The future is in our hands

via The future is in our hands – DailyNews Live by Wellington Gadzikwa  24 OCTOBER 2013 

The elections came and went.

Political parties sold their manifestos and the results are in the public domain.

What has remained intact are the people of this great country.

There is certainly no messiah who is going to perform transformational miracles to get the country out of the myriad of social and economic challenges t it is facing.

No friends whether they are all weather or whatever description they can be given can save and resurrect this country and restore its pride and glory.

The country had always looked West for help and assistance to develop into a self-sustaining nation but all the country got was an equally venomous and irrelevant advice which has deepened dependency and promoted a vicious cycle of poverty.

Western nations today and as ever before have never been committed to see the development of developing nations.

They made sure and continue to guarantee that developing nations continue to play their role in the international division of labour — production of primary goods whose prices they determine while they add value and prosper in a horse and rider relationship.

The advice from Western multilateral institution exemplified by the suicidal structural adjustment programmes has brought a lot of suffering to many people and the cycle goes on unabated.

Third world states that continued to implement these reform measures like Zimbabwe chose not to learn that they were being trapped into an irreversible mess.

When the country abandoned these measures, it was too late as it had accumulated a lot of debt which is stagnating progress in the economic and social sectors.

These failures have generated a lot of anti official feelings and frustration which has led to false democratisation premised on false hopes.

After the raw deal from the west, Zimbabwe turned to the East but again they are not the messiahs, they have their own desires and ambitions and they can only partner us if they are to fulfil their own motives and in such circumstances they will benefit more than us from us.

The other card we have is our regional grouping, the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) which has been helpful in as far as solidarity is concerned. In the midst of all weather friends, enemies and solidarity regional blocs, the state of our economy has not moved in the desired direction.

This has seen a gloomy picture of the economy as capacity utilisation has continued to plummet, many people face food deficit, treasured animal species in Hwange National Park are being killed at an alarming rate, and environmental degradation has reached endemic levels.

What all this points out is that the solution to Zimbabwe’s challenges lies in its people. If we have lost hope in everything one thing for sure that we have is the people of Zimbabwe.

These are the people who must find the solutions at any cost. This naturally requires everyone, including the elite to be nationalistic patriots whose lives should be lived for others, people who should put the interest and future of the country first.

It is within our power to stop corruption, indiscipline and work hard as one former labour minister Kumbirai Kangai said in the late 1990’s “ If anything ….. Zimbabweans must work hard”.

The time for cheap politicking and being idealist is over as we are confronted with challenges that require all Zimbabweans to commit themselves to do whatever will guarantee a better future.

This can happen only if Zimbabweans understand that other countries that are benefitting from our current state do not want us to do well.

We should be our own friends, those “friends” who are having favourable trade terms like South Africa will never want a strong Zimbabwe which will shut out a market for their products.

They will rather have us as a fifth province as proposed in 1923 in terms of economic domination.

 

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