The love of our common country still burns with the fire of the olden time in our hearts. This is despite the fact that our situation is tragic, disreputable and scandalous. That Zimbabwe emits a constant groaning, a cry for redemption and restoration is beyond doubt. In power for the past 36 years, President Robert Mugabe controls, manipulates and exploits the common people simply to keep himself in power and ease. He has become a tyrant and is busy organising the country for his own aggrandisement. Violence, murder, corruption and theft are characteristics of his leadership style.
Opinion Mutsa Murenje
We continue to be denied our humanity, denied our dignity, denied opportunity and virtually all fundamental human rights. We have been effectively confined to a life of voicelessness and powerlessness. Stripped of our right to make decisions concerning our life and destiny, we are subject to the authoritarian and whimsical decisions of the 92-year-old President.
The issue of the bond notes is said to be non-negotiable. I guess the same applies to the diaspora vote. What of clean and safe drinking water, affordable and accessible health and educational services, housing, and decent jobs?
In so far as the regime is concerned, there’s no urgency in addressing these matters. Theirs, remains a condescending and cavalier attitude towards our incessant calls for a return to sanity. Mugabe is and has no doubt become the panjandrum of Zimbabwean politics and we are paying a huge price for that.
Our young people haven’t had the chance, the opportunity to enjoy their youth, the springtime of their life and to get the best out of it. And yet they stand ready to be used in a useless “One Million Man March”. This is hardly surprising though. As Roosevelt observed, “Necessitous men are not free men. People who are out of a job are the stuff of which dictators are made”.
Isn’t it alarming to learn that students at Midlands States University are solely responsible for the increase in HIV/Aids infections in the country? What of recent revelations by Levy Nyagura according to reports that 47% of students at the University of Zimbabwe tested HIV positive in a recent survey? Nyagura has since dispelled the reports. Something has terribly gone wrong in our country and all this has its origins in the manner in which we are governed.
However, there is a new type of man, a new type of citizen who has dared the Mugabe regime. This is unprecedented in the history of post-colonial Zimbabwe. Those with absolute control of the State and all its institutions have been taken by surprise and they have come up with all sorts of explanations to discredit the spirited campaign started by Pastor Evan Mawarire.
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He isn’t associated with any known political party and this has created more confusion than clarity, but does one really have to identify with a political party to make their voice heard? Traditionally, yes. But times have changed and what might have worked in the past might not necessarily work now. One doesn’t have to belong to Zanu PF or the MDC-T to be a Zimbabwean. One is a citizen before they belong to a party and it is actually better to be a citizen than a member of a political party. Partisan politics are destructive to the kind of nation Zimbabwe ought to be.
To be relevant, one must be acceptable to the nation as a whole instead of being understood in terms of a political party. Zimbabwe is a polarised nation and is so totally given up to the spirit of party that not to follow blindfolded the one or the other is an expiable offence. Mawarire understands how well a politician in Zimbabwe must be the man of a party, but has confounded them all by choosing his country over a political party. What a man!
What makes it even more interesting is his campaign’s use of the social media.
Mawarire uses his phone to challenge the government of the day. This doesn’t require any external funding. With minimal resources we all can pull this off. It’s a cheaper, easily accessible and effective tool that we can use to challenge our oppressors. It’s non-violent, articulate and to the point.
There can be no doubt whatsoever, that the State has been sleeping. Sleeping to such an extent that it never realised what was happening. And what is happening is clearly unstoppable. We have heard often times that it’s hard if not impossible to stop an idea whose time has come.
There is no way Zimbabwe is going to remain under authoritarian rule. Citizens have since realised that the same energy used to fight our oppressors is needed today and a different strategy must also be used. And that’s the use of the social media. Ever since Mawarire started posting his videos on Facebook, other Zimbabweans the world over have started carrying their flags and also posting their videos.
It is clear, therefore, that the Internet is playing such a vital role in buttressing and deepening democracy in Zimbabwe. Politicians and citizens alike are active on Facebook and Twitter because the Internet is interactive, relatively cheaper and is free from State control.
Equally important is the issue of alleged foreign involvement in Mawarire’s efforts to challenge the Harare administration. Do foreign governments have a hand in what is happening in Zimbabwe at present? The answer is a clear no! We are rational beings and have taken a deliberate decision to refuse to continue being the pot that just cooks without tasting the food.
We vehemently refuse to obey without questioning, to learn by heart, to abandon curiosity and to avoid independent thinking. We don’t need foreigners to tell us about hunger, unemployment, dictatorship, poverty and underdevelopment. These are our diurnal experiences and we know this isn’t the way to live. We know life can be better than it is at present. We also know who stands in our way to stop us from living in dignity. To this we are saying enough is enough. Sokwanele. Zvakwana.
We ask for a just social order and are against injustice and the continued domination of the minority over the majority. We call for an end to dictatorship. We call for an end to corruption. We ask for the ballot. We call for sanity. We need openness and accountability from our leaders.
There is nothing wrong for us to want to have a say in the manner in which we are governed. This is what democracy is all about. And that’s exactly what we fought for. If we feel we haven’t found the democracy we fought for then it’s within our constitutional rights to continue fighting till such a time that we all will be proud to be called Zimbabweans and have an effectual voice in State affairs.
I am optimistic that the Mugabe regime is nearing its end.
“I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits. I believe what self-centred men have torn down, other-centred men can build up… I still believe we shall overcome. This faith can give us courage to face the uncertainties of the future” (Martin Luther King, Jr).
There is no night so long that it does not end with dawn. I believe everything has a beginning and an end. In our vernacular, Chinobhururuka chinomhara. We are all equal and should, therefore, act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood and not a situation where some comrades are more equal than others.
We all have to play our part to make sure that things change for the better for present and future generations. The struggle continues unabated!
l Mutsa Murenje is a social and political writer based in South Africa
