×
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.

We have the power to change our circumstances

Opinion & Analysis
UNTIL the African realises that his economic freedom lies in his hands, he will continue to be a beggar sitting on a pot of gold.

UNTIL the African realises that his economic freedom lies in his hands, he will continue to be a beggar sitting on a pot of gold.

Vince Musewe

Vice-President Phelekezela Mphoko
Vice-President Phelekezela Mphoko

Do not weep, my dear Zimbabwean brothers and sisters, Zimbabwe will write its own history and it will be to the north and the south of the Sahara, a history of glory and dignity. (From Patrice Lumumba’s quote on Africa)

As Zimbabweans, we have been naively complicit in our own oppression by not using our purchasing power to work for and not against us. They might deny us to use our voting power for change, but they cannot deny us the choice to use our purchasing power to change our circumstances.

I have much respect for the Jewish community, who realised long ago how to use this power. It is estimated that one dollar goes around 10 times within the Jewish community before its goes to a Jewish-owned bank. Over the years, the Jews have become a powerful force in the world both in finance and politics.

That is the power we have and, to date, we have been ignorant of it. We have willingly handed that power over to others to use as they wish and at most times, they have used it against our aspirations and our own freedom. Now is the time for us to “wake up and open our eyes”, as Oliver Mtukudzi sang for us.

It is fact that the government and its institutions depend on our income to make them functional. The business sector also depends on our consumption power to make profits. They both are hugely dependent on us and yet we have given these institutions the right to abuse us. That has to stop.

I am delighted that there seems now a widespread call for consumers in Zimbabwe to begin to use this formidable power for change and I fully support it. You see, we are indeed powerful if only we could take collective action on things that work against our total emancipation and empowerment. We are indeed our own liberators.

Thomas Sankara saw this many years ago and his words cannot be more pertinent. He said “I would like to leave behind me the conviction that if we maintain a certain amount of caution and organisation, we deserve victory. You cannot carry out fundamental change without a certain amount of madness. In this case, it comes from nonconformity, the courage to turn your back on the old formulas, the courage to invent the future. It took the madmen of yesterday for us to be able to act with extreme clarity today. I want to be one of those madmen. We must dare to invent the future.”

Let us, therefore, be the madmen who create a new future for our country. We must realise that there is a better outside to the Zanu PF paradigm. Such adversity should surely spur us to think differently and to seek something that is much better outside our current narrative.

The revelations of Zanu PF profligacy, while the government can’t pay salaries, must surely leave a sour taste in the mouth. From Vice-President Phelekezela Mphoko’s continued stay in a hotel for over 500 days at the expense of the taxpayer, despite having a free government house provided, to Supa Mandiwanzira’s shenanigans and his subsequent arrogant response for flouting procedures and still having the audacity to boast that $200 000 is nothing — all this must surely pain many civil servants, who have now been offered $100 to quieten them down. That is a shame.

All this must show us that we indeed have the wrong leadership and it is up to us to dismiss them urgently from the responsibility of creating the Zimbabwe we want.

I am sure that this is just the tip of the iceberg and there are more revelations on heartless extravagance and plunder coming from the Zanu PF looting machine and we can no longer ignore that.

We need to continue to ask ourselves a lot of questions like: Why do we pay for non-delivery? Why do we allow the police to extort us daily? Why have we allowed the Chinese to come here and do as they like and mistreat us? Why do we buy their sub-standard goods? Why, why, why?

Our country is in big trouble because of our appetite for consuming other people’s products. We all go in droves to South Africa to throw way our purchasing power and each time we consume imported goods, we are effectively exporting jobs to other countries. We are the chief architects of our poverty and lack.

We have much work to do ahead and we are certainly doing research so that we can give Zimbabweans the choice of where to spend their purchasing power because that is the only thing nobody can take away from us.

I sincerely hope that each and every Zimbabwean is now waking up to the reality that the abuse and decline in our society, which has become common and acceptable must now stop and it can only be stopped by us acting differently.

 Vince Musewe is an economist and author based in Harare. You may contact him on [email protected]. He writes in his personal capacity.