WANTED: Zimbabwe Freedom Charter

via WANTED: Zimbabwe Freedom Charter. 28 January 2015 by Vince Musewe

“We the people of Zimbabwe declare for all our country and the world to know that Zimbabwe belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of the people.

That our people have been robbed of their birth-right, land and liberty and peace by a ZANU(PF) government founded on injustice and inequality; that our country will never be prosperous or free until all our people live in brotherhood enjoying equal rights and opportunities; that only a democratic state, based on the will of all the people can secure for all, their birth-right without distinction of colour, race, sex or belief. And we pledge ourselves to strive together, sparing nothing of our strength and courage, until the democratic changes here set out have been won.”

And so declared 3,000 people gathered at the People’s Congress in South Africa in July 1955 when the Freedom Charter was declared. And so should all progressive democratic peoples in Zimbabwe gather in 2015, a whole 60 years later, to declare the same Freedom Charter that was shaped many years ago but is still yet to be achieved. History surely does have a stubborn nature of repeating itself.

The challenge we face is whether we Zimbabweans really want to unite and be free from tyranny and oppression. We have just had too rough a ride for the last 35 years and it is indeed worrying, that despite the obvious advantages of us uniting against the evil that has been wrought upon us by ZANU (PF), there seems no sense of urgency for us to get rid of this man Mugabe and his complicit cronies.

I always say that we keep expecting too much from our political parties. We continue to give them total responsibility to change our future while we fold our hands and hope for the best. If we remember well, we did exactly the same with ZANU (PF) in 1980 and look where we are now.

In my opinion Zimbabweans will only be free only when each and every one of us truly wants to be free and takes it upon themselves to do whatever it takes. Freedom delivered by others is always laced with poisonous conditions and motives. It creates mental slavery and yet, as Bob Marley sang, none but ourselves can free our minds. None but ourselves can first destroy the throne of the dictator in our hearts and only then can we be truly free.

Colonialism dehumanised blacks, limited our opportunities and options, prescribed what we could become while benefitting a minority. ZANU (PF) is dehumanising us, limiting our options, prescribing what we can become and how far we can go while entrenching and defending a political economic system that benefits only a few. Surely that is good reason for us to rise to the occasion and fight the same evil that those who came before us fought. Surely we cannot expect those in power to free us – just as we did not expect the colonialists to free us and liquidate their vested political and economic interests for our benefit.

It will soon be 35 years of independence in Zimbabwe and, of course, we will have nothing much to celebrate.

It appears to me that most are now waiting for 2018 but what use will elections be to us when we know that ZANU (PF) will control the machinery. There has never been a dictator who has willing allowed the state machinery that he controls to vote him out of power. Any elections administered by this regime will not result in it abandoning power, which is a fact we cannot run away from.

What we need are not new elections but a transitional inclusive body that is apolitical and seeks to ensure total institutional reform. Elections for me are really not that important now until we know that they will be administered not by the ZEC as it is currently constituted, but by an objective entity that is not under a ministry of justice headed by a ZANU (PF) minister as is the case now.

This fight is surely ours as citizens who want their rights and who demand the end of a dictatorship that has cost many lives and livelihoods. This government uses our taxes to oppress us; it uses our taxes and our resources to fund the opulent lifestyle of Mugabe, his family and cronies. How can we accept this while millions live in poverty?

When are we going to realise that the future is up to us? When are we going to take our power back? When are we going to have the courage to rise up as the Freedom Charter demands?

– Vince Musewe is an economist and author based in Harare. You can contact him at vtmusewe@gmail.com