A period of great circumspection
OUR conversation today is about what should in all accounts pass as the second greatest wave of elation to engulf the motherland since the break with racist white rule on April 18, 38 years ago.
However, unlike in the event marking the independence and freedom dispensation when practically all the sons and daughters of the soil linked arms and hearts as they swayed and danced heralding Uhuru, we are dealing with a different kettle of fish altogether, this time around.
The new dispensation after last November’s Operation Restore Legacy which saw the new administration of President Emmerson Mnangagwa taking over the reins of power from former president Robert Mugabe is a period that calls for greater circumspection by all Zimbabwean patriots. We are dealing here with two critical fronts. First the fervour with which the new government is pursuing re-engagement with the international community is, for lack of better terminology, similar to a fishing net being cast wide into the sea where it catches all manner of fish.
Among many international investors who have shown tremendous enthusiasm in helping to put Zimbabwe’s economy back on even keel are also those from the West who set up snares to trap and remove from power the Zanu-PF government as punishment for undertaking land reform which saw some properties owned by some white settler farmers being repossessed for re-distribution to the black majority who needed the land the most.
The latter have expressed interest in helping to make our forthcoming harmonised elections free, fair and credible, while the legal snares that they set up to capture the Zanu-PF government for regime change remain intact.
The question that many patriotic Zimbabweans must be asking is whether those erstwhile external enemies of this country are genuine in their overtures to join other members of the international community as election observers while the illegal sanctions remain in place.
Or are these same people ashamed of eating humble pie by declaring that they dismally failed to kill the agrarian revolution under which Command Agriculture is now poised to restore Zimbabwe’s breadbasket status, and so now wish this country to disentangle the conspirators from their own snares?
While welcoming them to participate in this country’s new dispensation, Zimbabweans must nevertheless keenly watch them to discover whether their actions genuinely match their professed desires to walk the new dispensation along with the people that they previously sought to punish for reclaiming their God-endowed land asset from foreigners who seized it by force in some cases.
But, of course Zimbabweans, every Zimbabwean, should with their open arms and hearts receive direct international investors who will help put our economy back on the march towards a brave new future for all of our people.
In any case, there are mutual benefits that flow between investors and Zimbabweans, as also happens with people elsewhere, and so our people should do everything in their power to help President Mnangagwa succeed in his government’s re-engagement courtship with the international community.
The second front that demands careful watch concerns our own people especially in the run up to the elections within the next two months or so.
The contest of power is on as characterised by the jockeying that is already underway with those on the opposite side of the political divide doing their damndest to wrestle power from the incumbent ruling party, Zanu-PF.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with such contests as long as no Machiavellian tactics are used to upset the apple cart of the ruling party.
However, the rhetoric that has been rending the air from some in the political opposition will appear to justify a need by voters to ensure that opposition politicians, or even some from the ruling party, do not flirt with external enemies of the revolution that freed the motherland from a racist foreign ruling culture for material or moral support for them to get into power; otherwise they end up as Trojan horses.
The truth should not be lost on voters that there are people in any given situation who seek power for power’s sake so that once ensconced in cushy government offices they may proceed to line up their pockets and to add layer upon layer of fat on their persons as well as on members of their families without any concern for those who put them in power.
Power should be used as a lever to move, or revitalise social and economic conditions for a people, a whole people, not necessarily for the kith and kin of those in the corridors of power.
Past experiences should serve as the best guide for Zimbabweans in casting their vote so that those leaders known to be always with the people are put in power for them to serve the masses the best way they know how.
Which also behoves on all peace loving Zimbabweans, civilians and guardians of the law to ensure that the violence in the run up to the election and after the polls remains a mere proverb in the new political history of this country.
The positive narrative in this discourse is, in a nutshell, what characterises the political maturation of a people.
As such the present generation of Zimbabweans should not bequeath to future generations a political history tainted with hooliganism, corruption and other isms that are anathema to civilised standards.