Zimbabweans are paying the sins of being silent

WHERE are the Zimbabweans who are continuously plunged to the extremities of suffering?

Where is this intelligence that Zimbabweans brag about when this country becomes a ridicule of modern politics and of a modern country?

Philosophies of change are profound on the power of people in changing their plights and correcting what goes wrong in their societies.

Fundamentals of leadership are also profound on leaders serving the best interests of people.

Since independence Zimbabweans have yet another very important fundamental they have missed.

This fundamental is the relationship of leadership and people led hence Zimbabweans will always suffer the sins of being silent.

Basic relationship of leadership and people led is that leadership is the mirror reflection of people`s needs and wants.

The two should have intrinsic mutual connection that is equal and objective. None should override the other.

Leaders are not leaders without people and people are not people without leaders. Since 1980 Zimbabwean leaders have overrode the people and people stood silent hence this perennial corruption, poverty, and all forms of elements of chaos.

The dawn of chaos in Zimbabwe can be traced back up to the conspiracies in the liberation struggle. Nonetheless I will not dwell in this subject now. I will rather take it from the period of 1980 to today.

Modern critics have concluded that Ethnicities in Africa will destroy African progress with totalities. Africa is a continent with over 2000 tribes and 54 countries. African leaders are aware of this and some have taken advantage these ethnic clashes.

Crisis in DRC, Nigeria, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan are some of the empirical evidence of the relative criticism.

In 1982-7 the Matabele and Midlands people were killed in a genocide termed Gukurahundi. BBC recorded 20 000 deaths. This was Zimbabwe at its childhood. Those who spoke about these atrocities were exiled, killed or even bought out of the controversy.

Zimbabweans remained silent. Victims of Gukurahundi bleed in their hearts.

The rest of the unaffected Zimbabweans became indifferent and silent about it. It is this silence by other Zimbabweans that has bred a disease of hatred that created false nationhood sealed by the December 1987 gimmick Unity Accord.

This has defined subjective geo-politics and socio-economics that has come with a retaliation of Shona-Ndebele antagonism which is bound to come with recurring fatalities.

In 1992 the government engaged in IMF`s Economic Structural Adjustment Program (ESAP) which was meant to reduce social austerity. It was clear that the government had no clue on the balance of production and consumption as influenced by the population growth as per people`s needs and wants.

Many people lost jobs. This affected most, the industrial city of Bulawayo and crippled the whole of Matabeleland which survived on Bulawayo`s industrialism. This clocked the mass exodus of people to countries like Botswana and South Africa leaving a destructed social structure that now explains social deviance and prevalence of HIV and AIDS in Matabeleland.

However industrial decline has come to affect the whole nation. Zimbabweans kept silent hence harbored the incompetence that is now the normal defining trait of every individual in every institution in the country.

In the year 2000, the government displaced the white farmers and grabbed commercial lands. The land issue can be traced back to the colonial period. The important time in this regard, is the Lancaster house settlement of 1979.

The agreement on land ownership was primarily on the willing seller and willing buyer after a period of 10 years. By design the land issue must have been revisited in 1990.

Addressing the land issue in 2000 was a political lure of voters. The approach to the land issue is a clear reverse of racism and poor traits of leadership. No problem could be solved by same means that caused the former problem.

The land grab destroyed the agriculture sector. Commercial farmers were replaced by subsistence farmers who use labor intensive tools that are useless in national productivity.

This increased imports and reduced exports hence destroyed the sustainability of the nation and came with inflation that consumed the once world's powerful currency. The Zim dollar.

In 2005-6 the government destroyed homes and business structures of informal entrepreneurs in an operation called Murambatsvina. These homes and business structures were a livelihood for the poor Zimbabweans affected by the poor management of the country.

Those affected by Murambatsvina were given no proper alternatives. When the MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai won the 2008 elections, the nation was driven to a standstill characterized by political repression and violence.

People just kept silent hoping that Tsvangirai will single handedly bring change, but change is influenced by the Mass rising.

Everyday Zimbabwe becomes a state in advanced crises. $15 billion goes missing. Civil servants's pay dates are compromised and people are silent.

Silence in incorrectness is itself guilty as the incorrectness. People should wake up from slumber and address issues affecting their survival and development.

If Zimbabweans continue to be silent then Zimbabwe will become a wasteland. People make societies and people change societies. People should understand their importance in leadership and leaders should serve the best interest of the people.

We must learn from South Africa.

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Andisiwe Sibindi is a social activist who can be reached on childparticipation76@gmail.com