“Belling the Cat is a fable concerns a group of mice who debate plans to nullify the threat of a marauding cat,” explained Wikipedia.
“One of them proposes placing a bell around its neck, so that they are warned of its approach. The plan is applauded by the others, until one mouse asks who will volunteer to place the bell on the cat.
“All of them made excuses.
“The story is used to teach the wisdom of evaluating a plan on not only how desirable the outcome would be but also how it can be executed. It provides a moral lesson about the fundamental difference between ideas and their feasibility, and how this affects the value of a given plan.”
This is a moral lesson we, in Zimbabwe, have yet to learn and have paid dearly for it!
Zimbabwe is not a democratic country in which those in positions of power and authority are democratically accountable to the people. Zimbabwe is a de facto one-party state in which those in power do as they please and we, the ordinary people, have no say. None!
A lot has been said in support and against the regime’s recent decision to ban the use of the multi currency as legal tender in Zimbabwe. No one, absolutely no one can ever deny that the move could result in the hyperinflation of 2000 to 2008 because that is a historic fact. Inflation peaked at 500 billion %, the Z$ was so worthless we needed Z$35 quadrillion (35 followed by 24 zeros) to buy US$1.00.
A Commission of inquiry has since established that US$ 5 billion was lost from the Insurance and Pension Funds as a result of the hyper inflation. Many people lost their life-time savings and many business closed and the national economic took a beating and has never recovered.
The worthless Z$ was finally scrapped in November 2008 but the damage was already done and echos of it are still reverberating to this day.
So, even those who genuinely believe the abolishing of the multi currency system is a good thing; they cannot deny that the move could lead to yet another hyperinflation fuelled economic meltdown because it has happened before.
Besides, inflation has already started to creep upwards again. The monthly inflation was 5% in January and is 100% today. The threat of yet another inflation fuelled total economic meltdown is not hypothetical, it is a distinct possibility. Even if it was a certainty, that would not have made an difference, Zanu PF would still have abolished the multi currency system regardless.
Zimbabwe is in this economic mess because of a string of one economic blunder after another be it rampant corruption; the seizure of the white-owned farms to give to party cronies; the printing of money, the crazy fuelling the last hyperinflation; etc.; etc. Many papers were written pointing out the folly of all these policies but the powers that be did not pay any attention.
Minister Mthuli Ncube, President Mnangagwa and, indeed, all of us know that even if the banning of the multi currency system should prove to be yet another disastrous blunder; there is nothing, absolutely nothing, we will do about it other than the usual crying, gnashing of teeth and dying. Nothing!
We should have the full confidence of holding Mnangagwa and Mthuli Ncube to democratic account; removing the individual from public office in a free, fair and credible election is the ultimate expression of democratic accountability; over, not only, this matter of multi currency system but everything. We do not have any such democratic power.
It is this political helplessness that we should be concerned about.
At least the mice in the fable had the common sense to abandon the bell plan as soon as it was not feasible. We expend our time, energy and treasure discussing Zanu PF's fast track land reform, multi currency system, everything else whilst doing nothing to implement the democratic reforms needed to stop Zanu PF rigging elections! This is equivalent to the mice wasting time embellishing the bell plan with details of ring-tone, the colour of the ribbon, etc.
After 39 years of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF misrule one would think we have finally woken up to the reality that Zimbabwe is not a healthy and functioning democracy in which the freedoms and rights of the individual are respected and protected. Instead of those in power being the servants of the people, the politicians are the lords and the people grovel before them.
Forcing Mangagwa to step down so we can implement the necessary democratic reforms is not the impossible task of belling the cat some people regard it as, especially when Zanu PF rigged the last elections and the regime is, ipso facto, illegitimate.
Mnangagwa is not the all power cat no more than we are the frightened mice grovelling before him! He is a ruthless tyrant and still a mortal being, not a God, like you and me. It is therefore within our power to hold him to democratic account and we must.
6 comments:
Yes we need electricity but it is not the only thing! We need investment in health, education, roads, dams, you name it! After 39 years of misrule, rot and decay the chickens are coming home to roost.
The only way Zimbabwe can ever hope to start repairing the damage of years of Zanu PF misrule is by starting at the very top, we need to replace our failed one-party dictatorship political system with one that will guarantee good governance.
“Do you know that top MDC officials stole US$8million from the $12million donated for the 2013 election &bought farms on the Zambian maize belt from Monza, Mazabuka, Chome, Kabwe where they are doing cattle ranching? There is a lot of cleaning up to do in Zimbabwe,” said Masarira.
Corruption is rampant in Zimbabwe, it will be a big surprise if many MDC leaders are still clean are they cosy relation with Zanu PF during the GNU!
To ban the multicurrency when the Z$ is losing its value was a foolish decision and there is no excuse for it!
“Whilst the liberation war helped to end white colonial rule it also created a big problem in that it created a hawkish ruling elite who turned the AK47 rifle on the civilians to deny them their freedoms and basic human rights including the right to a meaningful vote and even the right to life. When you are look up the business end of a gun; you do as you are told.”
Sadly, this is all too familiar a theme in Zimbabwe and many parts of Africa: in which yesterday’s liberators turning into today’s oppressors and today’s liberators turning into tomorrow’s oppressors. Still the cup is full to overflowing.
It is possible to force Zanu PF to step down but this is very difficult if not impossible when that effort is being undermined by a corrupt, incompetent and intransigent opposition. People like Tendai Biti, Nelson Chamisa and David Coltart have tasted power and they betray the nation again and again just to get back on the gravy train. Having sold-out the first time now it comes as easily to them as a murderer killing his tenth victim.
The fight to stop MDC sell-outs selling out is itself made difficult by the army of MDC supporters who have continued to follow these corrupt and incompetent leaders blindly like sheep. It is impossible to have a healthy and functioning democracy with such a blind and useless electorate.
@ Simba
Emmerson Mnangagwa is already falling on his own volition, if you try to assist the push, you will be blamed by the corrupt SADC/ AU leaders whose backing you need for any revolution to succeed.
Court cases, battles and revolutions are sometimes lost not because the case, army or cause was weak but because the lawyer, general or revolutionary leader was incompetent.
It is all very well calling for a shutdown but people need to know and agree what it is the shutdown is meant to achieve. We have a regime of trigger happy thugs and this will be a long fight if people are going to make the necessary commitment they must be convinced it is all worth while.
Officials at the Registrar General Office told AFP that even if citizens want to pay for an urgent application for a passport, they face a minimum wait of 18 months before they can even submit their papers.
"Last month, the urgent applicants were being told to come back at the end of 2020," said one official who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
The Second Coming by W B Yeats
Well things are certainly falling apart in Zimbabwe, the centre cannot hold and anarch is ruling the roost. Mnangagwa and his cronies have failed to govern but that is not to say they will ever admit they failed much less give up power.
Indeed, whilst they know that they have failed, even they cannot be blind to the consequences of their failure, the economic hardships they see only serves to harden their own resolve to stay in power for fear they too will be swept away in the growing tide of abject poverty. Many of them have looted and even shed innocent blood in the drive to secure power; they only sure way of keeping this past secret is for them to remain in power. And so, they are hanging on to power with the desperation of a binnacle superglued to a rock.
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