By Wilbert Mukori- “Blacks are incapable of self government!” said John.
Bang! Came the explosive response from Chengetai.
John was a white student from St. Georges College. Chengetai and myself were black students from St Ignatius College. The two Colleges were ran by Jesuits priests and it was common for students from St Ignatius to visit the former to take advantage of its better facilities.
The year was 1976, at the height of the liberations war. Racial tension was high. Ian Smith’s white racist regime, had inflamed the blacks by passing a law compelling blacks students and other trainees to undergo military training and fight on the whites’ side in the ensuing civil war.
John’s racist remark was nothing new, if we, blacks, had heard it once we had heard it a thousand times!
Chengetai’s explosive response had taken us all by complete surprise; he hit the desk so hard, the message was loud and clear John had traded on his toes and only a fool will dare to that ever again.
Those of us who knew Chengetai well even more surprised. In all the years, I do not recall him ever raising his voice in anger at anyone. Talk of being calm, here was a vast expense of water the size of Kariba Dam and not a ripple! Out of this sheet of glass still came the twenty metres high Tsunami wave!
“I was not angry with John because he is a racist,” explained Chengetai, some months later. “His racist remark, devoid of truth, would have been water off a duck’s back.
“John’s remark was loaded. He forced me to face my deepest fears. I was very angry with myself and not with John.”
Zimbabwe used to produce enough food to feed her own people and have plenty left to be the breadbasket of the region. Ever since Mugabe seized the white owned farms to give to his cronies, mostly, the country has relied on food aid.
We are starving in a country that is, for all practical purposes, the Biblical Garden of Eden. A damning testimonial of the black majority rule!
It is no exaggeration to say the last four decades Zimbabwe has blundered from pillar to post as the country sunk deeper and deeper into this man-made hell-on-earth. It is not so much that Zimbabwe has made mistakes, it is bad enough to make mistakes, but worst of all the country has made the same foolish mistakes over and over again.
Zimbabwe has been stuck with the same corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF thugs for the last four decades. The party has systematically denied the people their basic freedoms and rights including the right to a free vote and even the right to life. The nation has had countless opportunities to end the Zanu PF curse of rigging elections and bad governance but has wasted them all.
Zanu PF blatantly rigged the July 2018 elections. The regime denied 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora the vote, this was more than the 2.4 million Mnangagwa says he garnered to win.
The regime failed to produce something as basic as a verified voters’ roll, Pete’s sake! And yet many Zimbabweans, led by the country’s corrupt and incompetent opposition, have endorsed the election result and Zanu PF as legitimate.
If the people, in this day and age and with all the benefit of four decades of hindsight, have no clue what constitutes free, fair and credible election then they surely deserved rigged elections and bad government. And in this corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous Zanu PF dictatorship, Zimbabwe has one of the worst government in modern history.
The reality of the total economic meltdown that has left millions of Zimbabweans into abject poverty, the blatant vote rigging of the elections by Zanu PF, etc. have proven white racist like John were right that blacks are incapable of self-rule. But what clinches the case for me, is the water off a duck’s back reaction of most Zimbabweans to these economic and political realities.
Chengetai did foresee the bad governance and still he is disappointed to see the nation sink this deep into hopelessness and despair. He would be furious that Zimbabweans have buried their heads in the sand and would not face up to the realities of their own shortcomings. That, even now with the country desperate to end the curse of rigged elections and bad governance, the people would still participating in an election without something as basic as a voters’ roll! It is not rocket science!
“The essence of good governance is self-criticism!” Chengetai said, back in 1976. It is only now that the penny has dropped.
Zimbabwe is in a serious economic and political mess and to get out of the mess, the country needs to end the curse of rigged elections and bad governance. May 2020 be the year Zimbabweans took a hard long look at themselves and admitted their own serious shortsightedness and folly. May 2020 be the year of introspection!