Zimbabwe belongs to God, not the President

Today I want to address the issue of our current leadership on a Christian point of view. What can Zimbabwe and our leaders learn from looking back over the ages at the rise and fall if another to which they have a connection? A wise man searches for understanding from those leaders that have gone before him in order to avoid the same mistakes. I believe that there is a period in history around 1000 BC that has a number of great lessons to be gleaned for leaders today but our current leaders haven't learnt anything. Like King David in the bible, how did he manage to transform a nomadic culture of cattle herders whose had spent hundreds of years as slaves, into a vibrant nation.

While mankind is busy looking good, God sees through the facade and straight into the heart. The heart of our current President is hard, selfish, greedy, self centered and evil. He forgets that the reason why he is leading is because God chose him. He is accountable to the higher authority but he doesn't care because he has taken the position of God himself. Every nation and it's people finds successful or failure based on the attitudes and behavior of her leaders. There is a direct correlation between what is in one's heart and one's actions. We all believe that the quest to acquire wisdom and education is crucial to one's success and that wise actions produce prosperous results. This is not the case with our President who has more than 5 college degrees but doing the opposite. If you want to establish a lasting legacy, you have to rule with righteousness ie integrity, justice and compassion but none of the above apply to our President. Recently he celebrated his 93rd birthday spending millions of dollars while the nurses and doctors are on strike. He even decided to fly to Singapore after their birthday bash to seek medical help while at home the Health sector is in total decay. If Zimbabweans fail to judge him,then only God can.

How many times has history witnessed the fall and death of a liberator turned tyrant after he has destroyed the country. I remember vividly at the end of1989 seeing the body of Nikolai Ceausescu, the communist leader of Romania and his wife after they had been executed by their own people. For 24 years he had ruled Romania with an iron fist. He had built a personality cult, erecting statues of himself and posting his picture in every building across the country. He awarded himself University degrees and military medals and listened to speeches by his comrades extolling his greatness. The problem was that underneath this propaganda machine was the truth that he and his administration were extremely corrupt. They had raped and pillaged their own people and by using state television for misinformation, thought that they had fooled everyone. Suddenly one day, their inequities reached the tipping point and God unceremoniously removed them overnight,not only from power but from life itself. They were executed by their own people infront of a firing squad and their bodies were buried in simple graves. The mighty Ceausescus were gone from power in a blink of an eye. The name Ceausescu lives in infamy along with the Hitters, Stalins and Pol Pot of the 20th century.

Just a few years ago the world watched the downfall of Saddam Hussein who like those before him lost everything he had built,including his life. The people celebrated for days and every statue or image of him was either defaced or torn down. The same scenario has repeated itself across the African continent over the last 20-30 years. Initially celebrated as liberators, leader after leader fell prey to pride, greed and power and in the end were hated by their own people and removed from power. This is the same scenario our President is facing but it seems he hasn't learnt anything from history. Instead of the great legacy they had longed for, then became another footnote in history. I can bet our President is going to find himself on the wrong side of history in Zimbabwe.

When one looks across the world stage, which countries are the most respected? It is those countries that attempts to make the moral high ground. It's countries that respects the rule of law, where each member of the society has personal rights that are guaranteed. Exalted nations are found where justice rules and people have a record of helping others in need. Interestingly these nations typically always have a strong christian presence somewhere in their formative years of their history. They had leaders that reminded the nation that God cares about the motivations of the heart. What we do individually with our lives matters, how we treat our neighbors matters. There is an obvious truth that often goes ignored. Good leadership lasts. Even King Solomon gave an interesting observation concerning political job security. He said,"When a country is rebellious, it has many rulers, but a ruler with discernment and knowledge maintains order."A good leader does not need military force to stay in power because the people would remain loyal to him by virtue of his strong character. People long to be led by leaders that value and rule by righteousness and justice. If  a leader needs to revert to military force to stay in power, he has already lost his nation. And it is only a matter of time before he will be gone as well. Our President relies on his military to stay in power and we all know what will happen to him soon. He is sitting on a time bomb.

If leaders choose to deal in lies, inequities and disrespect, those around them will soon take on those very same qualities. Corruption in Zimbabwe starts from the top and everybody follows suit. Their administrations would be polluted from top to bottom with subordinates that were only watching for themselves, lining their pockets with bribes. A good example are the police roadblocks that are stationed after every two kilometers. For the right price they would turn their loyalties to the highest bidder and chaos will ensue. Men once allies will suddenly become mortal enemies as power struggles ensues for the spoils of the government. When this happens, it is long before the nation as a whole slides into chaos, resulting in abject poverty. Under this all too common scenario, the weak and innocent always become the victims and fall prey to the wicked. It is the responsibility of our President to make sure that the poor and the needy are defended but that is not happening in Zimbabwe. Even the courts must rule justly and not be influenced by those with power and wealth on their side. Linda Masarira of the People's Democratic Party and pro democracy activist has been found guilty after she exercised her constitutional right to demonstrate. This is absurd and wrong.

No man can rule a nation by himself. Governments with their huge beaurocracies have to be managed by a team of people with skill sets and expertise in a variety of disciplines. The most successful leaders whether in civil or corporate world, are those that are good judges of people. They know how to discern character and capacity and our President has none of the above.

Let me conclude by what the the former President of the United States, George Washington said when addressing his countrymen. He said, "Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."George Washington believes, as David, Solomon and Moses did that morality could only come from a heart transformed by God's grace. Unless the current  leadership changes course, their days are numbered. Zimbabwe does not belong to black people or white people, it belongs to God. Now it's not the time for blame but for forgiveness. I wish the President a long life so that one day he will see the success of Zimbabwe under another leader. If we are going to turn the course of Zimbabwe around, we must come together, black or white, shona or Ndebele and invest in Zimbabwe's future ---our children. Together another Zimbabwe is possible.

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Tendai Mazenge. PDP Secretary for Policy, Harare Province.tendai.mazenge@gmail.com