via Bulawayo24 NEWS | ‘What is wrong with Zimbabweans,’ asks Tendai Biti 12 January 2014
Wananchi, pessimism is a chronic disease which corrodes internal confidence and self belief.
Our people sadly are caught up with this terrible predatory ailment that is consuming the internal boundaries of their intestines, their being and their souls.
Every newspaper including the Herald has become a national symphony of despondency gloom and a litany of the ridiculous. There are stories of economic decline, shrinking revenues, absent FDI, increased joblessness, increased Balance of Payment deficits.
Yes there are horror social stories that look like they are plucked from a poorly written shona novel.
Recently there was a story in one of the locals of a son in law bedding a mother in law.
In another paper there was a story of a man whose instrument of destruction was liberated from same after being caught sodomising a neighbor s wife. There is this story too dominating the papers of a foolish pastor who was sleeping with his entire congregation over and above the eight wives he has.
What is the world coming to? It appears that we are in a golden age of moral disarmament, virtual surrender to bohemianism and decadence. But it is the break up of the social fabric of Zimbabwe as a nation state that worries wananchi.
A nation cannot run on the bitter fuel of bitterness ,hatred and acidic vitriol. A nation cannot function on the brittle energy of sighs of surrender, insults and moral barbarism.
A nation cannot succeed when it hates each other so much ,when it eats its children on such a daily basis.
In this country we have made malice ,rumors and anger the national anthem. Idioms of praise, of gratitude, of appreciation do not exist in our palate.
A student can not do well unless he “bought exam papers” Someone is only promoted at work because she slept with the boss.
A lawyer can not win a case ,he bought the judge.
A farmer can only do well because he has black magic.
The priest can only drive a nice car because he stole money from the church.
Dynamos can only win the league because it bought referees.
The woman vendor next door sells more tomatoes than anyone because she sleeps with male buyers.
His businesses are successful because he killed some one in a case of ritual murder.
The list goes on.
There is no merit acknowledged.
There is no hard work appreciated.
There is a motive and an ulterior evil to every action,every move.
So we begin to eat each other.There are no genuine friendships.There is no camaraderie.There is no love .There is no trust.
Above all none of us admits our faults,our weaknesses and omissions.
“I failed because the teacher did not like me.
I could not buy a car because the bank manager did not want me to drive a better car than him.
I was not promoted because the boss liked me and I refused.
My crop did not succeed because GMB did not give me inputs.
We can not do it because of sanctions.”
When it comes to excuses and the blame game ,we are all angels and every other person is an ogre .
A monster, A death dementor cooked from a Harry Potter novel.
All these vices are then marinated in the classical Zimbabwean vice of arrogance.
This is a nation afflicted by the plague of hubris, and a sickening I -Know -it -all sclerosis.
There are many amongst who think there are the best thing on two feet and that intelligence was invented after them.
I have seen this spineless lot. A mafikizolo generation long on talking, short on delivery .
The scourge of a generation. They seek to create a narrative that they and they alone are always right and that their word is gospel.
Yes Zimbabwe is in chronic condition but the citizen and its bitterness must plead guilt to this status quo.
It has turned its frustration and anger arousing out of its failure to change its situation,to grab its destiny against the fellow citizen.
The citizen s impotence at dealing with Zanu and its horrors is now turned into a force of cannibalism.
Thus creating a horrible situation of dog eat dog,mwanachi -eat -mwanachi,citizen-eats-citizen.
In the end we have created a nation of PHDs.N ot alumni and scholars from great institutions ,but an uneducated lot of Pull-Her -Down or Pull -Him -Down.
If nations ran on cannibalism and negative energy, this one would be a super power.
Sadly to the extent that there is an inverse relationship between cannibalism, negative energy and the growth of a country ,we remain one of the poorest countries on earth, by almost every yardstick.
But Zanu must take full responsibility of this total breakdown of nationhood.
For thirty four years this party has run this country on the energy of conflict,confrontation ,violence, exclusion,corruption ,patronage and hatred.
For thirty four years merit ,effort and hard work have never been rewarded or acknowledged.
You are a nobody unless you fought in the war .
For thirty four years our country has been a Siberian Gulag.
A morbid laboratory experiment in patriarchy and predatoriness.
So the citizen bereft of a leadership with compass and direction ,has become nothing but the mirror image of that same darkness that he detests so much.
Some .the weak among us ,have simply folded their hands and surrendered to the seductive odor of the regime.
It is amazing what fear does to the best among us.
I have to say that at the epicenter of our crises has been a terrible group of leadership without vision and direction.
A bunkered, third rate group of men and women who still think that Ian Smith is still alive and that the war of liberation is still going on .
A group of people that has never demobilized and appreciated the responsibility of running a normal civilian administration
So yes Zimbabwe is sick, the sick man of Africa .
« Headline news Monday 13 January, 2014