Dear Lord grant me the common sense to stop repeating the same foolish mistakes! W Mukori

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.”

A prayer written by the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971). 

God only knows how much we, in Zimbabwe, need the serenity, courage and the wisdom now more than ever! Indeed, we have lacked the wisdom to know the difference between what we can and cannot do we have spent the last 39 years serenely accepting things in our power to changed and have paid dearly for it! 

There is no doubt that Zimbabwe is in this hell-on-earth economic and political situation with millions living in abject poverty because of 39 years of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF rule. Could we have prevented this? Yes, of course we could have and, more significantly, can do so now if can only have the common sense to stop making the same mistakes over and over again. 

Zimbabwe’s economic and political mess is a man-made tragedy and, per se, a problem of bad governance due to incompetent  leaders and we, the people, failed in our supervisory role.

There is no denying that Zimbabwe’s economic and political mess is a man-made situation. In 1980, when the country attain her independence, the country had a vibrant economy with the potential to become the South Korea of Africa we became the North Korea of Africa instead. 

In 1980 Zimbabwe was the breadbasket of the region, for example; growing enough to her own people and many others in the region and earned a fortune from tobacco, cut-flower, beef and other agricultural produce. In 2000 Mugabe seized the farms to give to his Zanu PF cronies and the agricultural sector collapsed. 

For the last two decades Zimbabwe has failed to produce enough to feed its own people and has become heavy dependent on food aid - we are so poor we cannot even pay for it. Correction, the country can pay for the food if billions of dollars were not creamed off and wasted by the filthy rich ruling elite. 

We live in the day and age when human ingenuity has turned deserts is blooming field and orchards. Zimbabwe is, for all intent and purposes, the Garden of Eden and yet we are starving! This is the damning testimonial of the sheer corrupt and incompetence of those who have governed Zimbabwe these last 39 years.

We, ordinary Zimbabweans, have played our role, passive or otherwise, in the Zimbabwe we see today - a basket case of a failed state. By the time Zimbabwe attained her independence Mugabe and the great majority of those who had wage the war of independence had already jettisoned the values “Liberté, égalité, fraternité!” (Liberty, equality, fraternity!) to borrow from the French revolution. Mugabe et al wanted absolute power and was prepared to use brute force to get it! 

The 1980 election was not a democratic but grim choice of electing to stop the civil war or to see it escalate; Zanu PF made is very clear if the party lost the elections the civil war will intensify. If anyone ever doubted Mugabe’s revolve on using brute force to retain power the Gukurahundi massacre of 1983 to 1987 removed all doubt. 

The sole purpose of the Gukuhandi massacre was to either eliminated Joshua Nkomo and his PF Zapu party or force them to join Zanu PF to create a de facto one-party dictatorship. Mugabe got the dictatorship he wanted but not before over 20 000 innocent civilians had been massacred in cold blood.

After independence in 1980 Mugabe and his Zanu PF regime has trained the AK47 rifles from white colonial oppressor onto the civilian population and the regime has used lethal force at the drop of a hat just to remind the populous “Big brother has loaded gun and has a titchy finger!” 

Still, it is a historic fact that the people of Zimbabwe had many golden opportunities to stop Mugabe imposing the de facto one-party dictatorship and, once imposed, to dismantle it. The best chance to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship was during the 2008 to 2013 GNU; Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends’ task then was to implement the raft of democratic reforms formulated by SADC. Not even one reform was implemented in five years. Not one!

The people of Zimbabwe have risked life and limb to elect MDC leaders into power on the ticket they will deliver democratic change, as the party name implies. In their 19 years on the political stage MDC leaders have failed to deliver even one democratic change. The people themselves have been naive and gullible to believe MDC will deliver any change because not only did MDC leaders themselves have no clue what these democratic changes were, the people too had no clue. 

A case of the blind leading the blind into the ditch!

When Mnangagwa took over from Mugabe in the November 2017 military coup he promised to a new transformed Zimbabwe, “new dispensation, a Second Republic” as he called it. He promised to hold free, fair and credible elections; the one thing, above all else, that would marked the metamorphic transformation from the de  facto one-party dictatorship to a healthy and functional democracy. 

Mnangagwa went on to blatantly rig the 2018 elections. He was reminded of the need to implement the democratic reforms without which it is nonsense to talk of free and fair elections; just to be absolutely sure he will not have the excuse of not knowing what was expected of him. He never even made an effort to implement even one token reform. 

Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF regime rigged last year’s elections, they have no democratic mandate to govern the country, they are illegitimate and must therefore step down. Zimbabwe is in this economic and political mess because for the last 39 years the country has been stuck with a corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and, per se, illegitimate Zanu PF dictatorship. 

The EU, the Americans, the Commonwealth and anybody who is anybody have all condemned last year’s elections as flawed and full of illegalities. ZEC failed to produce something as basic as a verified voters’ roll, for Pete’s sake. Zanu PF would have been forced to step down by now if Zimbabweans themselves had agreed the elections were NOT free, fair and credible. 

Everyone in the opposition camp participated in the elections regardless of all the evidence the elections will be rigged. Even when ZEC failed to produce a verified voters’ roll that did not stop them joining the rat race. Zanu PF has since learned that as long as the party allow the opposition to win a few gravy train seats the party can blatantly rig the elections to secure its 2/3 majority and the presidency, the opposition will participate regardless. 

Having participated in the July 2018 elections regardless of the glaring flaws and illegalities, everyone in the opposition had no choice but to accept the flawed process as legal and the result as legitimate. Nelson Chamisa and his MDC Alliance have accepted the parliamentary result as legitimate but not the presidential result.  He is just holding out in the hope Mnangagwa will concede an additional gravy train seat for himself over and above the few MDC A have secured in the elections. 

The people have not stamped their own authority and put an end to the political charade of rigged elections but, once again, the people themselves have been indecisive. Many people are even with all the benefit of hindsight still indecisive as to whether last July’s elections were free, fair and credible. They have no clue what constitute free, fair and credible elections much less what to do if elections are rigged. 

In this day and age; 2 500 years after the Greeks gave humanity democracy, freedom, liberty, etc.; one would think something as basic a verified voters’ roll should be accepted by all as a common sense pre-requisite to a meaningful elections. In Zimbabwe, it might just as well be rocket science requirement!

In the long run, people get the government they deserve. After 39 years, we in Zimbabwe certainly deserve this Zanu PF dictatorship complete with its entourage of corrupt and incompetent opposition parties, over 130 of them at last year’s elections. 

39 years of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship have left millions of Zimbabweans living in abject poverty; the country’s once upon a time robust economy is in total ruins, unemployment has soared to nauseating heights of 90%, basic services such as clean water and health care have all but collapsed, etc. 

If Zimbabweans are serious about getting out of this hell-on-earth then they must take ownership of their own destiny and stop being a helpless passengers.  To Niebuhr’s prayer Zimbabweans must now pray for common sense.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.”

But above all, dear Lord grant me the common sense to stop repeating the same foolish mistakes born lack of wisdom, courage and/or serenity!