Leaders must learn to listen

Tuesday evening marked a new beginning for Zimbabwe. The mistakes of the past, especially the past few years, were washed during a good-natured celebration, and Zimbabwe was once again a more united country and a society with exceptionally high morale.

Incoming president Emmerson Mnangagwa faces high expectations but will have a short honeymoon while he starts the process of moving Zimbabwe forward. He, a victim of some of the mistakes, needs to build on the national spirit that has been exhibited in the past week.

For some things have now changed, forever. The overwhelming majority of the marchers on Saturday and those in the impromptu celebrations on Tuesday night were the younger generations, young men and women in their 20s and 30s who were born and grew up in a free Zimbabwe. They will never again go back into a box of silence and all future Zimbabwean leaders are going to have to be accustomed to plain speaking, to listening and then explaining what they are doing and why.

The symbols in the marches, the rallies and the street parties were not names of people or pictures on walls. There was just one symbol — the flag.

Those marching and partying did not care what language or dialect the person next to them spoke; they did not care what district or province they came from; they did not care how they worshipped God or even if they did not worship any god; they did not care how their neighbour voted in the last election or how they might vote in 2018; they did not care about race or class. They were just happy to be together as Zimbabweans.

Our future leaders will also have to recognise the danger of living in a fairy-tale land, in a hall of mirrors surrounded by sycophants, of a refusal to find out what people are thinking and saying. It is difficult for any president in this modern world to find out what is going on, but not impossible. Rallies are no substitute for meeting real people with real concerns and ideas. Harare, November 22.