Does Zimbabwe owe you anything?

ranking man being an engine controller; oh what a degrading and oppressive system it was. Alas! It was successful to the white man, those were his intentions, to make our people believe that they owned property-200 square metres, in their own land, their land was distributed to them-for shame they still are proud of it up to this day — 200 square metres kuyini kodwa? You can make it out of the “hood” just

don’t be permanent markets It’s really sad that these same systems and coerced mentalities still exist. People celebrate to be from ekasi like it’s a beautiful thing. There is nothing to celebrate about systems that limit your worldview, subject you to perennial mental slavery, allow you to find solemnity in poverty and capitalist enhancing projects. We have financed projects that celebrate being from the “hood”, we give credit to kasi parties, we constantly boast about which “hood” you are from yet some people laugh at us. I write like this because I know the bane of the “hood” and how it kills your esteem and makes you blame everyone for your parents’ miscalculations and bad choices. The hood successfully induces in you hatred of those who live on the other side of town. I may be hated right now for writing this, but the truth should be said at one point, the hood is a well constructed system of denouncing “privilege” as a demon yet your parents failed to create that for you — ko Daddy maiteyi? The social norm in the “hood” is gossip, gangsters, withcraft labelling and a sprout of redeeming churches that preach salvation yet numerous people die poor because they choose not to shape their destiny but tithe to a momentous rich man who soon will leave the “hood” when tithes are enough to buy a house in the “burbs”.

I always contend that there is a strong correlation between the property that you live on or own and the way you think. If psychologists have not found this out, then here it is. Simply put, growing up in a 200 square metre yard extensively limits your world view with some isolated cases — which are those who break out of the “hood” jinx”. On that small property, there is limited recreation, it corresponds with the resources your parents can afford and offer you and the limited legacy of your family which you can ride on to prosper. In many cases, you work hard to take care of them than to maintain a legacy. In the hood, every child is an investment; you have a mammoth task of taking the family out of that misfortune which you were born into. That is testimony of how people in the hood are not happy about their predicament. The barriers you have to break to take them out of the hood and take the hood out of them, consumes your lifetime. At least two generations lose their time attempting to divorce themselves from the hood and create a legacy for the family. In any normalcy, man is born to create a legacy, as such all his working time is an investment into legacy creation, but alas! You can’t do that in the “hood”, the inspiration is limited to none.

You have heard and seen celebrities who make it out of the “hood” Jay-Z left Brooklyn, Kendrick Lamar followed suit, Eminem divorced himself from Detroit, Sbu left Soweto and lived in Sandton, then went back to a gentrified Soweto and many of the politicians do not live in the ghetto they represent. The list I have mentioned has a strand of similarity: they all made it out of the “hood” but they still feed from it, why? Because it’s a ready market for them. To the celebrity, these are the revellers for shows because the alternative for recreation in the hood is clubbing and imbibing and the story of success inspires many who identify with him yet he no longer does, they are his market. Remember The Blue Print 3 by Jay-Z “Brooklyn we go hard”? It sold like hot cakes; being bought by the poor Brookliners. It’s the same with DJ Sbu, Soweto loves him, recently he sold a million units of his energy drink; Mofaya, large quantities in the “hood” because the Sowetan identifies with him as a poor kasi boy who made it out, but to him, they are just his market. Mind you, I am not saying they are wrong, they are simply good businesspeople, and those from the hood are permanent business not only for the celebrities but in Zimbabwe they are now a readily available market for NGOs and activists. #youcanmakeitouttoo Profiting from activism #Mustfall Zimbabwe has this group of entrepreneurs for long and no one has called them out. The next instalment will call out NGOs and activists who have made it out of the hood using people from the hood as their market for donor funding which has financed their luxurious lifestyles such that some of them own butcheries in the city, homes in leafy Brooke suburbs and their children learn at the Petras, CBCs, Convents and Carmel yet the “idle” youth they use as their numbers languish in poverty. #hypocrisymustfall