A few months ago, I visited a village in a war ravaged country. The village was partially deserted and only old people remained.
Develop me with Tapiwa Gomo
Most structures had been destroyed except a few which survived the destructive rage of the war.
Everyone who remained in the village was a story and had one to tell. While the stories differed, they had a common ending. Their land was a cemetery of dreams, where the remaining hopes were thawed by the ageing population.
I am reminded of this gloomy story following my recent visit to Zimbabwe.
For some, the situation looks promising while for others it is now hopeless because it had been promising since early 2000. Almost a decade of our lives has been lost in the games of politics and dreams have died of both despair and age. Mediocrity is now accepted as normal.
Where we feared potholes and wished for their early repair, we now pray that they will not multiply as there is no hope that they would ever be repaired. An hour of water a day is now more than a blessing if not a miracle and sadly people are tired of complaining and have become content with this ageing and rugged way of life.
The recent referendum was supposed to breathe life into a desperate situation and perhaps mark a new beginning.
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But it has spawned a new wave of uncertainty as elections beckon. The fear of elections is suffocating investment. Liquidity is as scanty as the water supply, as investors are beginning to be cautious and restraining from putting their money where election fire is likely to break out.
The victim of all this is none other than our own corporates, the current cog of the economy. Talking with few senior corporate leaders revealed that most of them actually want elections as soon as possible to clear the current uncertainty that is stifling the economy of cash.
The need for elections is now beyond debate, the question is when they should be held.
But it looks like we are in a huge quagmire where elections are relevant and yet without an appropriate candidate to run the country for the next term of office. At 89 years of age and 33 years in office, President Robert Mugabe, has surely run his course.
His recent statement that he sometimes feels lonely because most of the people around him are by far younger, speaks volumes.
Perhaps he feels the same too in the presence of young leaders such as American President Barack Obama, David Cameron of the UK, Ian Khama of Botswana etc. On the other hand, all the MDCs have not shown any sign of maturity and seriousness required to run the country even after spending almost half a decade in the government.
Arthur Mutambara, Simba Makoni and Welshman Ncube need to shape up lest they become promising but failed political projects.
Between the President’s age group and the so-called group of “Generation 40” is a bunch of parochial political disciples who, for the past 33 years, have been oriented to soliloquise the ideological and political gospel of those who lead them, thereby denying themselves the thought of dreaming of being in leadership one day even as they watch their leader turning 89.
Their gutlessness is demonstrated in their inability to put their faces and names on their ideas. For their lack of courage, they are comfortable campaigning in the newspapers and social media network under pseudonyms and other funny names.
Like small kids excited about playing with water in the absence of their parents, they have taken leaking of information as a strategy to destroy one another. Sometimes we wonder how that is going to make my grandmother vote for them should they sneak their real names and faces on the ballot paper.
That is the kind of leadership that awaits us.
When you hear them speak of economic empowerment, they sound like they care. I met two young local businessmen who have been thrown out of business after a foreign investor pulled out his stake for fear of elections.
I met a young lady called Linda who is so passionate about the transport business, but her efforts are thwarted by political meddling. When you hear them speak about how passionate they are about the youth of Zimbabwe, you will be mistaken to think they are serious about what they mean, yet I met a Zimbabwean national squash team whose trip to Namibia was entirely funded by their parents.
I asked why ministers David Coltart, Saviour Kasukuwere and Walter Muzembi or anyone in the government was not fundraising for the team that was raising our national flag at a regional tournament in Namibia.
The coach Mashumba Mukumba told me that numerous efforts to get support from the government were futile.
Thanks to parents of Takunda Maswi and his teammates who have not allowed the dreams of their children to be thawed by the government’s careless attitude. As I wished them well in the tournament, I wondered, if they won the tournament, would the government claim the glory as part of national pride when they in the first place failed to support the dreams of these young children?
Yes, we now live in a world where leaders talk 51% local ownership and yet their ways of thinking and living are 100% foreign. Local often means one who supports certain political ideological inclinations and if you are on the other side, then you represent foreign interest.
And for over a decade so many dreams have died. lTapiwa Gomo is a development consultant based in Pretoria, South Africa
