By Patrick Guramatunhu- “Zimbabwe did not become a failed state overnight. The collapse of the country happened over a period of decades, starting as early as the 1980s,” wrote Malaika Mahlatsi in an article circulating in my social media group.
“Scholars like Llyod Sachikonye go further to argue that the collapse began during the liberation war (the Second Chimurenga) with the institutionalisation of violence within national liberation movements. In his book, WHEN THE STATE TURNS ON ITS CITIZENS, he argues that the structural violence that characterises Zimbabwe today, and which is responsible for the catastrophic challenges that the country is confronted with, was institutionalised as far back as the 1970s. He argues that this violence, and the impunity with which it was meted out, facilitated the Zimbabwe of a ZANU PF that reigns with a margin of terror.”
There is evidence to support Sachikonye’s assessment.
During the fight to end British rule in India, Mahatma Gandhi and his fellow Indian nationalists were constantly bombarded by demands to escalate the struggle from the none-violence to an all-out armed struggle. “What kind of leaders would the armed struggle throw up?” Gandhi argued. “Would these be the men and women we would like to rule independent India?”
I think we, in Zimbabwe have given the answers to the two rhetorical questions Gandhi asked. In Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies, our war of independence, did throw up leaders who were tough enough to end white colonial rule in double quick time but at a great cost. The Zanu PF nationalists removed the white oppressors but only to install themselves as the new oppressors.
Yesteryear’s liberators have become today’s oppressors; a recurring theme in many independent African nations and human history.
Still, not all armed struggles have thrown up tyrants. South Africa, our next door neighbour waged an armed struggle to end apartheid and their struggle throw up visionary leaders like Nelson Mandela.
We in Zimbabwe certainly started our independence on the wrong foot in having corrupt, incompetent and murderous Zanu PF thugs, who did not have care about freedom, justice and human dignity of others and certainly had none of the visionary leadership qualities. 42 years after independence is reasonable time for us to have ended the Zanu PF dictatorship, especially given the depths of depravity and despair the regime has dragged us into.
Yes Zimbabwe’s war of independence did throw up corrupt and power hungry thugs; the worst that Gandhi and his fellow Indian nationalists could have imagined possible! So instead of the nation having to grapple with the post-independence challenges of making self-rule a success, Zimbabweans had to wrestle power, freedom and human dignity from the Zanu PF thugs first. Why has that process taken 42 years and counting?
“One day, when the collapse of South Africa becomes absolute, and we can no longer conceal that we are in fact a sophisticated failed state, we are going to reflect, like Sachikonye did, not on where we fell but on where we stumbled. And one of the emerging themes of our collective reflection is going to be that the country began its descent when we stopped fighting for our most basic human rights when the ANC led government was trampling on them,” was Mahlatsi’s explanation.
“It starts with things like actually accepting loadshedding as a fact of our lives and organising our existence around it. We have become very dangerously accepting of misgovernance in our country. We have become people who have a plan B for everything – exactly like Zimbabweans.
“They have no hospital equipment, they will simply buy drips at a pharmacy and take them to hospital with them. Zimbabweans are serial plan B people.”
If Zimbabweans’ so-called plan B was a viable solution, worthy of the name plan B, then Zimbabwe would not be a failed state characterised by millions living in abject poverty. How many Zimbabweans can afford the drip and the health care services has all but collapse, there are qualified staff to fit the drip?
Zimbabweans have resigned themselves to sinking deeper and deeper into poverty hopelessness and despair. As we speak, millions of Zimbabweans sitting twiddling their thumbs in the dark, Zimbabwe’s power cuts are 20 hours a day officially but for povo it is 20 days or more. They can’t sleep because they are hungry. Hunger and disease are no strangers in their homes, the dogs have stopped barking at them and the two imposers walk straight in without bothering about the usual formalities of knocking.
“Zimbabweans are serial plan B people!” Yeah right! Laying in the dark twiddling one thumbs and cannot even hear themselves think because of the rambling stomach is not exactly the image of one with a plan B, C or Z. But rather that on one at their wit’s end!
That’s right, Zimbabwe is a failed state because we have become a nation of people with no plan A, B, etc. A nation of people who cannot think. There, I have said it! Some one has to tell this nation some home truths we don’t want to hear!
No one can stop someone else thinking. And the contrary is equally true, no one can force someone else to think.
It is infinitely easier, to force the proverbial horse to drink than to force someone else to drink from the spring of knowledge, the prerequisite for rational thinking as contrast to noise from those devoid of common sense much less wisdom. You can lead some people to the Pierian spring, but you cannot make them to drink!!
Thinking is a mental process just as walking or talking is a physical process. The more the brain is exercised the better it will be at computing information and coming up with rational thoughts, plan A and B. The failure exercise brain will turn brain tissue into fat.
Zimbabwe is a failed state because we, Zimbabweans have again and again failed to grapple with the many challenges of life particularly the challenge of self-government brought about by independence. It is now 42 years after our independence and we are still failing to deliver something as basic as holding free, fair and credible elections because we have no clue what constitute free elections, in this day and space age!
At the heart of Zimbabwe’s failed state is our failure to hold free, fair and credible elections. The nation is stuck with this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship because the regime has rigged elections to stay in power denying the people a meaningful say in the governance of the country.
There is no excuse why Zimbabweans have failed to implement the democratic reforms necessary to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections for the last 42 years and counting. The nation had the golden opportunity to implement the reforms during the 2008 to 2013 GNU and the chances were wasted.
MDC, who were tasked to implement the reforms failed to implement even one reform. Worse still, many Zimbabweans had no clue what the GNU was about, even now with the benefit of hindsight, and hence their failure to realise that MDC leaders sold out by failing to implement the reforms.
Indeed, MDC leaders now calling themselves CCC, continue to sell out by participating in flawed and illegal elections just to give Zanu PF legitimacy. And the people, in the blind ignorance continue to follow CCC like sheep to the slaughter!
Yes, the worsen economic crisis in Zimbabwe, the many nights spent in the dark listening to their rambling stomach, has left many Zimbabweans desperate for change. Many of them are participating in these elections oblivious of the reality doing so only gives Zanu PF legitimacy and thus perpetuate the dictatorship. Desperate people do desperate things. And it is most unkind, to say the least, to call this insanity plan B!
Mankind is a creature of rational think, those who have embraced, nurtured and cherished this talent have prospered and ripped a thousand-fold. Whilst those who would not think at all have blundered from pillar to post, repeating the same mistakes and paying dearly for it.
Zimbabwe is a failed state, a pariah state, ruled by corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous Zanu PF thugs; aided and abetted by the coterie of equally corrupt, incompetent and utterly use opposition sell-outs because, we the people, have allowed them rule. We have failed to remove these thugs from power because we have discarded our thinking caps.
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