Opinion / Columnist
Zimbabweans' grim choices stay home or go to SA 'to die' - or end bad governance
16 Apr 2015 at 07:00hrs | Views
I would like to thank Khumbulani Maphosa for the pithy answer to the worry issue of xenophobia attacks that have been taking place in South Africa. There are millions of Zimbabweans in SA and therefore there is no Zimbabwean who does not have a brother, sister, uncle or some such close relative in SA. So the whole nation is worried about these xenophobia attacks targeting African foreigners.
In his epic poem "Why we are in South Africa" Bulawayo24 Opinion Khumbulani said all that needed to be said on the subject "When the dilapidated house of hunger falls apart... You are left with two choices Two die or to die. Staying at home you die ……… Crossing the border you die"
What Khubulani did not say is that we have a third choice; to stay in Zimbabwe and make it a free, just and prosperous nation! Zimbabwe has not always been a poor and chaotic country with nothing better to offer its people than the grim choice of starvation and political oppression at home or the hope of a better future in some distant land but with the risk of being burnt alive in a xenophobia attack.
"Zimbabwe has to import three quarters of its food needs and the 60 per cent of our industry that was dependent on agriculture, has also folded," wrote Mr Eddie Cross in one of his recent articles.
The land is still there and so is the good rains; the only people stopping us going back to those good-old days of dumper crops and economic prosperity is us. Zimbabwe's political and economic mess are man-made and per se it is within the powers ordinary mortals too put things right. All we need is to apply ourselves to the task of how to govern ourselves for the good of all and not a tiny few. It is not rocket science and we have the benefit of many models of self-government to copy from them. For the last 35 years we have completely failed on that singular task so that today the country's national economy is in total ruins and millions of our people are scatter around the globe like autumn leaves with no hope, no future and no life. Of course there is no reason to hope that tomorrow things will be any better if we continue to follow the same path we have ploughed these last 35 years like mindless wildebeest. But even the wildebeest soon learn that they cannot cross the river where the bank is a twenty metre drop; it may take the death of a few hundred, still they learn. Have we learnt nothing after 35 years of mindless blundering!
We may not have been ready for the challenges of self-government in 1980; we have had to learn the hard way by making the mistakes and reinventing the wheel. If we have learnt nothing then, as Khubulani rightly said, we will continue to have two grim choices to stay home and die or leave the country and die!
Zimbabwe is an independent country and it is our choice to make it a free, just and prosperous nation or a failed state ravished by poverty, hopelessness and despair!
In his epic poem "Why we are in South Africa" Bulawayo24 Opinion Khumbulani said all that needed to be said on the subject "When the dilapidated house of hunger falls apart... You are left with two choices Two die or to die. Staying at home you die ……… Crossing the border you die"
What Khubulani did not say is that we have a third choice; to stay in Zimbabwe and make it a free, just and prosperous nation! Zimbabwe has not always been a poor and chaotic country with nothing better to offer its people than the grim choice of starvation and political oppression at home or the hope of a better future in some distant land but with the risk of being burnt alive in a xenophobia attack.
The land is still there and so is the good rains; the only people stopping us going back to those good-old days of dumper crops and economic prosperity is us. Zimbabwe's political and economic mess are man-made and per se it is within the powers ordinary mortals too put things right. All we need is to apply ourselves to the task of how to govern ourselves for the good of all and not a tiny few. It is not rocket science and we have the benefit of many models of self-government to copy from them. For the last 35 years we have completely failed on that singular task so that today the country's national economy is in total ruins and millions of our people are scatter around the globe like autumn leaves with no hope, no future and no life. Of course there is no reason to hope that tomorrow things will be any better if we continue to follow the same path we have ploughed these last 35 years like mindless wildebeest. But even the wildebeest soon learn that they cannot cross the river where the bank is a twenty metre drop; it may take the death of a few hundred, still they learn. Have we learnt nothing after 35 years of mindless blundering!
We may not have been ready for the challenges of self-government in 1980; we have had to learn the hard way by making the mistakes and reinventing the wheel. If we have learnt nothing then, as Khubulani rightly said, we will continue to have two grim choices to stay home and die or leave the country and die!
Zimbabwe is an independent country and it is our choice to make it a free, just and prosperous nation or a failed state ravished by poverty, hopelessness and despair!
Source - Wilbert Mukori
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