Are we beasts or men?

"The fact that blacks look like human beings and act like human beings, does not necessarily make them sensible human beings."

I read with utter despondency that Zanu-PF thinks it does not need dialogue with anyone especially with regard to turning around the economy. How can Zanu-PF talk to losers, Rugare Gumbo asked?

Meanwhile, it has is rumoured that China is busy putting together a package to get ZimAsset going and this gentleman believes that that is the best solution that Zimbabwe needs. This truly saddens me but makes me realise that we have a very long hard fight ahead of us.

My greatest fear is that, once more, Zanu-PF is going to destroy significant value with ill-considered and frantic policies to mortgage our mineral resources at a pittance. Firstly, Zimbabwe does not have the institutional capacity and necessary integrity to spend USD 10 billion to the benefit of its citizens; such a windfall is likleyto do more harm than good especially when that money comes from the Chinese whose ultimate motives remain questionable to the long term interests of our country.

In addition, we have no clue of the value of the minerals underneath, so how can we put a value on something we don't know? How can we predict future cash flows of our mineral resources given the unpredictability of international commodity prices? We are most likely to sell ourselves short as we did with Zisco and future generations will surely look upon us with utter disgust and horror as they realise that they must still pay for debts incurred by dead generations. God help us.

This incidentally led me to read former South African President PW Botha's speech made in parliament in 1987. I will only take excerpts from the speech to make my point. I must say that I find the speech hugely offensive to us blacks and yet some and not all of the issues raised by him remain somewhat incontestable.

"We are not obliged even the least to prove to anybody and to the blacks that we are superior people. We have demonstrated that to the blacks 1001 ways. The republic of South Africa that we know of today has not been created by wishful thinking. We have created it at the expense of intelligence, sweat and blood. We do not pretend like other whites that we like blacks. The fact that blacks look like human beings and act like human beings does not necessarily make them sensible human beings. If God had wanted us to be equal to blacks he would have created all of a uniform colour and intellect. By now every one of us has seen it practically that blacks cannot rule themselves. Give them guns and they will kill each other. They are good at nothing else but making noise, dancing, marrying many wives and indulging in sex. Let us all accept that the black man is a symbol of poverty, mental inferiority, laziness and emotional incompetence. The average black man does not plan his life beyond a year"

If this makes you boil just pause and ask yourself what have we to show as a country since our independence in 1980?  

Horrifying corruption and outright theft, a leadership with an inexplicable obsession with luxury cars and sexual encounters, the destruction of prodigious value in all sectors of our economy, the use of arms of war against our Ndebele brothers and sisters, the decimation of agriculture and the dog fight over diamonds, the  deliberate extermination of a national indigenous bourgeoisie, the destruction of our environment that is now happening particularly by small scale tobacco growers and small scale miners all under the name of indigenisation.

In addition, just look at the dirt in our cities and townships, the noise that goes on daily, the potholes and sewerage all over, the overcrowding and the common face of poverty, hopelessness and a serious deterioration of our living standards. Look at our values and morals as a society and what we have become; the greed and selfishness all around us; all this, despite having the highest literacy rate in Africa!

Would you therefore say that P.W. Botha was fundamentally wrong or blinded by racism?

Of course P.W. Botha and his lot were unashamed racists who committed crimes against humanity and that can never be defended by any one. But let us for a minute consider how many Zimbabweans have died, suffered loss or injury in the last thirty four years under their own black government?

I truly want to believe that we can change this narrative about blacks; we can indeed create a modern and prosperous democracy in Zimbabwe. However I doubt that we will be able to do that under the current Zanu-PF leadership.

In my opinion, there is something fundamentally wrong with us. We are a nation unable and unwilling to take responsibility for our future as we blame all and sundry for our problems. We have destroyed so much and have not built anything of significance as black Zimbabweans.

Of course the unleashing of our potential as a people has been deliberately arrested by liberation struggle politicians and not the West or anyone else out there. It is truly time for Mugabe and his team to go. This regime truly shames us as proud black Zimbabweans.

I hope and pray that we are going to see a new leader from Zanu-PF who is fundamentally different before this year is out. Or am I being naïve?

As Winston Churchill once said, "The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is."

So there it is my dear brothers and sisters. It hurts but the truth is never convenient.

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Vince Musewe is an economist and author based in Harare. You may contact him on vtmusewe@gmail.com