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CONWAY TUTANI ECHOES
It’s tempting to be contemptuous about everything coming from government, but we ought to resist the urge to belittle or dishonour the day. We mustn’t be as rabid as those we justifiably criticise. No one has a patent or copyright to independence. It is for us all. Even though the ideal has been defiled by repression and corruption, a sense of balance and proportion is needed even in these trying times.
It’s not individuals, but the national psyche which will eventually prevail and make us proud to call ourselves Zimbabweans. The ideal of Zimbabwe remains great. As a nation, we should be more than proud to be Zimbabwean. As for the State, well, it has been a mixed bag: the good, the bad and the indisputably ugly. Because of corruption, this is beginning to look like a witches’ brew of thieves and extortionists. Self-enrichment and power-mongering have been the name of the game.
The State has often been at cross purposes with the nation. People have been labelled enemies of the State whereas it’s actually the State itself which has been inimical to the people. The national interest has been sacrificed on the altar of State interests. The nation and the State are not one thing.
The farcical 2008 presidential runoff election is a case in point. Why on earth did it take almost a month to announce the results of the first round of the election whereas parliamentary and council poll results did not take that long to verify?
Of course, you cannot begrudge Zanu PF for now “stealing” the anti-corruption fight from the opposition and making it theirs. They have indeed stolen a political and moral march on the fractious opposition – that is, getting an advantage by doing something better and sooner while the MDC-T tears itself apart.
This has been a political masterstroke on the part of Zanu PF. Their response to corruption has been measured to avoid chaos in the party. That is why corruption scandals are being released in instalments, not all at once. It’s a well-thought-out strategy.
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Many people have applauded the move, but with some doing so grudgingly and others with reservation and suspicion. Why? Because they view as hypocritical Zanu PF’s newfound zeal to lead the anti-corruption fight when ruling party bigwigs and their associates have been the ringleaders of the problem. Could there be a sting in the tail? Could someone be buying time by pretending to be now on the side of the people? Only time will tell.
Meanwhile, the sideshow of infighting in the MDC-T continues. Strategy is not their best friend. They play to their weaknesses, not their strengths. Despite attainment of independence in 1980, there has also been disinclination to strengthen the economy for the workers.
Every city and town is now distressed and marginalised while money which can lead to revival is going into the pockets of the powerful few. They could heed United States central bank chief Janet Yellen’s saying that economics is “about caring for real people”. But here, former Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono continually talked about serving his “principal”, not the people. As a result, livelihoods were devastated as savings and investments were totally wiped out.Independence basically implies equality before the law. But serious questions have arisen over the disinclination to arrest, charge and imprison top government officials fingered in grand corruption. Former South African president Thabo Mbeki last year told President Robert Mugabe that his ministers had demanded bribes of as much as US$1 million from South Africans intending to invest here.
Only recently, Mugabe himself revealed without mentioning names that it had reached his ears that a minister and an MP from his party had together demanded a bribe of US$120 000 from a would-be investor to have access to him (Mugabe). Now, if you don’t name and shame, the anti-corruption fight is dead in the water from the word go. The power of publicity does work to detect and deter.
Most of this perverted sense of self-entitlement stems from the political stance taken soon after independence. Political exclusivity resulted from the belief that “ndisu tegatega takasunungura nyika” (it’s us and us only who freed the country), which has made them more equal than others. Such self-congratulatory talk is most patronising of the rest of Zimbabweans. Such messianic sense of mission can result in repression, which has been the lot of Zimbabweans for years and years.The hardest people to deal with are not necessarily the least educated, the povo (masses) or the opposition, but self-righteous characters. They demand to be perfectly understood, but do not allow that from others. With true leaders, power is incidental, not central.
We don’t need self-centred politics. The sun does not rise and set on Zimbabwe. This negative superiority has bred negative advantage which has exploded into institutionalised corruption.
Repression and corruption must not be disguised under the excuse of protecting the gains of independence; this was evil before independence and it’s still evil today. We need more projection of soft power – the kind of power that endures.Long live, Zimbabwe!
