Everybody’s
business is never done since no one person is everybody and we each expect
everybody else and not us to carry out the task(s). Nowhere is this more true
that in politics; everybody is expected to how the political leaders to account
but in Zimbabwe very few people ever do this.
In the
early 1990s the Zanu PF regime adopted the IMF and WB sponsored Economic
Structural Adjustment Programmes (ESAP) which marked the end of the regime’s
free spending, at least on the masses. The regime started to implement savage
cuts in such areas as health and educations triggering the yearly student
demonstrations of the time. It was during this time that I met a mother who had
a son at UZ and objected strongly to these UZ student demos.
She accepted
the two main points behind the student demos; one, that cutting education
funding would reduce the quality of education and the make it inaccessible to
the poorer families. Two, that the regime was cutting education funding and
other soft-targets areas but doing nothing to end the waste is the bloated
cabinet and army, for example. The crux of her objections to student demos was
simple as well as it was selfish she did not wanted the demos disrupting her
son’s studies.
“Peter
will be the first University graduate in the family,” she argued with finality.
No one
could deny that the demos were disrupting the students’ studies and, yes a
number were always expelled for taking part in the demos. But, if the common
good of a quality education for all was to be defended against a corrupt and
indifferent regime that does not care, society must accept there would be risks
and that someone has to stand up and be counted.
If our
commitment to the common good is to be tampered with selfish consideration then
this is everybody’s business that will never be done. If the truth be told, every
year there is bound to be some students who will be “the first University graduates
in the family”.
It was
clear that Peter was “not interested in student politics” as he called it. He
had at one of the few very high fee paying Colleges, which where the haunt of
white students. The students played rugby and cricket and not football and
Peter had toured Europe playing rugby in his last two senior years.
He
spoke with a pronounced British accent; speaking through his nose than mouth
hence the reason people like him were called the “Nose brigade!” He paid dearly
for his complete lack of interest in what was going on at the University.
One
day, wearing his trade mark NYC base-ball cap with earphone plugged in his
ears, he blundered into the Riot Police. Instead of turning back and find
another route he had ploughed on confident the Riot Police would see he was a cut
above the other students. After all he was a Minister’s son!
The
only thing the Riot Police noticed with great interest was that Peter was defenceless,
those cowardly Riot Police are like the cowardly hyena whose attack instinct is
roused the more defenceless the victim happen to be. The Riot Police were all
over Peter like army ants attaching a scorpion.
Fearing
for his life, Peter forgot his “nosing” and cried out for help in Shona with a
distinctly “strong rural African accent”, according to the students who heard
him and rescued him.
Sadly
the student lost the battle to stop Zanu PF cutting education funding and
compromised the quality of education. Today Zimbabwe produces 50 000 plus
University graduates every year, Mugabe caps them all himself as he is the
Chancellor of all Universities in the country, 20 or so. The quality is so poor
some graduates have honours degrees but do not know what a verb is. No wonder
Zanu PF Chefs have been sending their children to SA, UK, USA, Far East, etc.
for their University studies, they know the degree awarded locally is not worth
the paper it is written on.
The
nation has paid its heaviest price for failing to stop the Zanu PF gravy train;
36 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption has taken its toll as
today the economy lies in ruins, millions are out of work, basic services like
health have all but collapsed, etc. To make matters worse, the country is facing
a serious drought, unlike in the past, its silos are starting on empty.
The
international community which has stepped in to help feed the nation, has its
work cut out with the raging war in Syria, Yemen and other hotspots. Besides
with stories of how Mugabe is pocketing $2 billion a years from all the looting
and plunder going on in Marange and Chiadzwa; donors are loathed to help a
country so rich and yet so wasteful.
Before
donors will step in to help they want to see Zimbabweans to take the business
of stopping Zanu PF corruption and waste with the seriousness and urgency the
matter demands. Instead of expecting others to step on the plate and fight to
end Zanu PF corruption, vote rigging, etc. Zimbabweans should be asking
themselves what they can do help in the fight.
Individuals
like Itai Dzamara did not wait for other to tell Mugabe he has failed and must
go. He wrote the protest letter and delivered it to Mugabe. Only a handful of
friends who stood by him but that did not deter them. Few people even bother to
give him and his friend a word of encouragement even with their identity hidden
in the ether of the internet.
On 9
March 2016, it will be a full year since Itai Dzamara was kidnapped by the Zanu
PF regime to silence him. Itai was saying things that we should all have been
saying but did not have the guts to speak. There will be many gatherings to
remember Itai and what he stood for it is high time Zimbabweans from all walks
of life stood, as Itai did, and demand an end to this criminal waste of human
and material resource by this corrupt and tyrannical Mugabe regime.
Join the
Dzamara commemoration to protest the regime’s failure to have drugs in our
hospitals now when you still have the energy to do so because when you are sick
and dying for lack of the medicine, it will be too late.
If by
his death, Itai Dzamara has spurred Zimbabweans to realize that public affairs
and good governance are everybody’s business and we constitute everybody and
must make our contribution with all our heart, soul and sinew then his death
would not have been in vain!
It is difficult to hold those in power to account but as a nation we must also realize that diffi-cult as it is still this is such an important task that must be carried out. We should not be look-ing to others to do the work but to do it ourselves.
ReplyDeleteWe must have the spirit of the Netherland boy who saw the leak in the dike and knew that if the leak was not plugged immediately the whole dike would break sending a torrent a water that would destroy fields and homes, animals and humans. He plugged the hole with the only thing he had handy, his finger and kept his vigil until he was found and the leak repaired.
We are drowning in this nightmare of one man-made disaster after another because the last 36 years we have done nothing to stop Mugabe overrun the nation and destroy our economy, our pride, hopes and dreams and even human lives. We are all the victims of this corrupt, in-competent and murderous tyrannical Zanu PF regime we, by doing nothing to stop it, helped create. We must now ask ourselves "What can I do to end this madness?" Go out there and do it!
I believe Itai Dzamara and his handful of friends have made a difference; the regime was forced to sit up and listen. How much of a difference would one hundred, a thousand, a hun-dred thousand people demanding regime change, make? The regime cannot kidnap all one hundred of them, especially when it knows there will be a thousand coming to take their place. The regime will have no option but to accept change and finally end this madness.
Yes, Zimbabweans owe it to Itai Dzamara to stand up and take up the fight for justice where he left off. We failed to support him when he stood alone in Africa Square fighting for our common good; the least we can do now is finish the work he started.
Some people have argued that we gained our independence too soon before the people had the confidence to treat those in power as their equal much less their servants, there to serve them and to be voted out of office if they fail to perform. The way the politicians treat the people it is fair to say the leaders hold the people to account. So yes, it has been difficult for the people to hold the leaders to account.
DeleteThe reality is whether we were ready for independence or not we attained our independence in 1980, the gene is out of the bottle there is no putting it back. We must make self-government work or more and more of our people will suffer and many have died but even more will die un-necessarily!
We must quickly learn public duties like holding leaders to account is everybody's business and that everybody includes us, we must step up the plate and do our bit without having to wait to be prompted or for someone else to do it for us! The price of waiting for others to do the difficult tasks is that they are left undone and we all pay.
Surely it is better to carryout the difficult task and save oneself from torment and anguish we are facing today than to save oneself from the day's toil but only to regret it the rest of one's days and die the thousand deaths of the coward.
It is sad but true that Zimbabweans have tended to view public duty as something others and not them should do and hence the reason why more often than not no one has done anything.
ReplyDeleteI remember the hassle one had to put up with each time one got on those rural buses. If one was going to a place where there were more than one bus operator then one risked being dragged into one bus whilst you luggage was loaded on another bus. Most people, especially women who did not have the strength to hang on to their bags found the whole experience real stressful.
None of the men around or the bus operators ever stepped in to stop the bullying and that em-boldened the young bus loaders. It never occurred to these men that tomorrow the poor woman being dragged around could well be their own mother!
When it comes to politics our attitude is even worse, we have accepted that politics is a dirty game and so all those who dare to get involved have only themselves to blame if they are beat-en, raped or worse. It is no wonder politics have become the career of choice of all the bullies, thugs, and gangsters all lazy and good-for-nothing. By failing to clean up our politics we have encourage vipers to be politicians. By stepping aside and saying nothing we have made politics a real dirty game in which we are the victims in having corrupt leaders and then being frog match to attend rallies, etc.
Is it a wonder the country is now in a real mess what else after 36 years of murderous thugs at the helm!
Yes people get the government they deserve and, sure as hell, we deserve this one complete with all the tragic suffering and deaths it has brought. If we are tired of it then we, not someone else from Europe or America, will have to stand up to these thugs and reclaim our freedom, right to a free vote, etc.
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DeletePeople are masters of their destiny, what that destiny is to be is up to the individual person or nation to define by what they say, do or fail to do! Zimbabwe all she needed to be a success and prosperous nation where all her people enjoyed freedom and lived in dignity with pride. Instead corruption and tyranny fueled by insatiable greed for power and wealth has turned the whole country into a failed state, a land of great suffering and death. It should not be so and yet it is so!
DeleteWhat makes our situation so, so tragic is that we gave up our freedoms, human rights and, most important of all, the very essence of our humanity - our ability to think for ourselves - without a fight. Mugabe robbed us all these things to gratify his greed and we allowed him to as if it was his God given right to be a corrupt and murderous tyrant! Only people who have given up their ability to think and reason can ever be so subservient and resigned!
The fight for free, fair and credible elections is the foundation on which good and competent government is built and after 36 ruinous years of corrupt and tyrannical government this nation is dying for a competent government. This is therefore one fight this nation cannot afford to lose; we must win this fight at all cost!
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