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What change exactly are youths expected to vote for?

Opinion & Analysis
We vote because we know a better Zimbabwe which we have seen being turned into a basket case over the years.

Brian Sedze THE generation born before 1990 is very lucky to be not uncomfortable. Being uncomfortable is the signal that something must change before a greater trouble arrives or just that things may further spin out of control.

Being uncomfortable is the natural alarm that has pushed significant voter turnout by the 30 years plus population strata. It may remain so unless the message starts having traction on those younger people who are widely apathetic to register to vote and to actually vote.

Those born after 1990 are often touted as part of the broader generational consensus as well as being virgin voters who may change the country’s political dynamics by tilting the scale in favour of the “change” movement.

It is unfortunate that unlike our generation which saw a better, prosperous and a somehow working Zimbabwe this new generation has no such reference point to even appreciate how so sickly the Zimbabwe economy is as compared to the 1980s and before. They have not known anything else better and as such our economy is normal. Abnormal is a deviation from a certain known standard.

The generation born in the late 1970s has no experience with the pain of colonisation, the long and torturous war for freedom, sacrifices made and the value of peace.

The 1970s and after generation will not be moved by tales of war as a message and reason to vote. The war tales have limited value and connection to the later-day generation and urbanites. War tales have traction in rural areas which faced its full wrath.

Clive Staples Lewis, a British author advanced the line of thought that people only understand what it means to be bad if they have at some point encountered the good. Our generation experienced the good and can even want that as a starting point before we move to big, hairy and audacious goals.

Our generation grew up with a currency, inflation was below 5%, our fathers had paid up permanent shares (Pups), we had the little red books from Beverly in which we deposited money which didn’t lose value but earned interest, we had education funds from mutual society to cater for high school and university, our school fees remained the same for years on end, basic education was free and when we accompanied our mothers to buy puma blankets in Botswana we would readily exchange the Zimbabwe dollar with the pula. Liver was for breakfast, cow feet and follicles were given free in butcheries, senior teachers, clerks and nurses had mortgage financed houses and had cars, we received milk every breaktime at school, litter was picked in time, water was available in taps and potable, sewage didn’t flow in our backyards and our urban roads had no potholes. It’s why we vote religiously because we know how much we have regressed as a country.

We vote because we know a better Zimbabwe which we have seen being turned into a basket case over the years.

The first pain caused by International Monetary Fund (IMF)-induced retrenchments and inflation, war vet-induced currency crush of the Black Friday, the gonomics that completely sent the Zimbabwe dollar to the grave, the opposition-induced sanctions that caused cost of doing business and sovereign risk and general economic mismanagement.

To borrow an idiom from James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal, for our generation, “Everything is spinning out of control”.

Imagine telling the youth, who grew up without a currency, have to deal with multiple exchange rates, loathe and never use banks, have always known inflation to be above 100%, have no savings and bank accounts, have no knowledge of mortgage finance, have never known an interest rate except the usury rates beyond what Aristotle condemned and have a multiple currency system, that Zimbabwe was a country of milk and honey, would they believe you?

Exactly what change will the youths be voting for because the current economic quagmire is normal and they don’t know anything better. I doubt the youth know what good governance and prosperity driven from it mean. The elephant in the room is lack of a communication strategy to cover the chasm. In it all somehow the youth have to resign to fate because the opposition which they may have wanted to view as the agents of change has failed and or neglected and or refused to show the light in urban areas with problems of litter, lighting, water, sewage, wetlands use and urban planning getting worse.

So, what message will be enough to prove what change mean when the youth are so used to the present the “goodness” to have enough energy to vote for change. If things had changed in urban areas they would want to hold on to the goodness and never want it to go. As it is they are still to know that its not good for city not to maintain hygiene or even to plant maize in First Street. They don’t blink twice to wear hwashu to go into town or throw litter off the commuter omnibus. We grew up respecting going and being in town.

Maybe we are in a permanent state of illogic as written by George Orwell that war is peace, freedom is slavery but more importantly that ignorance is strength.

It’s going to be difficult to convince someone in Saudi Arabia that the heat is too much or someone in Iceland that its extremely cold.

On my last visit to Lagos, it dawned on me that people there are pretty comfortable with basically no municipal roads, piped water and electricity in some of the affluent suburbs because they budgeted for self-supply. Our youths have budgeted for what the economy is.

The signs of regression are all around us and we have a choice. The first one is for politicians to have the best communication strategist who ensure our youths know how a “normal economy” works.

Second, I will use what Friedman said: “Society has no values. People have values” so it is the duty of us to slow down and talk honestly to the new generation of our economic history instead of investing in cultism, myths, lies, half-truths, denigration to score cheap political scores. Cheap scores will not drive youths to the ballot box.

Voting is often a wave but so far registration numbers and previous voting numbers of 1990s age group show we have a lot of investment to do in communication to cover the knowledge gap by coining well-informed arguments, but to date these are few and far between, that’s sad.

There is a responsibility to act to ensure our youths are part of political outcomes of this country.

  • Brian Sedze is strategy consultant and president of Free Enterprise Initiative. He can be contacted on [email protected]

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