Opinion / Columnist
Inevitably Zimbabwe is next!
15 Jul 2021 at 12:27hrs | Views
This is the painful truth we dread to talk about in Zimbabwe consideration the South African volatile situation. Realizing that the unrest taking place in South Africa are poverty induced, lock-down-induced circumstances, we are bracing for the worst to come in Zimbabwe. For black abjectly poor South Africans to rise, looting of shops that sustain them, plundering and burning of property that make the economy tick, it is naïve to still pin the current violence in SA because of Zuma's prison sentencing.
Zuma's incarceration was the trigger of a situation that was looming; a time bomb that was about to erupt, will erupt, has erupted, will continue to be for some time to come. Dear governments of southern Africa: address poverty in the lives of millions of your citizens please.
Zimbabwe is a fertile ground for such a revolution taking place in South Africa and Eswatini. The destitution in the general population, the rising poverty, the covid 19 induced lock-down regulations pushed the people to the limit of what they can endure. The lock-down meant that the people were not able to generate income to sustain families. The Mnangagwa govt had no plans how they were going to assist the population under the global pandemic.
The people were left on their own, even in rich industrialized countries, governments chipped in to assist the vulnerable societies. How is a Zimbabwean vendor expected to subsist if he/she is told to be indoors and respect the lock-down conditions for an unspecified time without the minimum to exist?
For Mnangagwa's government, emblematic with corruption, covid 19 was an opportunity to get stranglehold of the people and monitoring those perceived enemies of the state. How many activists were incarcerated during the lock-down period? If the Zanu government was a caring regime, it was not the time to square cheap politics of sending the likes of Chinono and Gharivhume to maximum prison, instead to de-congest major prisons to reduce covid 19 infections.
Animosities from the population are building up, have been building up for a long time. Ordinary citizens are carefully watching how political leaders and their families live in luxury unimaginable by common sense: it will not take time to realize the bomb exploding. We cannot take it anymore: the situation for the common man is just unsustainable.
Chinese nationals are given access to our resources ahead of us Zimbabweans and we are made to work for the Chinese thereby getting pittance of salaries to take home. Reports of abuse of Chinese employers are widespread. There is no adequate investigations done by the government to establish the reason why Chinese employers abuse workers. As if looting of our national riches is not enough, they allow themselves the audacity of treating African workers as slaves in their own land and the Zanu PF govt looks on because their personal interests with China exceed the dignity of Zimbabweans. This Zanu PF has no interest in us, we are disposables: this is the painful situation we must live with daily: This is a ticking bomb and time will tell when the bomb explodes.
It is not only diamonds that are looted but other minerals too. Lithium and platin are mined privately to benefit the ruling elite. The revenues are not getting into the nation's treasury, but investors are reporting to Mnangagwa directly and privately. To say Zimbabwe is ruled by a gangster group of criminals is still an underestimate. It is worst to realize that these people were in the liberation struggle for independence. Did we fight the war to impoverish generations of our children and the future generation to come? This is the ticking bomb: it is a question of time the bomb will explode.
Why are African leaders selling us cheaply to China? Can an African afford to ill-treat a Chinese in China? Which African can be allowed to go to Hwange National Park-like in China and start digging mineral resources destroying the environment habited by millions of animals? The environmental degradation caused by Chinese investors is put paid on our coming generations and our government is too stupid to know this. This is the ticking bomb that will explode anytime: it is a question of time when that will happen.
The Zimbabwe situation is as volatile as the South African one. The difference between the two could be that there is no looting and vandalism that is going to take place because there is nothing to loot in this country, Zimbabwe is bankrupt in many fronts. No institutions will be targeted as their looting took place long back and what is going to happen is that the people will target leaders and families for destroying the economy, unfettered corrupt individuals, oligarchs who used state money to boost private businesses – living large at our expense.
Look at our institutions all of them: health, schools, roads, banks, railways, Zesa, Zisco, they are dilapidated, all hospital are a death trap. When the ruling elite get sick, they go abroad for treatment because they do not trust their own government hospitals. Are they still proud to be rulers of a nations whose institutions they do not trust? They send their children abroad for education because schools in Zimbabwe have become inferior. Are they still proud to be rulers of a pit-latrine economy they do not trust its services?
The bomb will explode without any warning signs, and nobody can tell what the trigger will be. The people are watching, it will be a question of time before we experience the unimaginable in this country.
Zuma's incarceration triggered unrests in South Africa, it will also happen in Zimbabwe in the same manner. The food insecurities and several other imports that came from South Africa may be the trigger. How long are the political uncertainties going to continue in South Africa that will put Zimbabwe consumer economy at risk.
This region is interconnected intricately and in complex ways, and it goes without saying that most countries in the region will be affected by South Africa's political, social, and economic instability it is experiencing. The level of destruction in South Africa will be pegged in billions: the money we do not have. This is how irresponsible African governments can be.
Zuma's incarceration was the trigger of a situation that was looming; a time bomb that was about to erupt, will erupt, has erupted, will continue to be for some time to come. Dear governments of southern Africa: address poverty in the lives of millions of your citizens please.
Zimbabwe is a fertile ground for such a revolution taking place in South Africa and Eswatini. The destitution in the general population, the rising poverty, the covid 19 induced lock-down regulations pushed the people to the limit of what they can endure. The lock-down meant that the people were not able to generate income to sustain families. The Mnangagwa govt had no plans how they were going to assist the population under the global pandemic.
The people were left on their own, even in rich industrialized countries, governments chipped in to assist the vulnerable societies. How is a Zimbabwean vendor expected to subsist if he/she is told to be indoors and respect the lock-down conditions for an unspecified time without the minimum to exist?
For Mnangagwa's government, emblematic with corruption, covid 19 was an opportunity to get stranglehold of the people and monitoring those perceived enemies of the state. How many activists were incarcerated during the lock-down period? If the Zanu government was a caring regime, it was not the time to square cheap politics of sending the likes of Chinono and Gharivhume to maximum prison, instead to de-congest major prisons to reduce covid 19 infections.
Animosities from the population are building up, have been building up for a long time. Ordinary citizens are carefully watching how political leaders and their families live in luxury unimaginable by common sense: it will not take time to realize the bomb exploding. We cannot take it anymore: the situation for the common man is just unsustainable.
Chinese nationals are given access to our resources ahead of us Zimbabweans and we are made to work for the Chinese thereby getting pittance of salaries to take home. Reports of abuse of Chinese employers are widespread. There is no adequate investigations done by the government to establish the reason why Chinese employers abuse workers. As if looting of our national riches is not enough, they allow themselves the audacity of treating African workers as slaves in their own land and the Zanu PF govt looks on because their personal interests with China exceed the dignity of Zimbabweans. This Zanu PF has no interest in us, we are disposables: this is the painful situation we must live with daily: This is a ticking bomb and time will tell when the bomb explodes.
It is not only diamonds that are looted but other minerals too. Lithium and platin are mined privately to benefit the ruling elite. The revenues are not getting into the nation's treasury, but investors are reporting to Mnangagwa directly and privately. To say Zimbabwe is ruled by a gangster group of criminals is still an underestimate. It is worst to realize that these people were in the liberation struggle for independence. Did we fight the war to impoverish generations of our children and the future generation to come? This is the ticking bomb: it is a question of time the bomb will explode.
Why are African leaders selling us cheaply to China? Can an African afford to ill-treat a Chinese in China? Which African can be allowed to go to Hwange National Park-like in China and start digging mineral resources destroying the environment habited by millions of animals? The environmental degradation caused by Chinese investors is put paid on our coming generations and our government is too stupid to know this. This is the ticking bomb that will explode anytime: it is a question of time when that will happen.
The Zimbabwe situation is as volatile as the South African one. The difference between the two could be that there is no looting and vandalism that is going to take place because there is nothing to loot in this country, Zimbabwe is bankrupt in many fronts. No institutions will be targeted as their looting took place long back and what is going to happen is that the people will target leaders and families for destroying the economy, unfettered corrupt individuals, oligarchs who used state money to boost private businesses – living large at our expense.
Look at our institutions all of them: health, schools, roads, banks, railways, Zesa, Zisco, they are dilapidated, all hospital are a death trap. When the ruling elite get sick, they go abroad for treatment because they do not trust their own government hospitals. Are they still proud to be rulers of a nations whose institutions they do not trust? They send their children abroad for education because schools in Zimbabwe have become inferior. Are they still proud to be rulers of a pit-latrine economy they do not trust its services?
The bomb will explode without any warning signs, and nobody can tell what the trigger will be. The people are watching, it will be a question of time before we experience the unimaginable in this country.
Zuma's incarceration triggered unrests in South Africa, it will also happen in Zimbabwe in the same manner. The food insecurities and several other imports that came from South Africa may be the trigger. How long are the political uncertainties going to continue in South Africa that will put Zimbabwe consumer economy at risk.
This region is interconnected intricately and in complex ways, and it goes without saying that most countries in the region will be affected by South Africa's political, social, and economic instability it is experiencing. The level of destruction in South Africa will be pegged in billions: the money we do not have. This is how irresponsible African governments can be.
Source - Nomazulu Thata
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