- The Jewel of Africa @ independence in 1980 is now an empty basket. Politically, within a year of independence our so-called “liberators” were at each other’s throats, parroting the one-party state mantra & unleashing Gukurahundi on fellow citizens & a sister liberation struggle political party.2. Economically, looting, grand corruption & ruinous policies started in earnest but it was not until 1997 that the meltdown started following the unbudgeted War Vets’ Compensation Fund followed by yet another unbudgeted for sojourn shortly afterwards, the DRC misadventure.3. The politically sanctioned lawless & chaotic land invasions of 2000 to punish Zimbabweans for voting against the ZANU PF Draft Constitution during the 1999 Referendum sealed the nation’s economic fate as Agriculture, the country’s back borne collapsed amidst the mayhem.4. Since 1997, Zim’s currency & economy has been in free fall. Since 1980, our so-called nationalist leaders have dismally failed to build a truly inclusive independent nation in which all are equal, free, live in harmony & access basic services like health, water & food.
5. The so-called nationalists have run their course. They’re now out of time. The standards of living have plummeted to stone age levels. Roads, hospitals & industries have all collapsed. The black market has dominated the economy for 2 decades now, with a few making a killing.
6. Thousands have left Zimbabwe over the past 2 decades, representing social engineering on an industrial scale in scenes more akin to countries ravaged by war. Some of the country’s best talent have gone to SA, UK, US, Canada, New Zealand & Australia, thereby rupturing generations & creating haunting social deserts that will by all accounts last a lifetime & turn many of us into strangers of the land where our sacred “rukuvhutes” are planted in its under belly.
7. Precious metals have been sold & smuggled for a song by a few connected & predatory elites with the country receiving meagre returns from its rich endowments. The Constitution has been subverted to deny hard fought freedoms to many at the expense of a thin skinned few.
8. Freedom & rights under the Constitution are but a mirage. There is no freedom after expression or demonstration(s). The so-called nationalists have criminalised critical thoughts & words. All state institutions have been subverted. Religion has been perverted.
9. The so-called nationalists have criminalised criticising them, rendering them demi-gods. The hard won right to vote & change gvt peacefully is but a mirage, rendering them non-hereditary monarchs. They can’t even transfer power amongst each other, it has to be via the medium of a coup. “Comrades” now kneel before one another to emphasise hierarchical dominance over one another unheard of & certainly at odds with the political ideology reinforced during the war.
10. The real Constitution is: no bail, food aid, land, freedom, access to power, justice, health, jobs, free speech, free vote et al to real & suspected opposition members & their leaders. “Independence” has been cannibalised. It’s only them & their families who fought for it. Just a few months before a critical election, the Voters Roll is but a secret folded & salted away & hidden in secret vaults saved to be prized open by a few privileged overloads who get to choose who appears on it, who views it, when & how to view it!
11. It’s only them & their family members who have got an iron clad right to “rule” Zimbabwe until the end of time. Any one else is a “sell out”. So this shall be their legacy, a never ending cycle & orgy of violence, rabid corruption, impunity & misgovernance.
12. So we ask, how can we celebrate something that you claim & monopolise as “Chinhu chedu”? We denounce that version of “Independence”. We demand the creation of new norms, values & socio mores which reflect the real Independence that everyone contributed towards achieving.
13. Between 10 – 15 years from now, the generation that fought in the war will be largely extinct via the arc of mortality. Future generations will spit on their graves & consider their “reign” to be an era of shame, gross incompetence, fratricides & a false dawn of “independence.”
14. The so-called “liberators” kill, maim, imprison, torture, terrorise, repress & hound each other & others for POWER the same way Smith’s regime did. In fact, they’ve perfected the dark “art”. They’re simply the black version of that regime. All you’ve to do is oppose them.
15. Where is the “Independence” if the deed one was persecuted for under Ian Smith remains one for persecution under ED or Robert Mugabe? What “independence” is there to celebrate if freedom of the person is still as precarious under the “Ferrets” as it was under the Selous Scouts?
16. In that case, would there be a preferable “persecutor” when the end result is the same? We pose these desperate clarion calls which are the equivalent of “whistling in the wind” as our so-called liberators are now beyond the point of retrieval as the ship has long sailed past us. We observe the charade. We respect the significance of the sense of mission & sacrifice but we refuse to be hoodwinked. We can only lament over the squandered moral, political, social & economic capital. We can only hope that the real future that we yearn for will arrive one day and generations will finally come together & build a truly inclusive, democratic, just, successful & equal society.
#ZimAt43 #ZimRuins #HarvestOfThorns
