Zimbabwe is a land of talent and imagination, where artists shape words into prophecy, athletes transform hunger into discipline, and thinkers carry ideas powerful enough to mend a wounded nation, yet it is also a land where success is viewed with suspicion, hostility, and an almost instinctive urge to pull down those who rise.
This contradiction is most visible on social media, where public discourse has increasingly become a space for humiliation rather than encouragement, and where criticism is often indistinguishable from cruelty.
What is commonly dismissed as online toxicity is, in reality, a deeply internalised culture of self-sabotage, disguised as honesty, humility, or realism.
In Zimbabwe, ambition is doubted before it is celebrated, excellence is framed as arrogance, and progress is interpreted as betrayal.
The moment an individual moves beyond what is familiar, whether financially, intellectually, or creatively, they are met with interrogation rather than applause.
Platforms that should serve as spaces of collective pride have instead become public tribunals where people are judged without mercy.
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Humility is demanded from those already shaped by poverty and struggle, while access to their success is expected and peace is denied.
The recent public rejection of Zimbabweans by mixed martial artist Temba Gorimbo may have shocked many, but it should not have surprised us.
His journey from homelessness to competing on the world’s biggest stage should have been a shared national victory. Instead, it was met with relentless criticism, entitlement, and dismissal. What some interpreted as arrogance was, in truth, exhaustion.
No individual can endlessly justify their success to a hostile audience without eventually choosing self-preservation over patriotic obligation.
Gorimbo’s experience reflects a broader and deeply uncomfortable truth: Zimbabwe often drives away its most promising citizens, then expresses confusion when they leave.
This pattern is not new. Lovemore Majaivana, whose music carried the emotional memory of a people, left Zimbabwe not because he lacked love for his homeland, but because the country failed to provide meaningful material and institutional support for its own artists. Zimbabwe has developed a troubling habit of celebrating creatives only in struggle or death, offering standing ovations at funerals instead of support while they are alive and in need.
The same fate followed Thomas Mapfumo, the voice of Chimurenga, whose protest music could only exist freely outside the country.
His exile was not accidental but the cost of speaking honestly about power and injustice.
When a nation silences or expels its conscience, it should not be surprised when fear and mediocrity take root.
These are not isolated incidents but symptoms of a recurring national cycle.
Writers must publish abroad to be taken seriously. Entrepreneurs must relocate to thrive.
Academics are celebrated only after foreign validation. Zimbabwe has become a country that exports talent because it cannot, or will not, nurture it.
Success is celebrated only once it has been stamped with external approval, revealing a painful contradiction: the desire for global recognition paired with the systematic undermining of those capable of earning it.
This reality demands uncomfortable questions. Why does another person’s success feel like a personal affront? Why are achievers expected to remain small for the comfort of others? Why are national burdens placed on individuals who receive little more than criticism in return?
These questions are difficult because they shift responsibility away from distant forces and place it squarely on everyday behaviour, language, and silence.
If patriotism is to mean anything beyond slogans and symbolism, it must involve creating environments where people can grow without fear of character assassination.
Excellence must be celebrated while it is still forming, not only after it has left the country. True national pride should function as a foundation, not a restraint.
A nation that consumes its own seeds will forever depend on imported fruit, and if Zimbabwe is to move forward, it must end its quiet war against excellence and learn to protect and honour those who dare to rise.