By Hon. Patrick Zhuwao| On the side-lines of the African Union Summit of 2017, under the theme of Harnessing the Demographic Dividend through Investing in Youth, I started my address to the African Youth Commission, as its inaugural Patron, by presenting
a picture of President Robert Mugabe greeting Junior President Tinaye Mbavare.
I indicated that President Mugabe was then, at 93 years old, seventy-five years
older than his 18 year-old Junior President. That picture represented generational
renewal in a symbolic manner.

Since then that representation of generational renewal has been contrasted by
several conversations that have mistaken ageism for generational renewal. As
Zimbabwe prepares for the 2018 elections that will jettison the illegitimate and
unconstitutional ZANU PF Junta, it is important that we do not mistake the noble
notion of generational renewal with the retrogressive idea of ageism, which
violates the Constitution of Zimbabwe; more specifically section 56(1), the
equality clause, which prohibits discrimination on various grounds including
race, sex and age.

Just the other day, I had a conversation with a friend who claimed that he
sympathises with and would vote for any young person below 50 years of age.
According to him, anyone above fifty years of age is in the same WhatsApp group
of golden oldies who have reached their sell by date in politics. This therefore
meant that he would sympathise with and vote for any murderer, rapist,
paedophile or violent thug, as long as they were below fifty years of age even if
the victim of such crime is his own five-year-old daughter. Conversely, his pro
ageism position would lead him to equate his own 64-year-old mother with
Gukurahindists running the Lacoste Junta, purely on primitive grounds of ageism.
I also had another conversation with a young business fellow who said she would
vote for a young Presidential candidate and would not entertain a candidate who
was a veteran of the liberation struggle. According to her, a veteran of the
liberation struggle must be voted for only by war veterans and young people
should vote for a young candidate below fifty years of age. Whilst I can
understand that this position is largely a reaction to the stockholder and
entitlement mantra of the illegitimate and unconstitutional ZANU PF Junta, I
would urge friends to avoid being drawn into countering such negativities with
equally reprehensible negativities.

Just like entitlement, ageism is a retrogressive social and political negative.
The two conversations that I have highlighted above are indicative of a notion
known as ageism. Ageism is discrimination and stereotyping of persons because
of their age. By its very nature, ageism is like racism and sexism by basing
discrimination based on the respective natural phenomenon of race and sex.
Ageism, racism and sexism do not consider any other contextual factors; they do
not account for ideological factors, they do not interrogate policy issues and they
do not address issues of content. Ageism is content-free, like racism it is ideologyfree,
and like sexism it is also policy-free.

As we prepare for the 2018 elections, we must interrogate where the various
political formations stand on this issue by looking at the ideologies of the various
political parties. The ideological foundations of National Patriotic Front (NPF)
rests on three pillars. One of the three pillars on which NPF’s ideological
foundation rests is the “intergenerational and transformational aspirations of the
people of Zimbabwe”. Critical to that pillar is the demographic reality that 46%
of Zimbabweans are children below 15 years, 31% are youth between 15 and 35
years, and 23% are above 35 years. This pillar institutionalises the concept of
generational renewal in a manner that no other political formation does.
In contrast to NPF, there are some political formations that have taken on board
ageism by focussing on a specific age. Such attempts seek to portray an image of
generational renewal when in fact they are merely displaying ageism. What
makes the matter worse is that these manifestations of ageism are being done for
the manipulative purposes of attracting voters. In other words, they are just an
election gimmick; which is content-free, policy-free and ideology-free.
As Zimbabweans begin to cure the 15 November 2017 coup at the 2018 elections,
it is important that we rise up to display our world reknown reputation of being
one of the world’s well educated populations by making a distinction between the
noble notion of generational renewal and the counterfeit zhing-zhong fraud of
ageism. We are not a people that is content-free, policy-free or ideology-free. We
must remember that the slogan, “Iwe neni tine basa“, that President Mugabe gave
us on 19th November 2017 is for all generations.
Iwe neni tine basa. Umsebenzi loUmkhulu.
Asante Sana