We need new heroic feats – Brian Sedze

By Brian Sedze

The future is not determined by the men and women of the past. Their words and their actions only inform us of the struggles and obstacles they overcame.

What matters today is what we, as a people, choose to do. Only us the living have power to alter the arc of the future.

The three Chimurenga’s were battles for equality of all tribes and races in all economic, social and political spheres.

The living must now invest energy to alter the arc of the future by delivering a remarkable standard of living to all in a fair, transparent, equitable and socially sustainable manner. In as much as fighting relics of colonialism and neo colonialism is important but more important are battles to deliver better economic and social outcomes.

There are many fields around Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Zambia and Tanzania that are sown with the seeds of liberty. Many plots are filled with memorials to men who gave their last full measure of devotion to the cause of allowing men a chance live a better a life.

These seeds give us the right and mandate to partake in the fruits of this “freedom”. The right includes disagreeing with the “now” civilians who issue commands, policies and laws from the comfort of leather chairs, if these are divorced from the liberation war ideals.

We must never disparage the honour of those who gave their lives for us to determine a better future for ourselves.

Our heroes from Mlimo, Lobengula, Nehanda Nyakasikana, Hwata, Mashayakuma, Kaguvi, Sithole, Nkomo and those in unmarked graves of Chimoi, Nyadzonya and Chinhoyi.

Our living legends like Cde Robert Mugabe and even those now in the political wilderness deserve our utmost respect specifically for emancipating us from the york of colonialism.

It was said that a soldier’s greatest fear is not dying but it is letting his own down. John 15:13 says “greater love hath no man this, that a man lay down his life for his friends”.

In our situation there is no greater love, and there is no greater responsibility than for those within corridors of power and influence to economically emancipate the majority who are all now poverty stricken.

The vision of the liberation struggle was for a free Zimbabwe, where all men and women were treated equally, had self-determination, equitable distribution of land and accessible capital, freedom to pursue personal interest and respect for human rights and life.

Despite our painful history, Zimbabwe is now just like Saudi Arabia where billions of dollars are channelled to benefit a few individuals and families. It’s also now like Russia where powerful cliques of oligarchs control the web of wealth. Unlike the two examples we however remain poorer than war torn Central African Republic and Afghanistan.

Allocation of farm equipment and capital is only to a distinct group of rich and influential people. On the other side of the dichotomy the poor are burdened with the resultant debt. That was not an ideal of the liberation war to punish the poor to benefit the rich.

Lucrative mining and mining claims are the preserve of the well networked. The poverty stricken on the other side are relocated and promised community shares which turn to be pies in the sky.

Government work and government tenders are skewed in favour of a stratum of individuals and families leaving hundreds of thousands without employment opportunities.

There are deliberate and well-orchestrated schemes of impoverishing some cities and rural areas for the benefit of others in tax allocation, road development, health facilities, Universities, Schools, agricultural extension work amongst many other things.

The less privileged are unceasingly assaulted with tax burdens in any fiscal policy that is announced further abandoning them into perfect labyrinthine of poverty. The poor of late are being attacked through measures to take them off the street, second hand clothing bans and ever incremental taxes.

This is in the backdrop of massive and unmitigated retrenchments. The networked on the other side take the same poor man’s quagmire as an opportunity to arbitrage from the shortages to supply country needs.

In as much as the “white” man was the source of our deprivation leading to the armed struggle, reverse discrimination was never a solution. At times incompetent but networked people have led to hunger and despair.

Capital should have not known any colour. Allocating of land should never have been based on affiliations but just competence. Now we stare at desolate factories and underutilized farms with the region having to feed and clothe us

We have to collectively work to change the arc of the future through the cession of huge unemployment, unsustainable massive retrenchments, deindustrialization’s, exporting of jobs to South Africa and China, high sovereign risk, institutional rigidities, low foreign direct investment. Most Zimbabweans are in massive despair, poverty, idleness, possible seething anger and a nation of nothing else except vending.

There are people who do important things and become important as a result of those things; these are the brave champions of our two liberation struggles. Then on the other hand of late there are people who think of themselves as important, therefore they suppose the things they do are made important simply because they do them.

They have even allocated themselves positions of the vanguard of the dear departed brave soldiers of the two liberation struggles to the exclusion of everyone else including but not limited to the unarmed rural folk that fed and shielded the brave warriors, the youths, the workers, the unemployed, the vendors and the future generation.

Let’s make Zimbabwe work by disbanding a loyalty driven system.

Brian Sedze is the Chairman the Africa Innovation Hub a think tank in strategy and innovation. He can be contacted on [email protected]