It’s not to say that our family does not have black sheep. Indeed, there have been complete and utter disgraces and failures, but if someone excels, we are proud – and, like any other family, rightly so.
Opinion by Conway Tutani
And so it was last Saturday when Sydney Dalindyebo Mtsambiwa celebrated a milestone birthday, still sprightly after all those years because of clean living.
Sydney, whose maternal grandfather was the third born of my paternal grandfather with my father being the fifteenth and last born, has risen up the corporate ladder to be the managing director at a large, long-established Zimbabwe Stock Exchange-listed firm. Last Saturday, he held a big bash at a swanky restaurant along Enterprise Road in Harare to celebrate the momentous occasion .
Sydney, along with his affable wife Caroline, made the day great. The guest list was comprehensive and complete — ranging from his acquaintances from his childhood in the dusty, but vibrant streets of Harare (now Mbare) and Highfield townships to business colleagues and socialites he now interacts with. This encapsulated the long, focused journey he has travelled.
I have travelled part of that journey with Sydney. He looked after me when I was a newcomer at Fletcher High School in Gweru, then a prestigious, all-boys’ boarding institution This was my first time to be away from home for a prolonged period and I found this hard to handle, descending into bouts of homesickness. But Sydney guided me so that within weeks I had already forgotten about home.
So much for the sentimental journey, but what struck me most last Saturday was the revelation about Sydney and Carol’s unknown, but great side. This gave me the entry point to today’s topic: Self-actualisation does not begin and end on the golf course. The Mtsambiwas have their own biological children, but over the years they have quietly adopted children. They have chosen to take care of people that society has largely forgotten. On Saturday, two of the children – who are now young adults – sang from the heart in gratitude to their adoptive parents.
When people become nestled in luxury with not a single material thing lacking and even the simplest task like placing a phone call being done for them, they begin to see themselves as super beings and others as lesser creatures.
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But when people have their feet firmly on the ground in spite of or despite immense success and wealth, they never lose sight of themselves and others. They are not after self-promotion, but come to understand that most struggling people are not inherently lazy, but have a tough life due to the hostile socio-economic environment. For instance, social safety nets disappeared after the Zimbabwean dollar collapsed four years ago, this having been long preceded by the Aids pandemic which has orphaned many, many children.
One is reminded of billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates of the United States, who until recently was the richest man in the world. His Gates Foundation has committed billions of dollars to health mainly in far-away Africa and Asia. There are no political conditionalities.
This brings me to the next point: People with independent means can spend as they wish. They don’t owe anyone a political favour. They are free to choose the causes they fund.
But the opposite is true for those who use politics to amass wealth. Such people are primarily interested in serving their benefactors or facilitators at the expense of the people; the people come last if or when at all in the equation. Look at how food relief and farming inputs are being politicised. Whatever they do, is at the behest of their masters, who are solely after political mileage. Such people won’t bit the hand that feeds them. Another case in point is when the Gates Foundation was stopped from building flats in Mbare by the Zanu PF-linked Chipangano militia as they feared that this would hand political advantage to the council, dominated by the MDC-T, their opponents.
Such political spitefulness when they themselves cannot fund the project is mad; they would rather have people they purportedly serve live in squalid hostels. As a result, there is too much wasteful, ostentatious spending at the top in a land of poverty, symbolic of the gulf between the powerful and powerless. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. That is what political corruption does.
A fundamental change of culture is necessary for Zimbabwe to extricate itself out of this empty showiness.
This spirit of sharing with others without necessarily gaining publicity or political mileage is the way; focus should primarily be on the good works done. Said Bill Gates Snr: “If you spend a lot of time saying, ‘Hey, look at me,’ people resent it. I resent it.”
What’s wrong with being kinder and humbler?
