I would like to thank Khumbulani Maphosa
for the pithy answer to the worry issue of xenophobia attacks that have been
taking place in South Africa. There are millions of Zimbabweans in SA and
therefore there is no Zimbabwean who does not have a brother, sister, uncle or
some such close relative in SA. So the whole nation is worried about these
xenophobia attacks targeting African foreigners.
In his epic poem “Why we are in South
Africa” Bulawayo 24 Opinion Khumbulani said all that needed to be said on the
subject
“When the dilapidated house of hunger falls
apart
……..
You are left with two choices
Two die or to die.
Two die or to die.
Staying at home you die
………
Crossing the border you die”
………
Crossing the border you die”
What Khubulani did not say is that we have
a third choice; to stay in Zimbabwe and make it a free, just and prosperous
nation!
Zimbabwe has not always been a poor and
chaotic country with nothing better to offer its people than the grim choice of
starvation and political oppression at home or the hope of a better future in
some distant land but with the risk of being burnt alive in a xenophobia
attack.
“Zimbabwe
has to import three quarters of its food needs and the 60 per cent of our
industry that was dependent on agriculture, has also folded,” wrote Mr Eddie
Cross in one of his recent articles.
The land is still there and so is the good
rains; the only people stopping us going back to those good-old days of dumper
crops and economic prosperity is us.
Zimbabwe's political and economic mess are man-made and per se it is within the powers ordinary mortals too put things right. All we need is to apply ourselves to the task of how to govern ourselves for the good of all and not a tiny few. It is not rocket science and we have the benefit of many models of self-government to copy from them. For the last 35 years we have completely failed on that singular task so that today the country’s national economy is in total ruins and millions of our people are scatter around the globe like autumn leaves with no hope, no future and no life.
Of course there is no reason to hope that tomorrow things will be any better if we continue to follow the same path we have ploughed these last 35 years like mindless wildebeest. But even the wildebeest soon learn that they cannot cross the river where the bank is a twenty metre drop; it may take the death of a few hundred, still they learn. Have we learnt nothing after 35 years of mindless blundering!
Zimbabwe's political and economic mess are man-made and per se it is within the powers ordinary mortals too put things right. All we need is to apply ourselves to the task of how to govern ourselves for the good of all and not a tiny few. It is not rocket science and we have the benefit of many models of self-government to copy from them. For the last 35 years we have completely failed on that singular task so that today the country’s national economy is in total ruins and millions of our people are scatter around the globe like autumn leaves with no hope, no future and no life.
Of course there is no reason to hope that tomorrow things will be any better if we continue to follow the same path we have ploughed these last 35 years like mindless wildebeest. But even the wildebeest soon learn that they cannot cross the river where the bank is a twenty metre drop; it may take the death of a few hundred, still they learn. Have we learnt nothing after 35 years of mindless blundering!
We may not have been ready for the
challenges of self-government in 1980; we have had to learn the hard way by
making the mistakes and reinventing the wheel. If we have learnt nothing then,
as Khubulani rightly said, we will continue to have two grim choices to stay
home and die or leave the country and die!
Zimbabwe is an independent country and it
is our choice to make it a free, just and prosperous nation or a failed state
ravished by poverty, hopelessness and despair!
16 comments:
“There is nothing to celebrate about here when our people are being butchered in foreign land all because we have failed to provide employment here," said Mujuru.
You are saying that now but for 34 years you have sat there like a cabbage and did your bit in dragging the nation into this mess.
If you have serious about helping this country out of this mess then you must disclose the details of how Mugabe and Zanu PF rigged the 2013 elections, that will help force this regime to accept the implementa-tion of the democratic reforms necessary for free and fair elections!
Mai Mujuru, Mutasa, Gumbo and all the purged Zanu PF thugs should do something useful to the nation for a change after 34 years of doing the exact opposite. All they have been doing so far is tell the nation how Zanu PF has failed the nation; we do not need the idiots who presided over the corruption and mur-ders to tell how we have suffered, we know that! Tell us how you have corrupted the system so we can fix it, you useless idiots!
@Chakezha
"We are sick and tired of thinking that Zimbabwe has the most educated people when they are all running away from their own country instead of building it."
You really have a bone to chew with educated people and/or those in the diaspora.
So we have had uneducated people running the country for 35 years, what have they accomplished?
There is an inherent contradiction in you blaming those who left the country for the decline because these people left precisely because of the decline! You are just a confused person who cannot distinguish the causes from the effects!
Zimbabwe is in a mess and all Zimbabweans, wherever they are, can play a useful role in sorting out this mess!
Do you want to tell in all your so called research you have failed to uncover the basic fact that MDC failed to implement not even one reform during the GNU. If they could not implement any reform back then we they had the majority in parliament and SADC's backing; what makes you think they can do so now when it is Zanu PF who have the trump cards.
The trouble with people like you is that you simple do not want to accept the reality that Tsvangirai and others sold out. The nation is stuck with a corrupt and incompetent opposition because of brainless idiotic researcher like you who think they have discovered the reforms but fail to realize that MDC has already failed to implement the reform!
Wake up for fcuk sake!
As Zimbabwe marks its 35 years of independence from Britain today, opposition parties say the time has come to take President Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF head-on to engender meaningful political and economic freedom in the country.
Speaking at a joint Press conference in Harare yesterday, opposition leaders — who included MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai, Simba Makoni of Mavambo/Kusile/Dawn (MKD), National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) representative Madock Chivasa and his Zapu counterpart Njobisa Noku — said the sad reality in the country was that there was not much to celebrate in a supposedly free Zimbabwe.
Reading the four parties’ joint press statement, MDC secretary-general Douglas Mwonzora said Zim-babweans were living in “a sorry state” and now needed to engage in a new struggle to realise their liberties that remained a pipedream.
This is total nonsense; these people must think we are all village idiots. Simba Makoni was in Zanu PF for donkeys and he did nothing to stop the rot. If anything he did his bit to build the party into the de facto one-party dictatorship it is today. Tsvangirai and Mwonzora have five years to implement the reforms designed to dismantle the dictatorship but they failed to get even one reform implemented. And not they want to tell “the time has come” to take Mugabe head-on as if they had failed to in the past when they had a chance because it was not the right time!
No you failed in the past because you sold out to the tyrant. You will never be elected to a position of trust ever again!
Mugabe is a murderous tyrant who has shed the blood of over 30 000 innocent Zimbabweans in his 35 years in power. The millions of Zimbabweans in SA are there to escape his tyrant and the economic chaos he has brought to Zimbabwe. It is therefore sicken to hear him being "shocked and disgusted" by violence when he has State institutionalized violence in the country!
Mugabe is a hypocrite used to shedding buckets of crocodile tears at the drop of a hat!
Mugabe can promise the civil servants the bonus but where will the money come from?
Last year Mugabe stepped in to provide meat for the party's Youth League members and made Mutasa look like idiots when he had known all along that the party had no money. The members forgot about complaining about the lack of jobs and all the other many problems the nation was facing; they were already tasting the roasted meat. It was only when they returned home after the conference that they remember all their troubles but, of course, it was too late.
Mugabe gave Tsvangirai and his MDC friends a taste of the gravy train life and for five years they forgot about implementing the reforms. It was only after Mugabe had rigged the elections and Tsvangirai found himself try to maintain his lifestyle of one living in a $4 million mansion but with zero income that he remembered the reforms. MDC are now boycotting all elections until reforms are implemented but, again, it is all too late.
No doubt the gullible civil servant are chuffed to bits the bonus has been reinstated. Mugabe will now tell Chinamasa to go ahead with the planned cuts of hundreds of thousands of civil servant posts and cutting the wages of those who remain to say nothing of the ever worsening economic situation; they civil servants are not going to complain because they will still be grateful to Mugabe for giving them the bonus. By the time they realize that they have lost a hell lot more than they gained from the bonus it is all too late!
No doubt there will be many drumming their chests for months to come because Mugabe re-versed the bonus. How naïve!
In an interview to the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper in 2014, Samuel Sipepa Nkomo, a former MDC-T Minister during the GNU admitted SADC and the whole world had warned MDC not to take part in the July 2013 elections without reforms.
“We failed to secure critical reforms before participating in the elections,” admitted Sipepa Nkomo. “The whole world advised us not to get into the elections without reforms, and so in
everything that we have been saying we have failed to acknowledge that we also made a mistake.”
“It is common knowledge that Lindiwe Zulu (President Jacob Zuma’s international relations adviser) advised us. Zuma also advised us and even the SADC Heads of State meeting in Maputo (Mozambique) also advised not to participate in the elections without electoral, media and security sector reforms, among others.”
By publicly denying something everyone knows to be true Tsvangirai has just confirmed that he is a blundering idiot who will flip-flop because of his incompetence. We can always count on him to blunder and then vehemently deny he blundered!
After Mugabe himself Tsvangirai is now the greatest hinderance to our struggle for meaningful democratic change. It was his blundering incompetence that helped Mugabe and Zanu PF back into power in 2013.
Electing a blunderer once is forgivable but electing him again and again knowing he is a blundering idiot is simply unforgivable!
@ paparay
Tsvangirai is a blundering idiot who should be back in Buhera herding goats and not meddling in national affairs. It was his failure to implement the reforms during the GNU that has allowed Mugabe to rig the July 2013 elections landing us in this mess! Zimbabwe cannot afford another national blunder!
@ rafaqu702
It was MDC's job to table the proposed reforms and if Zanu PF had opposed the reforms then it would have been to SADC as the guarantor of the GPA to deal with. What you are failing to get your head round it accepting the basic fact that MDC never tabled even one reform.
The reason why SADC reminded MDC to submit the proposed reforms is because they understood there was nothing SADC could do until MDC have done their bit.
Even if one was to accept you stupid argument that MDC did not table any proposed reforms because Zanu PF would have resisted them and SADC was powerless to do anything about it. Why did MDC go on and take part in the elections even after SADC had warned them not to.
Zimbabwe is in this mess because of blundering idiots like Tsvangirai in the first place but also because there are idiotic voters like you who have their heads stuck in their backside and will keep electing village idiots like Tsvangirai even when they have already proven beyond doubt that they are village idiots. You need to take a breath of fresh air mate!
Yes Zanu PF is falling apart but after they had secured themselves power with MDC's help. The ordinary people are pleased that Zanu PF is falling apart because this gives the nation another chance to force Zanu PF to accept reforms. This time we will make sure that Tsvangirai and his village idiots do not have a say because they will f*** things up again!
Mugabe needed some headline grabbing good news to tell the nation and the regime decided to manufacture those headline news by playing good-cop bad-cop. The regime has used the same trick in the past and it has always worked without failure. What is funny here is that the regime will now go ahead and fire many civil servants, cut the wages of those who remain, increase the cost of fuel, etc. and the workers will still smile from ear to ear confident they are the ones who have "won" in all this because they forced the regime to reinstate their bonus.
Someone has to tell these morons that they had the bonuses all along so they have not gained anything!
Secretary-General Japhet Moyo said South Africa had “treated Mugabe softly” allowing him to destroy the country’s economy causing the influx of Zimbabweans in that country.
True but did the ZCTU not side with Tsvangirai when he failed to get even one democratic reform implemented? Where was ZCTU then?
ZCTU can blame Mugabe for why so many Zimbabweans are in SA but to blame SA too is a bridge too far!
ZCTU's failure to criticize MDC throughout the GNU has shown just how incompetent the ZCTU leaders are. They are just jumping on the bandwagon of those criticizing the regime and everyone else they can think of for the mess the country is in. It is important that ZCTU should know that they are guilt by their close association to Tsvangirai and his follow MDC village idiots!
Zimbabwean workers must wake up to the reality of some dead wood in the ZCTU and do something!
These guys are not really fighting each is playing their role to take the nation's attention away from the big issue of the economic meltdown. Mugabe needed to deliver or be seen to be delivering some good news on Independence Day. The regime did not have any good news and so it manufactured the good news by letting Chinamasa deliver the bad news and by being seen to be reversing the bad news Mugabe was delivering good news. Job done!
Charamba is brought in to give the story even more mileage!
The economic meltdown is not so easily side tracked and fooled; more people will be sinking into abject poverty. The xenophobia attacks in SA will only mean that millions of Zimbabwe who have depended of diaspora Rand directly and indirectly will suffer.
Instead of Zanu PF seating down and plan what to do to address the economic meltdown the regime is wasting time on smokes and mirrors tricks to play on the naive and gullible public!
What we need is economic recovery and not gimmicks!
Former Premier Service Medical Aid Society (PSMAS) CEO, Dr Cuthbert Dube has won an labour case against the health service provider, after an arbitrator ruled that PSMAS owes him more than US$2 million in salary arrears accrued from January this year.
PSMAS members who are paying Dube these mouth-watering salaries are the poorest of the poor and for what? So that Dube and others can continue to rip them off! How can this be justice!
@ Patrick
"The grim choice before us is either we force President Mugabe and Zanu PF to step down or millions will be forced into poverty and hundreds of thousands die unnecessarily. The risk of social collapse or worse is real because this situation cannot go on for much long-er."
Patrick, I have a sickening feeling that we have been sitting on this ticking time bomb for a very long time and it is going to explode with heart-breaking consequences. Indeed on can even say the xenophobia attacks in SA is the start. If the chaos in SA continues and the trickle of Zimbabweans returning from there becomes a flood and the country has nothing to offer them but hopelessness and despair, it will be naive to think they will all suffer in silence!
We can defuse these ticking bombs by addressing the country's underlying economic and political problems but we must act now and not wait any more time in political nicety of appeasing Mugabe. Mugabe is a corrupt and murderous tyrant and he must be told in no uncertain terms that he must go.
We have failed to articulate that message because it has taken most people two years af-ter the rigged elections for them to finally realize that MDC sold-out and therefore cannot be trusted. It is not surprising that a nation that is this slow in realizing MDC are a waste of space are taking even longer to deal with Mugabe!
“They also expressed concern that the MDC-T does not seem to have a clear plan on what else to do in terms of ensuring that there are electoral reforms besides boycotting the elections.
“Tsvangirai could not be drawn to discuss the issue after the rally only stating that Zimbabweans should not sit back and expect other people to solve their problems for them.”
The truth is that Tsvangirai does not have a clue how the reforms will be implemented now and thus is passing the buck to the people and saying they should not “expect other people to solve their prob-lems”. In this can MDC were in the GNU to implement the reforms they did not get even one reform implemented. The people could not have done this themselves even if they wanted to because it was for MDC MPs to draft the proposed reforms and approve them in parliament.
Tsvangirai is on a nationwide campaign trail because he wants to be re-elected by the people. What exactly does he want to do if they re-elect him? So that he can spend another five years on the gravy train and do absolutely nothing and at the end of it blame the people gain that nothing was done!
The people of Zimbabwe must wise up to the reality that Tsvangirai failed implement even one demo-cratic reform during the GNU because he sold-out to Mugabe. He is only seeking to be re-elected so that he can once again sell-out! If people do not wake up then they have per se elected to remain stuck in this hell-hole Mugabe has dragged us into.
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