×
NewsDay

AMH is an independent media house free from political ties or outside influence. We have four newspapers: The Zimbabwe Independent, a business weekly published every Friday, The Standard, a weekly published every Sunday, and Southern and NewsDay, our daily newspapers. Each has an online edition.

Callousness fuels state chaos

Opinion & Analysis
It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon in January 2012 when I got a call from an unfamiliar number. What was special about the call, however, was that the voice on the other end was not only familiar but also from one of my own, a brother. I was happy to hear from him.

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon in January 2012 when I got a call from an unfamiliar number. What was special about the call, however, was that the voice on the other end was not only familiar but also from one of my own, a brother. I was happy to hear from him.

Mutsa Murenje

hospital

We had last met in the village in 2006 when we were burying the last of our father’s siblings, our uncle who had succumbed to throat cancer. All medical interventions had limited impact on his condition. He first went to Chipinge hospital, but a referral to Mutare General Hospital was a necessity. Unfortunately, my uncle died on admission.

Six years had passed on since I last saw my brother. Communication between us was limited although he had knowledge of my presence in South Africa. I had been there for about six months following my return from Nigeria’s premier university, the University of Ibadan, where I undertook postgraduate studies on a German Academic Exchange Service scholarship. I had no knowledge of his intention to come to South Africa. However, despite not having a passport, he was smuggled into the country. He was in Johannesburg when he called. Although I was also in Johannesburg, we were in different directions and our meeting required prior arrangement. Nevertheless, Johannesburg wasn’t his intended destination. He dreamt of reaching the Free State where he would die by March of the same year.

The reason for his call was, therefore, monetary in nature. He had wanted money to take him to his desired destination. Efforts to contact him thereafter were unfruitful. I wrote to the same number he had used when he called but I got no response. And then, came another call. That was in the first week of March. It was from a maternal uncle, possibly the one who had facilitated my brother’s entry into South Africa. It wasn’t a good call this time around. It was very brief. My brother had died. There arose a need for me to travel to the Free State to identify his body and make funeral arrangements. I was the only close relative who could perform this task. It is sad that I had to meet my brother in his death. His words are still vivid in my mind and I keep wondering what would have happened had he not gone there. There is no use crying over spilt milk, we are told. But the milk is not spilt for he left behind a void that no one will ever fill. He also left behind a loving wife and beautiful children who believed he would one day return. His burial was in South Africa and those who were close to him mayn’t get the chance to even see where he lies. That’s sad, isn’t it? Circumstances of his death were sketchy then and four years later, they are still sketchy. There hasn’t been any closure. I had to relive this experience when I read of the recent attack on 23 Zimbabweans who were robbed in South Africa on their way to Johannesburg. It has been reported that 21 passengers and two crew members lost all their possessions before the Eagle Liner bus they were travelling in was set ablaze. This isn’t related to my brother in any way but the circumstances of my brother’s departure from Zimbabwe might find resonance with some of the people who recently lost their possessions.

It is my considered view that the Zanu PF government has clearly betrayed our hopes and our trust and now stands in the way of our development. There can be no doubt whatsoever that increased opportunities for international migration (within and outside the continent) are essential for the future well-being of many Zimbabweans. However, the scale and scope of their movement reflects leadership problems of monolithic proportions. A vampire state is in place in Zimbabwe. A vampire president is equally presiding over a corrupt cabinet. Out of selfishness or perhaps wickedness, these thugs are lavishing in their apartments comfortably and buying luxury cars, while the majority of the populace suffer. To add insult to injury, government institutions lack the capacity to take hold of development goals. We haven’t, as a country, witnessed any social, cultural and economic progress that serves our present and future basic needs. We lack economic opportunities, political freedoms, social freedoms, transparency and protective security.

Meanwhile, Vice-President Phelekezela Mphoko sees nothing wrong spending thousands of dollars staying in a hotel when the opportunity to get into affordable and reasonable accommodation exists. It is out of insanity and insensitivity that a whole VP would justify staying in a hotel just because he spent numberless nights in the bush during the liberation struggle. It is such arrogance that we keep challenging because it has no place in the Zimbabwe that many sacrificed life and limb for. It is better to move into government accommodation because that would save us a lot of money, money that is needed to facilitate our development in the country. It is also in the media that ICT minister Supa Mandiwanzira broke the rules and got a $194 000 loan from a parastatal under his ministry for the purchase of a vehicle, without treasury approval. At the same time, the government has been struggling to pay allowances for Zimbabwean students in Algeria and Cuba. If we had a sane and sensitive government, then some of these challenges would be eliminated.

I just don’t understand why this establishment is still in power. Justice and freedom are fundamental to life and these we still lack.

But I am pretty sure that there is something we can do about it. Dennis Waitley noted that there are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them. We surely need to do something because it is abnormal that we keep normalising the abnormal. As Albert Einstein observed “The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything”.

As a professionally trained social worker and a Zimbabwean citizen, I feel my primary concern should be with the most vulnerable in our society, Zimbabweans with their past and present histories of trauma are certainly deserving of social work attention. A man has indeed not begun to live until he can rise above the narrow confines of his own individual concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. Finally, I am of the firm belief that genuinely rational politics requires membership in a particular type of moral community. “Of course, morality has an old-fashioned ring about it; but any politics without morality is destructive. And the destructive results of African politics in the post-colonial era owes something to the amorality of the civic public” (Peter Ekeh). May God help Zimbabwe! The struggle continues unabated!

l Mutsa Murenje is social worker based in South Africa