I received an email from Father Oskar Wermter yesterday morning. He ended his missive with what he called “a very good wish”. By Nevanji Madanhire
He wrote: “May Zimbabwe take the right turn at this crucial moment?” This metaphor describes a person at a crossroads.
The choice for the traveller is stark; he has to turn and not continue on the way he has been travelling.
Zimbabwe is that traveller who has to make a the right decision; continuing on the straight road is no longer a choice, and taking the wrong turn will lead to further disaster.
Two questions arise from Fr Werner’s metaphor. Why is Zimbabwe at a crossroads? Why is this moment crucial for Zimbabwe?
The first question can be answered thus; despite its huge potential both in terms of natural resources and its human capital, Zimbabwe is, for all intends and purposes, a failed State.
And the reason is simple; it is the failure of leadership.
This premise can no longer be disputed by even the staunchest defender of the status quo.
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In the wake of recent events in which the leadership is tearing each other apart, it is now clear that its decades-long outward shows of a unity of purpose has always been a fraud.
It is this same leadership that has superintended the fortunes of this country over three decades in a way that has left it in the story state it finds itself.
The country now has no formal economy to talk about. There are pretentions in the corridors of that there is nothing wrong with such a highly informalised economy; they call it the “new normal”.
But this is a lie because it defeats the whole basis of having a central government in the first place.
If more than 90% of the people are operating outside the formal economy, it’s a recipe for disaster because little tax is paid to central government meaning governmental processes cannot be funded.
It means government is irrelevant to the majority of the people. It means it pretensions at control are in fact a hindrance to the common person’s efforts at daily survival.
The greatest irony of the present situation is that the very people who have been averse to democratic governance are now at the receiving end of an entrenched tyranny, which they helped create with enthusiasm and gusto.
Conventional wisdom has for decades affirmed democracy and development are as alike as two peas in a pod. But this message was lost to a rapacious elite that took its presence in the corridors of power as a licence to loot at the expense of the country.
The ongoing infighting within the ruling party is not a fight to turn round the fortunes of the country; it is the fight of vultures over a carcass.
The hope is that whoever wins the fight will have the right to eat the bones just as hyenas do; it’s not life-giving; it’s just a phase of the vicious cycle. To upturn popular votes by replacing winners with losers, as happened in the party recently, is surely just to sow the seeds of future strife.
So, why is this moment so crucial to Zimbabwe?
Zanu PF is poised to rule this country for a long time to come. Democratically, their present mandate has at least another three-and-half years to run. But with the sorry state of the opposition, its rule is likely to be extended by, at the very least, another five, that is until 2023.
The happenings in Zanu PF are, therefore, very important to anyone who calls this land home. Zanu PF needs to define a new direction, what Fr Wermter calls “to take the right turn”. Momentous events are expected this week as the party holds its congress.
Its leader Robert Mugabe has already been anointed without contest to continue to lead the party and, therefore, the country for a considerable period to come.
He will be 91 next year which basically means the country’s future is mortgaged to his longevity. But it is critical that this week he begins to set out a new ideology that should launch a new course for the country.
But the events preceding the congress have cast the wrong foundation for the future. The purges that have claimed the scalps of very powerful people including the party’s erstwhile second in command and also the vice-president of the country Joice Mujuru have been too dirty to end in peace; she has a powerful cadre behind her.
The obvious consequences of this is that there will soon be a regrouping of this corps so it can fight back in the shortest possible time.
Some analysts have suggested that the swirl of public sympathy she has garnered in the past three months means she is more powerful now outside the party than she ever was when she played second fiddle to Mugabe.
The “right turn” should be that Mugabe begins a healing process not only in the country, but most importantly in his party as a matter of urgency.
This process can only succeed if an environment is created in which the will of the people is respected, more especially in the ruling party itself, otherwise the sword of Damocles will continue to hang, not only over his head for the remainder of his days, but also over that of whoever succeeds him.
Mugabe, by this congress, should make a last gasp effort to avoid a dishonourable grave.
