Source: Politics, churches have ruined our productive capacity – NewsDay Zimbabwe March 27, 2017
The road to independence was not easy. It was full of pain, sweat and ambition.
Develop me: Tapiwa Gomo
It was politics and ambition that drove many people — young boys and girls — to go to war and fight for the liberation of the country.
Religion, too, was both instrumental and motivational towards the promised land, which was a new Zimbabwe.
It was indeed politics that convinced people to realise that we were oppressed, and that the price of freedom was putting our lives on the line in order to gain our dignity.
It was politics that led many families to lose their assets trying to assist the fighters in the bush.
We are a country that invested in its liberation and freedom from racial oppression.
On the other hand, churches, though most of them were in the hands of colonialists, were instrumental in promoting black people’s dignity.
They built schools, clinics and hospitals and ensured that these facilities were well stocked and staffed. The best of our education during the pre- and the early post-colonial era came from mission schools.
Churches were vital in improving access to these important facilities. Those who attended church-supported schools can admit that discipline and hard work were the core values of the education system at the time.
The end product was a highly productive student who constituted what other countries in the region have described as a hardworking Zimbabwean.
That was then.
Fast-forward to 2017: Both politics and churches have been at the forefront of destroying that hard-working Zimbabwean.
Both no longer motivate people to work hard to earn a good life. The cause of the poverty problem and its solution have been redefined and repackaged and in all that, hard work is either missing or has been lost in the mixture of narratives.
For the politician, our problems are caused by sanctions and bad politics.
Solving them requires Zanu PF placards denouncing the West for imposing illegal sanctions, or from the other side of the divide, it is Zanu PF’s failure and, therefore, more political parties, grand coalition talks, protests and demonstrations will solve our problems.
Every new policy is tinkered with to preserve power and not anymore to develop the country.
Similarly, every little coin that remains in government coffers is reserved to win the next election and so during the course of their terms of office, a lot of resources for health, education, access to water and sanitation facilities are channelled towards keeping the electorate glued to rallies to illustrate that the party still has support.
For the ruling party, it now seems as if good politics is about giving people gifts and donations in the form of land and stands and not anymore good policies.
Who needs to work hard if one can access land without working for it? Productive hard work has lost value and yet it is key to economic growth.
While all this is happening, no one is in the farms tilling the land, industries producing, corner shops trading or working hard to raise money to pay for goods and services and to develop the country.
In fact, politics has made the concept of working hard irrelevant and impossible.
Irrelevant because one can get what they need by assuring politicians of votes, impossible because if one succeeds, they are seen as a sellout who is working with the enemy.
With the election campaign just about to begin, the intensity of these non-productive political activities will increase and so will politics of destruction.
The new generation of churches has also taken Zimbabwe by storm, perhaps taking advantage of the troubled nation to preach the prosperity gospel.
The focus of the churches today has shifted from those that used to dominate in the yesteryears.
Today’s churches are now known more by their leaders’ names and not as institutions of worship.
And they too have reframed the cause of the poverty problem to lure the hearts and souls of the troubled nation.
According to the new generation of churches, poverty is a curse that is caused by evil spirits and, therefore, can only be solved by casting the evil spirits, prayer, worship, tithing and church offerings.
Instead of people channelling their energy towards productive purposes, they now throng churches looking for miracle solutions to problems that can otherwise be solved through hard work.
All the potholes we see today, the unstaffed and under-resourced clinics, bad education and food shortages are caused by the devil and casting the evil spirits away is the solution and not anymore good governance.
Where government policies have scared away investors and created an unconducive environment for economic growth, today’s churches have sanitised and exonerated the politician by shifting the blame to the devil.
This is strategic because the same churches need to draw from the fat pockets of the same politicians who have failed the nation.
The same failed politician, who is responsible for most of the problems we face today, is embraced in the prosperity churches and sometimes used as an example of “the work of God”.
They, too, have learnt to pay more to churches.
Will miracles and propaganda deliver this country out of poverty?
Tapiwa Gomo is a development consultant based in Pretoria, South Africa
COMMENTS
Well said Tapiwa. Suffice to say, what should touch our hearts of hearts what rightly implied or said of churches, churches, churches, of all institutions vakomana, working hand-in-glove with the heartless dictators to woodwink our gullible masses.
So, who can ever help Zimbabwe to get out of this zanu pf manufactured quagmire! We are indeed a nation in trouble; and deep, deep trouble for that matter.
Thanks Mr Gomo for saying what most of us refuse to see. You have nailed it. Our problem is laziness, laziness of thought, laziness of effort. We all now want easy free things. When these do not come we find something (Devil) or someone (politics) to blame and the fault is never ourselves. The highest office in the land does it, those who seek that office do it, those who follow both follow suit. We need to break these feedback loops of hopelessness by focusing on responsibility, responsibility for our day to day lives, for our future and for the mistakes we make along the way. For this to happen the new generation has to define a new narrative, the narrative of work and more work. Let’s all roll our sleeves and get along with it. We need to re-teach ourselves and our children the dignity of labour and honest earning. No more short cuts, just sweat and more sweat. That will attract the investors, that will please God. Even He toiled for six days and rested on the seventh so He will not bless loafers – since we started praying for prosperity we have become poorer! We need a paradigm shift yesterday.
Churches should be there to empower and uplift people by telling them that they exist for a good purpose, for a purpose enshrined in goodness, forgiveness and love that will uplift and not breakdown humanity. The country if full of exceptionally intelligent, capable and caring people. Be of good courage and stand up for what is good and not for what is evil for this is God’s purpose for you!
The church or a place of worship has for centuries always been a safe haven for those in peril, seeking release from torment. However, faith is one thing. Miracles are in a sense, propaganda. They do not put food on the table. What puts food on the table is honest labour in times of feast or famine.
Free handouts in life become the expected and an excuse to sit back and wait for the next and the next. This is no miracle but surely a bribe in the case of Zimbabwe.
The church can be a powerful institution, a motivator and above all must remain apolitical with the sole intention of providing hope and inspiration to achieve practical things.
Martin Luther King, Desmond Tutu and many others of the cloth proved that prayer and application, combined are the answer for any change.
Imagine a pride of lions praying everyday for prosperity and never going out to hunt. Or ants praying day and night to get food into their nest. Nature knows that you eat what you catch using God given hunting instinct and energy.
What I dislike or hate most about our African Churches, their Pastors and or the so called Prophets is that they are shamelessly ganging up with corrupt African Politicians in robbing, with impunity, those of us who are weak in mind, a.k.a., Idiots.
And there’s the problem – ‘politics that convinced people to realise that we were oppressed ‘ – if you take convincing then you weren’t oppressed! That Marxist claptrap was used to obscure the proxy war between 2 ideologies fought in several countries. Zimbabwe ended up as a sacrificial lamb in an important geopolitical position because of its proximity to South Africa. China and Russia battled to turn South Africa communist for geopolitical advantage over the Western democracies. Local opportunists took advantage of the situation offered by funding from Russia and China. But South Africa held until the Soviet Union ceased to exist. After 1990 Zimbabwe was of neither use nor interest to the rest of the world. Neither was Angola, Namibia or DRC. South Africa was also relegated to that position. As the money from patrons like Russia dried up in 1990, the NGO funds filled some of the gap but Mugabe had to cut back the patronage network and eventually ex-clients revolted to form a new political party – MDC. Chock full of discarded ZANU clients fighting for a piece of the resource pie. Many behaved exactly like they did as members of ZANU – credentialed authoritarian clowns with no common sense. ZANU and ZAPU were members of the comprador class of teachers, doctors, nurses, policemen, Headmen who benefited from colonialism by acting as intermediaries. They leveraged their head start and are the biggest beneficiaries of ‘independence’. Freedom for the few has resulted in true oppression for the many.