Zimbabweans yearn for development, not protests
Heroes Day THE and Defence Forces commemorations that we held this past week were a time of solemn remembrance and celebration.
To utter dismay, Nelson Chamisa and his irreverent MDC Alliance on Friday sought to upstage this sacred national hour through distracting and destructive demonstrations that belie an attempt at violent uprising as has become the trademark of his immature ambition.
It is an uprising that is intended to up-end the national democratic outcome of August 2018 general elections.
The violent streak has its origins in two political fallacies.
One is the misplaced faith in the hardships of the ZDERA sanctions of far Washington as an ignition to a revolution begot at the behest of a foreign power.
From 1890, Zimbabweans endured nine decades of excruciating colonial penury.
They could never deliver themselves through futile uprisings.
They knew better the folly of confronting the well-oiled state apparatus of the settler colonial administration.
Today Zimbabwe has a respected, disciplined and much loved army and police force.
All begot from the heroic sacrifices of dear sons and daughters we honoured on Heroes Day.
Why on earth would a proud nation resort to an uprising against their own state apparatus?
Such wayward thinking is the harebrain wish of the political day-dreamer that is Chamisa and his political green horns.
Their folly arises from conflating the political party ZANU-PF and the State.
To have an attitude against a party should not lead to the treacherous conduct of challenging the Zimbabwe State. Such an act is the realm of treason. The second fallacy is that uprisings can be prompted by an on-off electrical switch of the indigent ambition of young Chamisa.
He is either too lazy or too scared to read about the long road travelled by President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his generation to power.
They took extraordinary risks of which Chamisa plainly avoids even as he craves for power so much.
Will he place his own life on the line for the cause of personal political power he pontificates about?
The first generation nationalists had to go all the way from dreamy protests of 1960s to a war of attrition.
The journey covered two decades and victory became apparent in 1979.
Sadly, more thousands of souls had paid the supreme price of life for freedom.
Chamisa should be reminded that wars and uprisings are not a dinner party.
Moreso when such political quests are premised upon an imagined shift of allegiance of the national army.
None other than the supine John Bolton, the Chief at the American National
Security Agency, who has a poignant and topical lesson to offer.
He recently banked on the Venezuelan army turning traitor to satisfy America’s neo-colonialist agenda of regime change.
To the delight of progressive global humanity, that has never come to pass.
President Maduro is still at the helm of Venezuela to the chagrin of the war mongers and neo-colonialists of America.
Chamisa should be wary of being a cat’s paw to alien interests.
Moreso, it is the patriotic sub region of the Southern Africa Development Community.
It was born of the erstwhile Frontline States of the epic anti-colonial, anti-racist and anti-apartheid struggle.
It is a well-knit union that acquired a political soul beyond the bounds of geography.
Chamisa must take note that SADC brooks no treachery.
All said, the November 2017 Revolution was intended to lead the anarchist nihilism of “Dira-Jecha” political agenda.
Rather Zimbabweans hanker for development, modernisation and prosperity.
Political power in a democracy is dispensed through national elections.
Any other recourse to premature and in procedural power changes is a recipe to perpetual chaos and the road to Somalia.
The November 2017 Revolution was intended to lead to democracy, peace, unity, development and prosperity.
Any attempt to hijack it to the anarchism and nihilism of the “Dira-Jecha” political agenda will come to nought.
Political power in a democracy is dispensed through national elections. Any other recourse to premature and out-of-procedure power changes is a recipe to perpetual chaos and the road to Somalia. Zimbabweans will not brook that route.
The 1970s generation was a supreme price paid to attain national and regional prosperity.
People who had been colonised and dispossessed were hamstrung. They could not get chances to fulfil their aspirations like other nations.
The generation decided even if they died or get maimed it did not matter so long posterity could get a better life.
This Second Republic is correcting the deviation that the G40 cabal had lurched into as they deliberately abandoned the agenda of development for prosperity, hence President Mnangagwa’s mantra of Open for Business and Middle Income Status by 2030.
This will finally fulfil the dream of the 1970s generation of sacrifice.
Over the past two decades, the country experienced high unemployment, economic downturn, migration into the diaspora while infrastructure for water, power, fuel, rail and roads faced neglect.
Anti-investment laws chiefly, the indigenisation act chased away or kept Foreign Direct Investment at bay.
Zimbabwe decayed because sanctions, wilful mismanagement by external enemies and their domestic agents were keen to shatter the dreams of the 1970s generation of sacrifice.
They were keen to prove that Africans were, by facial DNA, incapable of modern economic development.
So they were sub-human species who had to be perpetually minded by the European and American white master race.
The ‘white master’ would, thus, have super race justification to access the abundant natural resources of Africa for their benefit.
The well-educated Zimbabweans gap to other nations all over the world.
They seek employment in other national jurisdictions so they can realise their dreams.
Actually Zimbabwean employees skip the border in search of labour opportunities offered by businessmen in foreign lands.
Otherwise they remain at home to be underutilised informal workers.
President Mnangagwa is determined to reverse that.
Instead, he is courting and inviting capable foreign businessmen to come to Zimbabwe.
They will set up factories and industries here so employment is secured within our borders. That is the practical result of Open for Business mantra.
Zimbabwean workers are quite capable and should produce world class goods destined for discerning consumers in the global market place.
Brand name companies will move into Zimbabwe and churn our millions of goods and services to sell to 6 billion customers that are the global market place. This will deliver the desired prosperity.
This requires overhaul of economic policies and programs.
Introducing a convertible currency is a major step so we can find proper national pricing policy.
Painful and self-defeating subsidies have to go.
Free gifts of electricity to inefficient factories of post-Rhodesian origin is not sustainable.
A supply and demand economy run on free market principles is the only way to a growth of the economy. Investors should be able to walk in and out.
The outcome will be a net inflow of funds as global businesses seek advantage of stabilisation, educated and disciplined labour and treasure trove of natural resource endowment.
A prospering Zimbabwe, giving a wholesome life to its populace and assuming its rightful place in global march of human progress, is the ultimate and only tribute to 1970s heroes and the realisation and fulfilment of the goals of the national liberation war.
Demonstrations are a right, but the ones being orchestrated by the MDC Alliance are ill-timed. Zimbabweans want to see an improvement in their lives and that will not be achieved through street marches.
This Second Republic is correcting the deviation that the G40 cabal had lurched into as they deliberately abandoned the agenda of development for prosperity, hence President Mnangagwa’s mantra of Open for Business and Middle Income Status by 2030 . . .