We must all rise to the occasion

via We must all rise to the occasion 8 October 2014 by Vince Musewe

“Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” (JF Kennedy)

Zimbabwe is a failed predatory state; this is an open secret. The challenge is for us to take responsibility and rescue our country from total collapse. We cannot wait any longer, nor can we expect that, even if by some Chinese or Russian magic wand the economy is revived, things will fundamentally change.

Predatory states have existed for a very long time. However, it appears they are more prevalent in post-colonial Africa and have actually become the curse of Africa. This must be purged by a new generation of African leaders as we seek to create new nation states based on social justice and equity.

The terms “predator” and “prey” reflects a relationship where those who control the state apparatus (i.e. Zanu (PF), plunder state resources without any regard for the welfare of the citizens; just as a predator would have no regard for its prey. Predatory states never deliver sustainable development in the long term; they can only survive through bribery and corruption.

The current circumstances we face in Zimbabwe are a reflection of political, economic and social total systems failure. When a system fails, trying to fix some of its parts can give a temporary illusion that the problem situation has been resolved, but as we are seeing, this can actually make the system degenerate further.

We therefore have no choice but to change this regime and to dispossess Zanu (PF) of the control of state apparatus and its institutions that are essentially extractive. The question on our minds must be how do we gather ourselves around changing this regime?

Firstly, the means that we have are limited so we must maximise the probability of success using the tools we have. These tools are: ensuring that we have a new system of election political leadership and using our numbers.

Reforming the electoral system and institutions is a sure way of getting rid of Zanu (PF) and they know it. They will therefore do everything they can to avoid it and will, as usual, use every trick in the book. This means they cannot be trusted and cannot be responsible for the next elections.

The SADC, AU,(after Mugabe) the UN and the international community can be our only hope. They must declare Zimbabwe a failed state and insist that the next elections can only be administered by an international body.

This is critical, because we Zimbabweans have clearly failed to do so ourselves. Sovereignty comes with responsibility and I know that the sovereignty argument will be used as a defence mechanism by Zanu (PF). But we cannot accept that argument any longer. We must mobilise mass action on this issue.

Second, is the issue of our numbers. Many of us, through wanting to make a difference, have established political parties. There is nothing wrong with that but we must not be naïve to the consequences in an election where there is one common enemy. We know this will only strengthen the enemy. We can still end up being dominated by Zanu (PF) as we would have split the vote. We must learn from 2008. This us to unite against a common enemy.

More important, we must now think and rise above our egos and personal motives for the greater good. That is a difficult thing for politicians to do, given our history. There has really never been a permanent and fair partnership among ourpoliticians since the armed struggle; personalities, self-interest, ulterior motives will always create problems.

In uniting, we must ask ourselves some hard questions and come up with compromises. I think everyone in politics has something to bring to the table, some more than others, but we need to do an objective analysis as opposition political parties so that we maximise on our strengths and minimise on our weaknesses. That is how a dialogue around unity should be. This can be facilitated by an independent party with no vested interests in the outcome.

I continue to talk to opposition parties and I am not getting a sense that they are willing to sacrifice their own interests for the greater good. They seem unable to trust each other and fear that they might not achieve their own narrow interests in a united front. There is real fear by politicians of being marginalised if they unite. We must do our best to remove that fear. A formula we could use is a commitment of proportional representation of opposition political parties in the new government. The proportion or pre-election deal could be worked out using historical performance and other relevant criteria that do not penalise smaller formations and also ensure that talent and competence are not compromised by size.

In my opinion, these are the critical discussions that we must have among ourselves. We must never forget that unless we dismiss Zanu (PF) from power in 2018, we will be complicit in creating a Mugabe dynasty and guess who could be our next president? “Dr” Grace Mugabe – this is just too ghastly to contemplate!

The ideals of our liberation struggle in Zimbabwe have not been met because we have failed to achieve social justice and equity. That therefore must remain our agenda even at personal cost.

Let us all put Zimbabwe first for a change. – Vince Musewe is an economist and author based in Harare. You may contact him on vtmusewe@gmail.com