Embrace peace, amity as magic wands
THE violence that marred what ought to have been a rousing send-off for MDC-T leader and former Prime Minister Mr Morgan Tsvangirai at his burial in Buhera on Tuesday was disgraceful. It will no doubt go down in everyone’s memory as a damnation on a democratic political system that nearly four decades after Uhuru should have by now reached the kind of maturation befitting a people with hearts vibrating peace and amity as magic wands for economic and social development.
Potential investors and other well-wishers in the global village are wont to ascribe and blame violence occurring in Zimbabwe or in any other country for that matter, to a single political organisation and leave it at that.
No, violence of any nature ultimately besmirches the image of the Zimbabwean nation as a whole, tragically turning our country into a no-go zone for investment as well as for visits by tourists who deliver the golden eggs badly needed for economic growth in any country around the globe.
The resignation of MDC-T’s national spokesperson Obert Gutu, saying he could no longer remain a member of a violent political organisation, just goes to show how as a senior party representative the man was repulsed by the violence that clearly testifies to the struggle for power by senior members of that organisation — a phenomenon that publics in this country, political and not so political, must also be totally fed up with.
It is no exaggeration for this pen to suggest that political violence, coming as it did in Buhera so close to harmonised elections to be held in a few months has the potential for wrenching the carpet from underneath any free, fair and credible polls.
This is because peace loving political organisations risk being tarred with the same dirty brush by political hooligans taking the law into their own hands at the behest of power hungry leaders who resort to political hooliganism as a cats’ paw with which to seize power, even for power’s sake.
It is therefore a tragic irony that when peace, love and unity should lead to a scintillating peak in the political and economic dispensation in which Zimbabwe finds itself in today, some political vandals should rear their ugly heads as what happened in Buhera this week, at the behest of power maniacs who ought to know that any high political position attained through violent means is bound to remain tenuous since the saying that “violence begets violence” is valid to a very large extent.
At this point in time Zimbabwe is poised for economic and socio re-invigoration with the eyes of potential investors from around the globe focused on a new Zimbabwe with President Emmerson Mnangagwa as the country’s new leader – a leader whose pleas for love, unity and peace as magic wands for political, social and economic development are so loud that patriotic Zimbabweans with ears to hear should embrace that trio of values day and night in their interactions with fellow Zimbabweans.
It is also time or so this pen believes, that the Church of Jesus Christ used the pulpit as a point of departure through crusades across the nation, preaching the gospel of love, unity and peace to the masses as conditions amenable for national stability which is the right environment conducive to economic, social and political growth to magnetise foreign investment.
The industrial resurgence such as that which once made Bulawayo the industrial hub of Zimbabwe, for instance, will remain a pipe-dream if there is no peace and unity and an unflinching determination among the business community, the government and the people as a whole to work together for the city’s and the nation’s economic revival as a whole.
The re-capitisation of the National Railways of Zimbabwe headquartered in Bulawayo and which saw the inauguration of 150 wagons and 71 locomotives from South Africa under the Diaspora Infrastructure Development Group clearly demonstrates the goodwill that the global diaspora has for Zimbabwe as long as it continues to be viewed as a safe investment destination.
The new equipment should enable the NRZ swiftly to move exports to and imports from the seaports in Mozambique and South Africa as a fillip to our country’s economic revival.
What is more the new investment should boost passenger traffic with people moving away from road to rail travel considered safer by many Zimbabweans.
The government might now wish to move at speed to improve infrastructure such as roads and bridges destroyed by rain in both urban and rural areas for swift movement of goods and passenger traffic.
It should be noted that right now many foreign investor eyes are also focused on many lucrative areas that include lithium in Matabeleland as well as on many of the minerals with which Zimbabwe is endowed and the exploitation of which remains conditional on a peaceful environment and one free from corruption which blights, and is known to have harmed investment in many lucrative areas, on the African soil.
It thus behoves on Zimbabweans, individuals and corporates to espouse a modus-operandi that entices, and ropes in, investors to help re-invigorate our economy into one so buoyant it will become a touchstone for investors, with Zimbabweans in the diaspora making up the bulk of investors back home.
When all things are considered, the tenor of the above discourse is a call for abiding peace, love and unity that have the potential to form a tripod for sustainable foreign and local investment.
All in all, the dispensation in which Zimbabweans find themselves today will undoubtedly be regarded by many generations to come as a God-send meant to redeem the sorry state into which this nation had found itself politically and economically and with corruption growing so cancerous that our society might soon have started to stink to high heavens with an insipid rottenness had providence not intervened just in time.