Reading through the pre-colonial history of the Great Zimbabwe kingdom, one encounters heroic moments when our ancestors refused to be conquered even when odds were against them.
Develop me: Tapiwa Gomo
With nothing but spears, bows and arrows, they fought the colonialist, who was well-equipped with guns and other sophisticated artillery.
You read about the spirit of Mbuya Nehanda, whose body gave in to colonial brutality, but her spirit remained in the battlefield, inspiring those who fought against oppression.
The entire epoch is filled with stories of courage, bravery, pride and the desire to self-determine. Come the colonial period and enter our liberation fighters, who sustained the war with an unrelenting fighting spirit, which kept the colonialist on their feet.
History tells us that lives were lost, blood was spilt and many were injured just for the sake of regaining our dignity.
Big sacrifices were made with many risking their lives on the battle front than live as a second class citizens. Unlike today, the international community stepped in to support a determined and inexorable cadre and not one who seeks global political asylum at every crack of a whip.
Enter our generation, the lot that still thinks they received the country on a silver platter from their parents and must just inherit the reins of power without a battle. One wonders how the fighting spirit vanished from or evaded this generation.
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It is a generation that still believes theirs is no more fighting, but to theorise development and poverty reduction, “academicise” potholes and broken water and sewage pipes and achieve change through pontification.
In the two centuries of struggle on this land, this is the only generation that never wants to get their hands dirty, as they presume battles are supposed to be won by word of mouth — dialogue, negotiations and peace deals. We lack the spine.
Perhaps, we can forgive this generation for its naiveté as they are born in the age of civilisation, egalitarianism and democracy. We are born in a season where words are everything.
Physical confrontation is seen as barbarism and backwards and yet the system metes it upon us without care. This demonstrates one problem. Civilisation only works well when dealing with the civilised.
And in our case we have applied tenets of democracy — dialogue and constitutionalism — with guerillas, whose view of a contest is defined by physical violence, the presence of a gun and militarisation of any political discussion.
Contrary to the notion that Zimbabwe was liberated, it is, in fact, captured by magandanga, but privately owned.
Independence just changed ownership, the country remains under an oppressive system.
This is why they declare that they cannot relinquish power at the stroke of a pen, voted out of power and they cannot be tweeted or protested out of power.
They have barricaded our protests to call for better life using a Constitution, which seems to protect them than it protects us.
No matter how hungry we are, we must uphold the Constitution, failure of which a militarised response is deployed on us.
A protester faces higher chances of being arrested than a criminal government official.
Because ours is a clean war, we recoil back into our impoverished and pervious cocoons for nothing, but lack of spine.
Applying civilisation against magandanga has been the bane of our generation, the net effect of which has the stupidification of our generation.
Some have called it tolerance because it is hard to admit, but we are the most injudicious nation in this region. There are plenty of examples to sustain this.
Elections, the fulcrum of democracy, are stolen under our noses, and we rush to institutions of the same system that stole from us to seek justice. It is for that stupidity that the 2002 election petitions are yet to see their day in court.
Even when we know that the electoral system lacks credibility and will never favour us, we surprisingly still believe and invest in it. We lose what we have to pursue an impotent electoral process. We even call for it, wait and prepare for it.
The last time Zimbabwe saw change was the 1980 elections, which were only used to legitimise the change process, but the real victory was secured from the battlefield.
When the majority of our children are jobless and a Head of State admits to $15 billion from the sale of diamonds going missing and we joke about it on social media.
Ministers are accused of corruption at a time when clinics are running out of medicine and some closing down due to lack of everything.
Our people are dying of preventable causes and we continue being patient until hunger and poverty hit on our door steps.
It is moments like these where you expect the opposition to rise and demand answers.
Perhaps, it is time we admitted that we are the biggest letdown of the past generations.
Or maybe, we fell victim to a mafia group that has guised itself and masqueraded as a legitimate government when in fact it is a private entity.
Looking at the recent corruption events unfolding in our country, we need to be liberated.
Tapiwa Gomo is a development consultant based in Pretoria, South Africa
