Fools will always look, but never see!
At the turn of the millennium, during the period when the world ushered in the carefree Ama2000 generation, Zimbabwe was slapped with sanctions by the West and looked East, but it now looks forward.
IT will never — ever — look backwards! Ever since US President George W Bush decided to give us a curious early Christmas “present” on December 21, 2001, by signing the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZDERA) into law, life was never the same again.
With an albatross around our neck, hands tied behind our back and manacled feet, we were — and still are — expected to jog, trot and sprint at the same pace as our peers.
Zimbabwe came under unimaginable siege and stress!
The glitzy, glamorous and overreaching Western mainstream media, which demonstrably has the redoubtable and awesome power to even pass off human excreta as chocolate, or vice versa, progressively carved and crystallised an enduring image of Zimbabwe as a hopelessly failed State that had all but collapsed.
It severely dented our image and distorted outside perceptions of our teapot-shaped Republic.
Bishop Lazi is not in the least surprised that a significant number of the Ama2000 generation that grew up consuming this staple of neatly packaged unflattering propaganda against Harare have swallowed hook, line and sinker the narrative that theirs is a country to be ridiculed and be embarrassed and ashamed of.
At a time when the transfer of land ownership from white minority farmers to hordes of hitherto landless blacks was bound to cause an upheaval, the economy was smothered by sanctions that made it even difficult for private companies to access finance from external financiers, while local banks’ correspondent relationships with their international counterparts collapsed and internal economic capacities were undermined.
Not surprisingly, the Zimbabwe dollar, as we used to know it, floundered and subsequently died when it was demonitised on September 30, 2015.
Politically, the West, anxious to see a change of guard in Harare, was exploring every conceivable option to jettison the ZANU PF regime.
We now know after ex-South African President Thabo Mbeki’s revelations on November 26, 2013, that the meddlesome former British Prime Minister Tony Blair actually desperately tried to hatch a plan to force the chief of defence staff, Lord Guthrie, “to work out a military plan” to “physically remove Robert Mugabe”. Kikikiki.
Earlier on July 10, 2008, China and Russia had to veto a United Nations resolution sponsored by Britain and the US to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe.
Despite the countless political chicanery and schemes to bring the country to its knees, which include roping in a phalanx of subversive opposition political parties, civic society and non-governmental organisations, and using them as convenient battering rams
against the regime, Zimbabwe still stands.
In fact, Zimbabwe is not only standing, but moving — forward!
Out with the Old; In with the
New
Bishop Lazi has to reiterate: Zimbabwe will never — ever —look backwards again!
In Luke 9 verse 62, Jesus advises us: “No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”
When messengers of the Lord led Lot and his family out of the condemned and ill-fated city of Sodom and Gomorrah, they warned them (Genesis 19 verse 17): “Flee for your lives!
“Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!”
But Lot’s wife looked back and she became a pillar of salt.
Some time back, the Bishop told you that 2022 would be the year when signs of a rising Zimbabwe will shine brightest.
If you had been paying attention, you would have observed that last week a delegation of senior Government officials and the top envoy from the Chinese Embassy had a symbolic tour of some of ED’s signature mega infrastructure projects that have been completed or are nearing completion, and are the cornerstones of a new Zimbabwe.
A new modern pharmaceutical warehouse replacing the one inherited from Rhodesia in 1980 has since been completed, while expansion works at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport are advanced.
Once completed — and soon — it will be a sight to behold, competing with any other airport internationally.
Most importantly, the new structure will supplant old structures inherited from Salisbury Airport, which was commissioned in 1956, and service legions of inbound visitors carried by the increased number of airlines that are now servicing our route.
To Bishop Lazi, it is completion of the new Parliament Building in Mount Hampden that carries a lot of meaning and symbolism.
Well, before the colonialists under the Pioneer Column set off for Zimbabwe from South Africa in 1896, their marching orders from British army officer Major-General Paul Methuen were to establish their administrative capital in Mount Hampden.
“Well, gentlemen, your destiny is Mount Hampden,” he reportedly said.
But, on September 11, 1896, a column of the British South Africa Company Police (BSACP) commanded by the petulant and irascible Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Pennefather rode to Gwebi River, which is near Mt Hampden, early in the morning, but they
could not find water and turned back.
They then set up camp in Salisbury, now Harare, and later hoisted the Union Jack in the now Africa Unity Square two days later.
It so happens that the area that was occupied by the white settlers fell under the jurisdiction of the Bishop’s all-conquering ancestors — the Hwata chieftaincy — who had migrated from Nyashanu in Vuhera.
Now, far from the old structure that was actually converted from an old hotel that went bust during colonial times, a new seat of people’s power modelled as the Great Zimbabwe Monument — the symbol of our civilisation — has since risen on a site where the colonialists failed to settle.
It is now the nucleus around which a fabulous metropolis shaped by self-determining indigenes is fast rising.
ED is similarly accomplishing the same feat in Matabeleland, where the Lake GwayiShangani project, which was first mooted about 111 years ago (around 1912) is earnestly inching towards conclusion.
Successive colonial governments, from Godfrey Huggins (Lord Malvern) to Ian Smith, even with pockets bulging from pilfered wealth, failed where ED now succeeds with nothing more than internally generated resources.
Such mammoth achievements are made incredible by the fact that they are taking place at a time when the world is under significant strain from interlocking crises precipitated by both the coronavirus pandemic and now the conflict in Eastern Europe.
Despite the downturn in the global economy, Zimbabwe still finds itself in a better place than last year.
Exports during the first six months of this year actually rose by US$900 million from US$2,6 billion last year to US$3,5 billion, buoyed by robust performance in the mining sector, where new projects are being commissioned and old mines are expanding.
This is tellingly a harbinger for a prosperous future.
Just for perspective, dear reader: Ethiopia, a country with a teeming population of 115 million, generated US$4,1 billion in export revenues in the 2021/2022 fiscal year, while Zimbabwe, with 100 million less people than Africa’s second most populous country, generated more than US$6 billion in the 2021 fiscal year.
It shows we are on the march.
Leaving a better Zimbabwe
You see, the main idea is to leave Zimbabwe a better place than we found it, which is exactly what we are doing.
Soon, and very soon, the modernised Beitbridge Border Post will serve as a refreshing
new structure to welcome visitors.
It is not only the port of entry that is getting a facelift, but the whole town is being radically spruced up.
It is now a better place than it was before. The road to Harare is now pleasurable to drive as more stretches of world-class roads are opened to traffic.
It is now better than it was before. And in a little more than three months, Zimbabwe will begin to banish the nightmare of power cuts through an initial 300MW that will begin to be fed into the grid.
Three months later, another unit will inject an additional 300MW, which will significantly ensure energy security.
Other green energy projects will be taking off very soon.
Over the past two months, two major projects from private investors expected to cumulatively produce 600MW were approved.
Overall, the power supply situation will be better than it was before.
It is only in cities, where the urban folk are locked in a time capsule by inept local authorities that cannot even repair streetlights, collect garbage, repair roads and traffic lights, and supply water, that progress seems non-existent.
The only noticeable progress in cities are roadworks that are apparently being driven by Central Government.
While in other countries neon lights and spectacular lighting illuminate vibrant nightlife in the Central Business Districts, the same cannot be said about Harare’s First Street Mall and its environs.
Bishop Lazi would dare Harare Mayor Jacob Mafume to try and walk along First Street or Africa Unity Square at night and see if he won’t get mugged along those forlornly dim walkways.
When ED was in Gweru on January 13, 2018, he made an important remark that has shaped his administration.
“Takati masanctions atidzorera shure, asi iko zvino hatichafaniri kuramba tichichema namasanctions. Nezvatinazvo, tikabatana tinosimuka. Nyika yedu inosimuka.
“Matoona kuti tava nesolution in the area of agriculture and the area of food security. Tava nesolution nemasolutions in manufacturing,” he said.
Impliedly, it simply meant despite the odds staked against us, we have learnt to adjust and change rules of the game.
Zimbabwe is rising, and it will never look back but continue to march forward.
Just imagine how much more we would have accomplished over the past four years had our current efforts and drive not been tempered by sanctions.
Bishop out!