This is where Zimbabwe went wrong

Since the birth of Zimbabwe in 1980, there is no denying that Zimbabwe started to decay sooner than it was born.

Politics of vengeance, atavism and reward, economics of egoism and structural violence and social of dominance and subjugation characterised the new Zimbabwe's Trinitarian structure and ate and continued to eat and most likely will continue to eat the soul of the nation until the nation is dry of life.

Challenges are recurrently redefined. Institutions are continuously compromised and made very irrelevant, yet institutions are a prerequisite and very important in development.

Societies are pushed to the periphery of hope due to depriving strife and have since despaired to face challenges in human capacity.

They have rather turned to the spiritual realm hoping that Heavens will take control, but heavens take earthly controls through people who make these societies.

There are of course many factors that account for Zimbabwe's sickness. These factors are internal and external. These factors are political, economic and social as afore-hinted.

They are all intertwined. Scholars and laymen have been pre-occupied by the affairs of many African states and have come to varied conclusions why they fail and struggle.

However most of their argument are premised on the psyche and actions of leaders. For instance Davidson and Rodney argue that military psyche in Africa influence policies that prove leaders' muscles and compromise people's progress at all spheres.

Nonetheless I will not comment on the psyche and actions of Zimbabwean leaders. I will rather comment on the fundamentals that the country missed since its birth.

The first fundamentals missed are the concepts of modernity and globalization. These are different but much intertwined concepts.

Modernity has many contextual definitions, but can be simply understood as innovativeness.

This means continuous new ideas and discoveries that perfect standards of living in societies.

Globalisation is a process connecting the new ideas and discoveries to a universal village termed the global world.

This means that no single state in the world can exist isolated from others. Scholars have termed this the world systems.

In the world systems, the most developed will need the developing and the underdeveloped to feed its progress.

The developing will need the developed to copy and follow progress and the under developed to feed its progress.

The underdeveloped is needed by the developing and the developed to feed their progress and in turn the under developed needs to attach with the developed and developing to survive their progress and copy the relative progress.

Pre-colonial Zimbabwean societies were thrown to alien modernity by colonialism and to globalization by decolonization of Africa. Zimbabwe was given a chance to engage in the modern world through global interaction.

Zimbabwe did not engage with modernity but rather remained constant in the modern progress. The world developed and Zimbabwe started to disengage by design.

The policy of disengaging started to suffocate the economy of Zimbabwe. Industries became isolated even relocating them felt the impact of isolation.

Many heavy industries declined. Even potential policies such as ZIMASSET can't come to life because of zero support networks.

This came with rapid job loss and continued unemployment. Population growth came with growth in economic consumption.

Economic consumption needs to be balanced with economic production. However due to isolation, economic entities have become useless and human capital under-utilized.

This continues to add on the country's unemployment rate. Many Zimbabweans have turned to education with the hope of surviving, but education has become useless on two senses.

The first sense is that education is there to feed the economy with human capital. Due to isolation, Zimbabwe has no formal economic system.

The educated people have largely become irrelevant. They have nowhere to fit in. The second sense is that education has become an income practice.

Education facilitators now teach examinations than concepts. They sell examination skill than reasoning.

Contextually therefore, Zimbabwe has less educated graduates and many examination graduates.

Zimbabwe would not be in this state if people were really educated. Literacy is being able to write and being educated is being able to apply what has been learnt to the changing environment.

The two should not be confused.

This is due to the declined economy which does not offer gaps for fresh human capital and is also due to the declined economy that forces people to survive by any means necessary.

The declining of the economy is as largely a result of isolation from the global world.

Perhaps the economy should be revised first before revising the education curriculum.

Zimbabwe lags in participating in the world systems and will continue to add on the unemployment population.

The unemployment population is a time bomb that will change the state of Zimbabwe.

People will fight to control the structures of the livelihoods. Going back to the fundamentals is a step to healing.