Our genius will be in accepting past failures just as Darwin accepted a chimp as cousin.

When Charles Robert Darwin, an English naturalist and geologist, published his book On the Origin of Species in 1859 – a little over 150 years ago – proposing his theory of evolution with compelling evidence, he could not have insult more of his generation even if he had spit in their mouth! The most offending notion in his whole book was than mankind evolved from an ape like creature and that the champ is our cousin! This flew right in the face of all accepted school of thought of the God, world and mankind’s place in it.

“Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Genesis 1: 26.

This Charles Darwin fellow was discounting the mankind’s position as the one creature made in God’s own image and given dominion over everything else. Worst of all, the fellow was discounting the very existence of God Himself as all living things, according to his theory, evolved from simple, single celled organism over billions of years; making a complete mockery of all the “Let there be light, and there was light!” bull.

It was painful enough to be dethroned as one made in God’s own image but to be given a champ as a long lost cousin was an insult many could simple not endure; their egos would simple not allow that! Damn the “compelling evidence”!

Thank God (many who believe in evolution still find room for God and religion – Genesis’ account of creation is a religious synopsis pregnant with symbolism and not a scientific theory backed by hard evidence) reason prevail, compelling evidence cannot be discounted on the basis of perceived egos but only by the production of compelling evidence to the contrary.

Further research has shown that the human genome, the DNA, the coded genetic recipe defining each and everything alive or has ever lived, is 99% identical to the genome of the chimpanzees and bonobos making them mankind’s closest relative in the tree of life. The gorilla’s DNA is 98% identical to our own.

Have a chimp for a close cousin has not stop us excelling in every sphere of intellectual endeavor. We are light years ahead of the chimp if chimp is a day ahead of the gorilla and confirming Genesis’ assertion of man having dominion over all living things.

Whilst there is nothing in the human genome to differentiate the intellectual ability of one human from another or the basis of race, gender, religion, etc. Still some nations or tribe within a nation have certainly performed better than others so within nations and tribes some have assumed dominion over others. The dominance of one nation or tribe over the other has not been a permanent fixture like that on mankind over other living things but has it peaks and troughs with the passage of time just as there are hills and valleys with the passage of distance.

When Zimbabwe attained her independence in 1980, after nearly a hundred years of white colonial exploitation and oppression many thought the country was set for great things; freedom, justice, peace and economic prosperity. 36 years later, only Mugabe, his cronies and his apologist and their families would deny the economic reality that the country is in a real mess. There is compelling evidence that the root cause of the economic mess is the decades of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption which has result in the criminal waste of the country’s human and material resources.

Mugabe and his cronies are like hyenas that grow fat on carrion of the drought victims, except that they are the ones who have drought on this economic ruin on the nation and they have grown filthy rich from the mismanagement and wholesale looting. But with unemployment a nauseating 90% plus, with the country’s health and education services all but collapsed, chronic power and water shortages, 76% of the population now living in abject poverty, etc. even Mugabe and his cronies cannot deny the country is in a mess. This is not where the people expected to be back in 1980!

Sadly Zimbabwe has become the basket case of the white supremacists who resisted the ending of white colonial rule in Africa on the grounds that “blacks were inherently incapable of self-government!”

There is compelling evidence to prove that Zimbabwe has suffered from the ill effects of corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical regimes. Yes the misrule has been a complete disaster for the nation. How we react to this grim reality of 36 years of failed governance will decide whether we continue to sink or come up for air.

We can bury our heads in the sand, which is what Mugabe and his cronies are forcing us to do, and continue we have not put one foot wrong these last 36 years and all our economic problems are because of the sanctions imposed by the West, drought, etc. We will continue to sink into the abyss!

Or we can admit we have let ourselves down as a nation; we should have never allowed Mugabe and his cronies 36 long years to drag the nation this deep into the abyss. Whatever else they may claim to be, the bottom line is that they are mere mortals and it is in the power of another mortal to refuse to be led by the nose like a bull.

Throughout the 36 years, we have had many opportunities to end Mugabe’s corrupt and tyrannical rule with the best opportunity being during the GNU when all we had to do is insist on the implementation of the democratic reforms agree in the 2008 GPA. Not even one reform was implemented and we lost that chance.

The country’s worsening economic crisis is forcing Mugabe and his cronies to acknowledge the reality of the economic meltdown, Mugabe and his cronies are engaged in a dog-eat-dog fight over the fast dwindling wealth. Like it or not they know the present system is unsustainable although they a loathed to accept the change must include far reaching political reform. It is for us to make sure there are far reaching political reforms; we implement all the 2008 democratic reforms.

As a black person accepting that our leaders, Mugabe and his cronies, are corrupt and incompetent has been comparable to mankind at Charles Darwin’s time accepting mankind is not special, he not made by God in His own image. There is compelling evidence that Mugabe and his cronies are corrupt and incompetent, we need to accept this reality, implement the democratic reforms design to end Mugabe’s no-regime-change mantra and set the nation free of his corrupt and tyrannical rule that has brought nothing but misery and ruin!

Mankind’s genius over our nearest cousin the chimp was in accepting Charles Darwin’s compelling evidence that we evolved from a simple single celled organism just like every other living organism and move on and be the ape that has reached for the stars and beyond. Similarly Zimbabweans’ genius would be to accept black leaders can be corrupt and incompetent, learn from Mugabe’s corrupt and tyrannical misrule, and build a healthy and functional democracy and put the nation on the map as a free and prosperous nation.