×
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.

Zim satellite launch should open our eyes

Editorials
ZimSat1

THAT Zimbabwe has launched its first satellite in the United States of America is more than enthralling given that the country has for too long continued to linger in the dark shadows of a fast-moving world that is now conquering space.

We hear the country launched its first ever satellite, ZimSat-1, courtesy of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), following some hiccups.

Indeed, this is very progressive on the part of Zimbabwe which, as far as we are concerned, has been unnecessarily concentrating on wrong political agendas to the detriment of our progress as a nation in this fast-moving 21st century.

While other countries are busy exploring deep and yonder galaxies for new homes and minerals, Zimbabwe has been fixated by useless political dogmas that have essentially downgraded the country to some early humanoids in the realm of the now extinct Homo habilis, who lived about 1,4 million to 2,4 million years ago in eastern and southern Africa.

Honestly speaking, how can Zimbabwe afford to remain stuck so many light years away in terms of technology when countries such as the United States and even our all-weather friends from the east are worlds away from us?

Some of the issues that have largely condemned Zimbabwe to the dark ages have to do with our leaders’ apparent penchant, if not paranoia, to dwell on futile escapisms such as this now-redundant issue of sanctions.

It boggles the mind why we, the ordinary folk, are always being told that Zimbabwe is not progressing economically or otherwise because of sanctions imposed on the nation by the very US that has now helped us launch our very first satellite into orbit.

We believe the ZimSat1 launch in the US should immediately bury for good this sanctions issue madness because it would be quite embarrassing for any of our government officials to be seen talking about these sanctions when the US government, through NASA, has been so kind to literally carry us on its back into deep space.

If the US hated us so much to the point of making us suffer through unwarranted sanctions, how on this mother earth could they, heartless as we have been made to believe, make such an extraordinary gesture of lifting us from the space age gutter.

It is about time Zimbabweans wised up and realise that this anti-sanctions deluge is nothing but a red herring that we should also reject and demand that our leaders start acting truthfully about our predicament and stop blaming sanctions for their failures.

ZimSat1’s launch should catapult us from the ill-informed past towards attaining upper middle income status by 2030.

Related Topics