“If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;”
advised the poet Rudyard Kipling.
In Vince Musewe we have an example of someone who has made
his dream of a free, just and prosperous Zimbabwe, a utopia, his master. In his
latest article, he has come up with “ten keys to prosperity which will allow us
to transform Zimbabwe from a predatory exclusive state into a prosperous
inclusive developmental state”. Not even one of those “keys” work!
What is worrying about Musewe is that he is brainwashing many
of our people into believing his cloud-cuckoo-land is real. So instead of
looking for the real solutions to the nation’s real problems people are wasting
time resources chasing a mirage; that is what makes making dreams one’s master
so dangerous!
Take Vince’s first key to prosperity: “Leadership renewal and
accountability”. Zimbabwe has been stuck with this incompetent, corrupt and
tyrannical Zanu PF regime and therefore leadership renewal and accountability
are really important issues.
“We hold ourselves accountable to each other as citizens with
a common purpose and the responsibility to create a better Zimbabwe,” advised
our dreamer.
“We believe in principle centred leadership that is
accountable and sensitive to the ever changing needs of society. We also
believe in periodic leadership renewal to avoid the entrenchment of any
individuals in leadership positions.
“We therefore require utmost integrity, honesty and delivery
from our leaders both in the public and private sectors and all those who shape
our society.”
We are stuck with Mugabe and Zanu PF dictatorship; they have
absolute power and they believe in harassing the people, beat, rape, rigging
the vote and even murdering the people to establish and retain a de facto
one-party dictatorship. They have absolute power and they do not in
accountability, periodic leadership renewal; this is the reality.
We can repeat “We hold ourselves accountable to each other
blah, blaahh, blaaahhhh” over and over again
like boy-scout repeating the scout’s honour; that is not going to change the
reality on the ground and makes this so. We have an incompetent, corrupt and
murderous tyrant who has attached himself to State House like a binnacle to a
rock; pretending we have a democrat will not remove the binnacle!
We have sunk this deep in the economic abyss; unemployment
has soared to 90% plus, millions of our people are now living in abject
poverty, etc.; because for the last 36 years we have buried our heads in the
sand by denying that we have a serious problem of bad governance. When we have
suffered enough from the worsening economic meltdown and the political chaos we
will finally open our eyes and distinguish reality from the utopia dream; the
situation is set to get even worse until we open our eyes. When we have finally
learnt the real problems we will finally be ready to listen to real solutions!
We have an incompetent, corrupt and tyrannical dictatorship; that
is the real problem. And the solution is to dismantle the dictatorship by
implementing a raft of democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 GPA. We have known
this throughout the GNU years but have lacked the political will to have it
done!
“If you can fill the
unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and
everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!”
Advised the poet,
Kipling!
Zimbabwe is a great
country; a Garden of Eden in terms of good weather and rich farm lands, rich in
diamonds and other mineral wealth, etc. but cursed in having very poor human resources,
especially the political leaders. We have more than our fair share of corrupt
and incompetent politicians plus a whole coterie of totally useless daydreamers
who have made their utopia dreams their lords and masters.
Mr Kipling, Zimbabwe
is ours but irony of ironies; we are starving in the Garden of Eden!
@ Mbanje
ReplyDeleteI too have read Vince Musewe's article and failed to see how his proposals solve anything. Please explain to me how he is going to get Zanu PF to give up political power so he can implement his sound economic policies?
Musewe is just wasting people's time asking them to focus on economic reforms because unless we have political reform first there will be no meaningful economic reform. Musewe has no intention of forcing Zanu PF to accept democratic change, he has said so himself a thousand times; he is selling the nation the false hope of economic prosperity without political reform. Just because you want to belief in this falsehood you should not try to force others to do the same.
Musewe is not offering us a way out but the exact opposite, he is leading us down a dead end!
@ Wilbert
ReplyDeleteOur friend insist Musewe is offering a plan B and yet he/she cannot explain what that plan is!
We have a corrupt and oppressive tyrannical dictatorship and Musewe thinks we can have good governance and yet still allow the dictatorship to retain its strangle hold on society.
We are in this hell-hole because we have a corrupt and tyrannical dictatorship whose misrule has dragged us into the hole. As long as the dictatorship continues to have strangle-hold on the nation we will never get out of this hell. The uphill challenge here is to end the dictator-ship by demanding the implementation of the reforms. The downhill temptation is to appease the dictator and his cronies, allow them to continue to do as they please and meanwhile de-lude oneself by believing the country can still have good governance even under the dictator-ship!
To Mbanje and many others like him/her, the only solution that is acceptable them is the easy downhill route; the hard work uphill route is completely out of the question. When you are in a hole, we are in a hell-hole here, it follows as day follows night that to get out of the hole you have to take the uphill path; the downhill path will only take you even deeper into the hole.
People like Mbanje have grudgingly accepted that implementing the GPA reforms is a way out; they have decided to call that plan A. They are out looking for plan B and C which will not involve the uphill task of implementing the reforms; they are determined to find a down-hill path out of the hole! They are just a confused lot.
Any downhill path is going to take you deeper into the hole and therefore it is the wrong way and thus cannot be an alternative route of plan B. The choice here is to follow a spiral route, long but with gentle slope; or take the short route but with very steep slopes; and when there is no choice, as often happens in life, bite the bullet and carry on the best way you can. None of these routes are easy downhill routes because there are no downhill routes out of a hole. Anyone offering a downhill path out of a hole is clearly being deceitful because the concept is an oxymoron!
@ Mbanje
ReplyDeleteThere are five important points here that you need to understand:
1) Zanu PF was forced to sign the GPA in 2008 agreeing to the implementation of the demo-cratic reforms. The only reason not even one reforms was implemented during the GNU is because MDC leaders including the President of Musewe’s PDP, Tendai Biti turned out to be breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent, they sold out; a historic fact that Musewe has refused to acknowledge.
2) The GPA was clear that implementing the reforms was a necessary pre-requisite for free, fair and credible elections. We did not have free, fair and credible elections in 2013 and we are determined to ensure this does not happen again in 2018. And so demanding that we revisit the GPA and implement the reforms is the logical cause of action here. No one in Zanu PF can dispute that not even one reform was implemented because even the crafty Zanu PF machinery cannot produce evidence of proposed reforms, parliamentary debate, etc. than never happened.
3) Forcing Zanu PF to accept revisiting the GPA was never going to be a walk in the park but that is not to say it was impossible. Zanu PF is imploding and the worsening economic melt-down are all putting the regime under pressure to accept that the reality that the only way out of this mess is through political reform.
After 16 years of spiting venom at the IMF, on Wednesday President Mugabe promised to pay the IMF $1.8 billion in outstanding repayments he had until now vowed never to pay back. Years of being cut off financial support have taken their toll and he has decided to pay and be allowed back in the international fold. There is no miracle here; Mugabe is responding to the financial squeeze.
4) Those like Musewe who have accepted that Zanu PF will never ever accept democratic re-forms are forgetting that Zanu PF did in fact accept reform in signing the GPA and, worse still, are lying that we can still prosper and thrive under the dictatorship. It is people like that who have only encouraged President Mugabe and his hardliners to believe they can hold on when in reality they are dragging the whole nation deeper and deeper into the abyss.
5) You have argued that Musewe is presenting plan B and yet have not explained how his wishful thinking will bring about the renewal of leadership he promised. It is natural to seek the easy downhill path but when you are in a hole common sense will tell you the only way out is uphill. One thing is clear, common sense is in fact not common at all; we would not be in this mess if it was!