Understanding our problems is critical in finding solutions

THE Zimbabwe stalemate has become the new normal. When a problem persists for over two decades, it ceases to be a problem, mainly for those generations that grew up and those born in it. And that too is a major problem as these generations are unable to distinguish the bad from a previous better Zimbabwe. They were robbed of what the older generations have seen of the country. What they are seeing today is what they know and this affects their imagination for a better country.

Why has a country that had shown so much promise hit such a dead end? Explanations to this question are as many as stars in the dark sky. However, the multiplicity of explanations is emblematic of a major problem – a blindness to the real problem – that we are seeing stars because we are in darkness. Darkness is the problem and not the myriad stars. Out of the many characterisations, the Zimbabwe situation has been described as a political, governance, mismanagement or economic issue. These are just effects of the real problem.

“If I were given one hour to save the planet, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute resolving it,” noted Albert Einstein. Einstein was trying to illustrate that understanding a problem is critical in deciding a solution to address it. Details in defining a problem vary depending on its nature. But it can also be generalised as the difference between what is, and what should be. So, we have a problem because our current situation is not how things should be and it is that gap that needs to be addressed.

In the last two decades, we have gone 360 degrees on numerous occasions using the same methods such as elections to address what we thought was a political and governance issue, the same way we have produced tones of economic blueprints to address what we thought was an economic problem. And the constant out of these is that none of the problems were addressed. The root cause has not been addressed hence the other problems worsened. That is evidence that perhaps we are yet to understand our problem.

Perhaps, to help understand our situation, here is a scenario of a village that went through similar situations such as ours.

Once upon a time, a village was invaded by an excessively abusive foreign gang; dispossessing villagers of their means of production, raping their women and children and enslaving their men and boys. Borrowing laws of their home country, the gang established themselves as a government, taking over the control and management of village resources including imposing laws that favoured the foreign gang’s interests. Their economy grew expanding their comfort while marginalising the villagers.

Spellbound by the comfortable and expedient lifestyle of the foreign gang, a group of criminals from the same village mobilised themselves to displace the foreign gang. In order to win the hearts and minds of the villagers, the local gang convinced them that deposing of the foreign gang was called a liberation struggle which was necessary to regain the village’s self-rule. With that, a battle was launched, fought and won and the local gang took over control of the village. The villagers celebrated what they though was their victory.

The criminal gang too celebrated the newly acquired unfettered power and access to village resources. To reinforce their grip on power, the local gang politicised the arms of the village government and State institutions. The army, police, the laws and the courts served the gang’s interests which were couched as national interest. They claimed ownership of the village, the struggle and the people.

Externally and in the public domain, the gang presented a democratic face despite flouting all its tenets. Domestically and in all its conduct, it retained and sharpened its criminal character; politicisation of State institutions, personalisation of national resources, abuse of power and the villagers and impoverishing of the masses. The economy built by the foreign gang was decimated while destitution and oppression of the villagers became the order of the day. The village has not seen peace and progress in many seasons and their suffering is deepening each day.

There is no doubt that the village has a problem which can be unparcelled into so many sub-problems or effects. So, what is a problem? Again, there are causes and effects in this scenario. In the first phase of the scenario above, occupation by a foreign gang was the problem whose effects were dispossession of their means of production, oppression, abuse and marginalisation.

The villagers could have opted for an economic redistributive approach or a human rights campaign and protests for equality. All these are nothing but behaviour change tools to force the foreign gang to change its attitude towards the villagers. Even if these were effects, the outcome would be an insufficient to address the real problem. This is why the villagers led by the local gang did not opt to address the effects, but to confront and uproot the cause.

That triggered a battle which began by disregarding the Constitution and the laws put in place by the foreign gang because they did not serve the villagers’ interests. Most struggles begin with chaos in pursuit of a new order that conforms with the ideals and values shared by the people. That is what struggles are all about – to re-arrange and rewrite the order.

In the second phase of the scenario, perhaps the villagers need to draw lessons from the first phase. Maybe the villagers need to remind themselves that oppression is addressed by uprooting the criminal gangs. Maybe they need to realise that addressing effects leaves the root cause of the problem intact; neither does behaviour change advocacy nor negotiations with the criminal gang are the answers to their problems. It may not be too late to learn from the past.