC though it has proved to be an irresistible force. It is this latter trait of the MDC that has aggravated our vicissitudes as Zanu is proving an immovable object.
And peace! Oh it all depends on what one calls peace. Some define it as a condition of calm. That is the layman’s definition. A maxim originating from World War I goes as “during the time of war, the first victim is the truth”. By the very same token, dispensing with truth under Zanu ruler ship has been a taboo. A number of Mugabe’s adversaries within Zanu died during and after the liberation struggle without a valid explanation provided, the Rwavhi has not taken responsibility for Gukurahundi… and the list is endless. And you term that peace? How about the incessant terror against opposition members since 2000, peace?
On the development front, I am only aware of the Mhlahlandlela Building and Work-in-Progress Nust in Bulawayo, Karigamombe Centre and the Reserve in Harare. That is only what is there to show for a whooping 30 years in power! The sixty-four million dollar question is where on earth did all the donations from western governments and all the successive budgets gone. One would then be correct in assuming that all those monies translated into the ministers’ pocket money, perpetual thank you for their selfless contribution during the armed struggle?
What we have in our midst is a crisis of core values that is being wrongly viewed as conspiracy from the western to unseat a people’s government. When Mugabe was engaging in his self-succession gambit discrediting Nkomo, levying treason charges against Ndabaningi Sithole and engaging in a useless war in the DRC, he had a sea of support from Zimbos as their hero especially those from the Mashonaland region. His bootlickers still wonder there is anything wrong within him being a permanent feature on our political arena. They contend that he sacrifice a lot during the war of freedom to merit sitting tight on the throne of power. That is their own version of democracy. But there are legion others like me who are of the belief that a modern nation-state cannot be run along the line of a feudal emirate of classical antiquity.
This is precisely how a crisis of core values can snowball into a constitutional crisis. It is a collision of altars; a clash of competing and mutually antagonistic civilizations. At the synchronic level of human existence competing civilization can, and do exist side by side. But the diachronic logic of human development also suggests that emergent civilizations are invariably superior to others in terms of rationality and capacity-building potentials. Whereas the feudal fiefdom is an advance on the state of nature, the nation-sate, with its vibrant and politically empowered citizens, is superior social organization to both.
From the current acute crisis that the country finds itself requires us to seriously ponder and permanently fix the following fissures that appeared in bold relief during Rwavhi’s three decades of misrule:
· devolution of power to the regions. I need to confess that I was and I am still a skeptic of the idea. However, I am not Zimbabwe and as a democrat, I do take full reckon of other people’s views. The notion prominently emanates from the long downtrodden fellows from Matabeleland. Who on earth can blame a people who have been systematically removed from the country’s central themes for such a long time? Additionally, it is always ideal that government action be grounded in the areas that development should take place not the other way round. Who has forgotten that the MZWP originated from the Zanu government and up to now it has not yielded a drop of water to the residents of Bulawayo.
· a vibrant and robust constitution. One wonders whether the current disputed process is capable of producing such a constitution. Since the constitution is nothing than a piece of paper, responsible leaders will be needed that respect the paper and robust institutions should exist to uphold and safeguard it against abuse. Rwavhi’s protégé in Namibia Nujoma had no respect of a similar paper and tailored it to give him five more years at the helm. The same can happen to us in future even with the most progressive of constitutions. In addition an independent judiciary and an impartial police force are a necessity. This will ensure that hooligans are arrested for their crimes and not for political affiliation and accordingly punished. A vibrant private media is also needed to expose abuses of power and the looting of state resources.
· holding current perpetrators of loot and murders accountable. Without “retribution” for crimes against humanity currently perpetrated, who can guarantee that such are not repeated in future? The crimes are being committed by sane individuals who are quite aware that their actions are evil and illegal but continue because they know that they are cushioned against arrest. Oh dear!
· transparency of public officials with public funds. Funds allocated to municipalities and ministries should be thoroughly audited by independent auditors with opinions thereon made public and swindlers of public funds severely punished.
Without at least these measures in place, it will be a-loot-a-continua the Zanu style as there will be no checks on public officials. In the light of this, there are many Zimbos, myself included who are of the opinion that the country should use the opportunity presented by the current crisis and impasse to engineer a fundamental and visionary reconstruction of the nation along the aspirations of a truly modern and rational nation-state. Crisis are not just an opportunity for destruction, they are also an opportunity for visionary recreation. If it is a con-federal or genuinely federal arrangement that suits the current chaotic tinderbox until core values are harmonized, so be it. The alternative appears to be an apocalyptic showdown between contending forces which may consume the entire SADC region.
The formation of ZANU in 1963 was not necessarily inspired by tribal considerations. Its formation was a response to Nkomo’s refusal to revive ZAPU in spite of its banning by Ian Smith.The colinial government was in the habit of banning and suspending African political organizations such as ANC and NDP. When Nkomo refused to defy the colonial government but reviving the existence of ZAPU and had spent a long time deciding something else to do, ZANU was formed by Shonas with a few “Ndebeles”. The plitical and economic crisis in Zimbabwe today is primarily a by-product of ZANU’s decision to maintain and continue colonial plantation capitalism in which the ZANU rulers and their ZAPU supporters have decided to be financially corrupt and politcally undemocratic to perpetuate their goals to have separate banking accounts outside the country..both the vast majorities of Shonas and “Ndebeles” are made to pay a very high price economically and politically by the ZANU excessive economic and political corruption and abuse. Joshua Nkomo and his ZAPU party after “independence” was not above economic and political corruption. The colonial government was as economic and politically corrupt but their corruption victimized only 99% of the African population and benefitted all white people. ZANU’s economic and political corruption and abuse victimize 99.9% of the African people and benefits only ZANU political leaders and their crnies.
Surrender independence to South Africa and let them take over.