Exiles have missed the point
Published on: 1st July, 2009
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By Mutsa Murenje
I am very worried dear Zimbabweans. Yes, very worried about the jeers that the Prime Minister received from exiled Zimbabweans when he made a clarion call for them to start considering returning home. It appears to me that these exiles have apparently forgotten the critical fact that it is our patriotic duty to serve our national community by placing our physical and intellectual abilities at its service.
Mine is simply an invitation to look to the future, so filled with uncertainties but also with promises which appeal to our imagination and creativity. It’s out of an awareness of my mission that I propose to speak out. After all, “Hope, faith and a purpose in life is medicinal. This is not merely a statement of belief, but a conclusion drawn from meticulously controlled scientific experiment” (Harold G. Wolf).
From a more analytical point of view, it can be said that the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) represents a great movement for the defending of the human person and the safeguarding of human dignity. Amid changing historical circumstances, the MDC has contributed and is still contributing to the building up of a more just society or at least to the curbing of injustice. It goes without saying that part of the responsibility of citizens is to give careful consideration to current events in order to discern the new requirements of the movement.
I am strongly convinced that our PM had paid particular attention to current events obtaining in our country and had come to the conclusion that the missing link was the critical raw materials in the form of exiles no wonder why he brought to their attention the fact that they had to come home. One thing for sure is that Zimbabwe is ours whether good or bad. If good, to maintain that goodness and if bad, to make it good.
We all are in dire need of change but the question is: Do we understand what change is and are we ready for it? I understand change not in its narrow sense, that Mugabe has to go. But I also look forward to social change, economic change and indeed political change. But what is change? Change to me means active participation in the transformation of our country. For Zimbabwe means a great deal to me and am overly convinced she is as important to the success of my life as I am.
That explains why I am immersed through and through in the fight for democratic reforms. I want to be the change that I want to see in Zimbabwe and I would also want my esteemed Zimbabweans in the Diaspora to be the change that they would want to see in Zimbabwe. No change can be realized when we want others to fight for us and just return to reap where we never sowed. That selfish mentality is the one that we are even trying to exorcise from our society.
We want a complete overhaul of our institutions and this to me means a cultural revolution. My humble submission is that a cultural revolution will help us to realize fructification and fruition of our insatiable hopes and desires. This, obviously, is based on our free and deliberate choice to pursue something beyond ourselves both for our own benefit and for the benefit of the community.
What is it that you want to do for Zimbabwe for she has proven to be dangerously ill and cannot as a consequence, meet all your needs? Perhaps this also explains why one had to leave in the first place. In talking about a cultural revolution, I have kept at the back of my mind that we need to do away with the culture of theft, culture of violence, culture of corruption, culture of nepotism, culture of patrimonialism, culture of celebrating mediocrity, culture of kuda kutonga kusvikira madhongi amera nyanga/perpetual rule, culture of reaping where we never sowed, culture of mere talk without action et cetera.
I am not oblivious of the fact that exiles have in mind this reality that we are continually threatened by unemployment, which, in the absence of any kind of social security, means the spectre of death by starvation. For our society is divided into two classes, separated by a deep chasm. We have the haves and the have-nots. Not only that, our society, not long ago, was torn by a conflict all the more harsh and inhumane because it knew no rule or regulation.
It was the battle for supremacy. Kuti I cannot be defeated by Morgan Tsvangirai. The conflict set man against man, almost as if they were wolves. This obviously is an insult to wolves because it is in their nature to behave that way but is it in our nature to behave that way? This is food for thought.
My message to exiled Zimbabweans therefore is that we all have something to say about specific human situations, both individual and communal, national and international. Let’s formulate a genuine magic potion for these situations, a corpus which enables us to analyse social realities, to make judgements about them and to indicate directions to be taken for the just resolution of the problems involved. I know that the GNU is a negative solution to the problem at hand. It’s not a perfect arrangement but at least a workable one. Or maybe exiles maintain that the evil solution is in reality detrimental to the very people it is meant to help.
Has the remedy proven worse than the sickness? If this is so then there is no doubt that our nation needs a new Zimbabwe and a new beginning. It is in a political, social and economic hole. At this point in time, we can’t honestly be talking about the way forward but the way out of the hole.
And it is from this standpoint that I advance the thesis that exiles have a critical and fundamentally significant role to play in getting Zimbabwe out of this hole. This is what we call patriotism. Vast multitudes are still living in conditions of great material and moral poverty and these are in dire need of assistance. I believe I have been correctly understood and I rest my case until next time.
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Mutasa Murenje
You are definately the reason why I am proud to be Zimbabwean. You are the voice of reason that we all need to invoke. Though I will tell you that there is an evil spirit at work amongst the Zimbabweans in the Diaspora, this is the Spirit of devide and conquire, its very unfortunate that some of us have been overtaken and clouded by this spirit that the righteous voices such as yours will struggle to surface. There are those that claim that they want to free Zimbabwe but watch with such glee while we perish from hunger, desease, poverty and political violence. Its sad to say they do it with the assistance of fellow Zimbabweans. Personaly I pray for a new Zimbabwe with a new begining and any sign of hope I will embrace even if its the imperfect marriage that is going to bring bring that hope. I have pledged that I shall not be any part of destruction towards my country and my people. The PM managed to anger the crowd because he was not wispering sweet nothings to the people of Zimbabwe. Should he have started by building castles in the air and telling us that he was supperman and he could deliver without the people of Zimbabwe?. I think we have been knocking on the door of CHANGE for a long time that we are now obscured of its realities and one of them is returning to our home country. However the biggest fear of the Zim diaspora is the abuse of human rights back home and the question is how safe will we be if we return home? Zimbabweans in the diaspora have been taking care of their families without the help of political parties ZanuPF,MDC, ZAPU or any other therefore I share their anguish. The responsibilty is now on our government to demonstrate to the people that the rule of law now applies to everyone, that there is freedom of assosciation, freedom of speech. The repeal of such laws like IPA and POSA maybe then people will restructure their minds and start forcussing on retuning home. Our people need national healing and it has to start with all political parties, civil organs, pressure groups,Human rights cativists engaging in this process but for as long as there is a voice of devide and conquire amongst us Zimbabweans then this process will prove fruitless. Lets put our hearts, minds and bodies together for a better ZImbabwe.
The PM did not say zimbas should start thinking about returning home. he simply said they should come home! You want to make it appear vlike he was misquoted or misunderstood, it’s a shame. You also talk of patriotism. When I recall the ubiquity of this term in all past mugabe speeches, it makes me wonder whether you are not sipping from the same calabash.
can you please excuse exile zimbas. they arent all you claim they are. Indeed I know not of an adult zimba i have met who does not think of rather being home. it was not for them to move abroad. it was the system that failed them. Tsvangirayi is now part of that system. instead of him turning back to look for scape goats, he should start making loud vibes to turn mugabe and his crew into seeing why things are wrong, why the country’s sons and daughters have run away and how the situation can hopefully be rectified.
In gvt, tsvangirayi has so far failed to make inroads into changing important institutions. he has failed to make mugabe pannel beat his foreign, economic and other important policies that would give a semblance of hope and trust to outside investors. When the foreign press see the likes of mukoko, bennet and biti still being subjected to politically biased police detentions, how do they convince their business leaders that there is indeed change in zimbabwe? last time biti went to the US and uk and came back empty handed for money to kick satrt the economy, coz the 2 gvts werent convinced about the ‘new’ zimbabwe. this time it was tsvangirayi himself and the significance of him again being given the back-hand by the atlantic pond neighbors was not lost to not only the rest of the business world but to weary zim exiles. In short, tsvangirayi has his foot in now, he needs to put that house in order next. zim exiles only have to watch. who would want to go back to a country they escaped from for a reason that has hardly begun to be looked at? tsavngirayi’s thrusts should be entirely focused on changing the house of horror that mugabe built. its not even for him to tell zimbas when to return and can i go to the extend of suggesting its not necessary for them to return at all for the forseeable future. If tsvangirayi does things right and gets the face of zimbabwe back where it belongs, nothing will stop exiles returning. they returned in 1980, they will return when the time comes. the sugestion that they are laeving only local zimbas to fight alone is untrue. today because of the giant leaps in communications technology, these exiles manage to drive home their messages of support to their kins back home. they are able to communicate in real time the big difference they see from the poor treatment back home to the respect they are afforded here. they are more much more aware of their rights and how mugabe is denying it to those back home. today zimbas can nolonger be seen as rural v urbun in terms of party support. even the man in marange or maranda knows there is something amiss with thi gvt. and exiles are playing a huge role in this educationj. iran must surely have opened your eyes to why a country in the third world today needs at least a sizeable crowd in the west to fight its course. exiles contribute to the political parties here, money which is maent to go and help those left out by mugbe’s either with or without zanu policies. Ghanaians are all over the west now but do their leaders deride them for that? no. they see that as an opportunity to be exploited. mexican leaders actually persuade their us counterparts to regularise their countrymens papers, instead of saying come back home to no jobs!!!
many thanks for your comments