History will judge us by our social media timelines

When the story of Zimbabwe in these years is finally written, I suspect it will not be remembered for what we suffered, but for how lightly we took it. The record will not be one of famine, mismanagement, and squandered opportunities. It will be one of hashtags, punchlines, and endless forwarding. We will not be immortalised as a people crushed under unbearable hardship, but as a people scrolling through it.

Take the malaria crisis. In just a few months, more than 300 Zimbabweans are dead. That is triple last year's toll. Health workers speak of outbreaks in 115 districts. And still we talk about it as if it is the weather, something happening in the background, inevitable, seasonal. Yes, we complain about the US cutting malaria aid. But where is the outrage at our own government for allowing foreign donors to hold our lifeline? Where is the plan? It was in the news cycle for a week, then vanished under a sea of TikTok skits and celebrity gossip.

Or the elephant culling announcement. A government that has failed to secure adequate food for its people now proposes killing elephants for meat. A desperate move appearing as pragmatism. Conservationists screamed. Urbanites made jokes about elephant stew. We debated whether the meat would taste like beef or chicken. What we did not debate was why this country, with all its land and potential, cannot feed itself without turning to an ecological scandal. The story burned bright for days and then sadly drowned in memes.

And then the $92 radio levy. You cannot insure your car without paying it. This, for a broadcaster that struggles to be relevant in an age where most of us stream, WhatsApp, and download our news. People cursed ZBC on Facebook. They made parodies of the national news intro. But there was no organised pushback, no petitions with real signatures, no court challenges launched by the public. The government learned, again, that Zimbabweans will shout in the digital space, but whisper in the real one.

The US visa pause a few days ago was another flash. Young people panicked, professionals grumbled, families cancelled plans. And yet, the online conversation quickly moved to comedy skits about fake American accents and mock interviews at the embassy. Even when it hurts, we turn to spectacle. We turn every blow into a meme. It is our coping mechanism, yes - but it is also our escape from responsibility.

Blessed "Bombshell" Geza's fiery rants this year should have been a spark for national dialogue. He accused high officials of betrayal and corruption. His expulsion from ZANU–PF should have opened questions about factionalism, governance, the rot in the political structure. Instead, we consumed it like a reality show. Who said what. Who clapped back. Which quote was the funniest.
How social media killed the protest
How Social Media killed the protest

This is what frightens me: not that we face hardship-that is nothing new-but that we have mastered the art of laughing through it. We are historians of our own downfall, recording every absurdity, every scandal, every minor outrage in perfect detail… and doing nothing. We joke as our civic muscles waste away. We share, but we do not stand.

History will not judge us kindly for this. It will not care that we had the funniest memes, the most biting satire, the cleverest TikToks. It will care that, when malaria came back like a plague, we kept scrolling. That, when the government taxed our radios, we posted jokes instead of marching. That, when elephants were butchered to cover for policy failure, we were too busy debating recipes.

One day, our grandchildren will ask what we did in the face of all this. We will show them our timelines. And they will see that we were busy-busy watching, busy laughing, busy pretending that the noise was action. And they will understand why the story of Zimbabwe in these years is not one of victory over hardship, but of a people who turned their own collapse into a feed.

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Kumbirai Thierry Nhamo || Social Justice Activist
kumbiraithierryn@gmail.com 
+263780022343