A look in the Cashbert Mirror
By Shaun Matsheza
A battle lost or won is easily described, understood and appreciated, but the moral growth of a great nation requires reflection, as well as observation, to appreciate it. – Frederick Douglass
I remember this one woman in the township, a friend of my sister’s, that everyone knew was HIV positive, though she never admitted it, understandably to escape the stigma that the disease carries. Yet, she was known to seek solitary time after meals, presumably to take her ARV’s.
Regular visits to the hospital were explained away with another chronic disease; I can’t remember whether it was diabetes, or cancer, or athritis; but anything else except what it really was. This is understandable, as social stigma can be an even more debilitating effect of the disease than the physical symptoms. So everyone played along, and asked how the “cancer” treatment was progressing.
What was not so easy to comprehend though, was her husband, who kept insisting that it was not HIV he was suffering from, that he was not sick at all, even as the lymph nodes on his neck ballooned out and his weight dropped at terminal velocity. He refused to take ARV’s and would rather take his ‘dignity and pride’ to the grave than be seen queuing at the local clinic.
We are that second guy, fellow Zimbos. We are terminally ill; and unless we accept the proper diagnosis of our condition, we will continue to be ill and to suffer from a disease that could be, if not cured, at least managed. Before we can embark on a treatment regime, we need to have a thorough and accurate diagnosis, and we have to accept it for what it is, for better or for worse.
We are a conflicted lot who have yet to make full sense of who we are and what we stand for. This is best illustrated in how we consider ourselves to be so very conservative and traditional, and the model proponents of Ubuntu. So much so that when we look at our neighbours in Southern Africa, we put our noses up in the air as the regional paragons of virtue (inhema here?), and indeed this is true in how we talk. Yet our actions say otherwise.
I have only my experience, and no statistics or studies to back up my claims (hey, I’ve got just as much right to an opinion as the next man)…but visit any of the popular night spots, which are usually packed, and observe our accepted version of exotic dancers, some of whom have barely reached sixteen years of age. Ask yourself how Bev and Zoey became household names, despite everyone swearing that they couldn’t stomach their antics.
Who goes to the shows, then? How many people are at church services on sunday praying for a miracle hangover cure, in addition to the miracle money they expect the “prophet” to magically conjure? Attend just one kitchen tea party, or a stokvela; join any Zimbabwean dominated Whatsapp group, or any of the multiple facebook pages that share obscenities in Shona and Ndebele. Go there, and come back and preach that conservative talk with conviction. I would have to call you a liar. We are a nation full of repressed desires, like adolescent school kids.
Sex sells, this is the case in almost every human society, so Zimbabwe is not unique in that regard. But what is striking is how much we try to deny what we find fascinating. A glance at our media landscape will tell you that Martin Gumbura is probably the most spoken about individual in Zimbabwe, taking the spot from a formerly unknown Pokello, and we all know what she became famous for. We are enthralled by the tales told ofGumbura’s exploits, and we have heard, in breathtaking high definition detail, of the activities he is alleged to have engaged in with his haremful of spouses.
Of course, I in no way condone the man’s actions: a predator, whether donning church robes or wearing glasses at the State House, is still a predator. But the tragedy is that the story has been spun as less about addressing the rape allegations and the misogynistic tendencies of the man, but more as fodder for a nation’s deprived, and consequently depraved, sexual imagination.
Reading the comments under the numerous articles about the case, one can’t help but notice the envious tones that obviously underlie some of them. The vilification comes with a begrudging sort of envy. I cannot count how many comments I’ve read, of men drooling over the disgraced pastor’s bevy of beauties. The eyes covet, yet the tongues lash the man for living a fantasy that many would embrace with open arms.
This moral ambivalence is not unique to the realm of sexual matters.
Since the story of Cuthbert Dube’s excesses came out, almost everyone has been rushing to make some form of capital out of it: to vilify Dube and make it seem like he is an aberration of human nature, a Frankensteinian creature, some supernatural monster disinterred from the depths of hell itself.
The opposition has found a talisman, a living breathing example that indeed after the July 31st elections ZANU PF has failed (ironically, as if a corruption case is something newsworthy in our beautiful land). The media has found a topic to rival the Gumbura case in tittilating their readership, and is busy at it like a hungry dog tossed a dry bone. (Look at me, I’m penning an article too) . And while these irrelevant distractions occupy our attention and act as a political pressure release valve (much to Jonathan Moyo’s delight), the real story remains out of the spotlight.
Zimbabwe is struggling.
I don’t mean to say we should condone this vulture’s behaviour. Unlike Matthew Takaona’s baffling piece, which I found akin to someone exonerating Hitler simply because he also built Germany’s envied highway system, the autobahn, this is not an attempt to cleanse Dube’s character. He is already too soiled, even for the renowned waters of the river Jordan.
Instead, I’d just like for us all to see ourselves in the fitting mirror that he provides. The honest truth is that Cuthbert Dube is the face of all of us, as Zimbabweans. We are so quick to point out the speck in our brother’s eye (a huge one, in brother Cashbert’s case), yet we fail to admit that had most of us been in his shoes, we probably would have done the same. Or worse. Truly, to paraphrase Achebe, how can we expect the man to spit out the juicy morsel that the gods put into his mouth?
A major problem that our decade-long sojourn in the economic wilderness has created: we are not fazed by large sums of money. If you’ve handled a hundred trillion dollars before, then what is a mere half-a-million? Our dance in the doldrums has also left a legacy of entitlement, and the desire for quick bucks. During the “dark times,” if you had the foreign currency, it was possible at one point to generate a thousand dollars in the space of a day. Seemingly, we are all still looking for that one zhet that will leave us set for life. No, Cashbert was no aberation to the norm. He was just luckier than most, and found a convenient spot at the trough.
We have been fed the lie that our high level of education, lauded as one of the best in Africa, will guarantee us the posh lifestyles that our heretofore baases had. We see the flashy lives of the noveau riche as they cruise the streets of the sunshine city, and pour ciroc down clogged city drain pipes, and we feel entitled to the same.
Our sense of entitlement is the reason why ZANU PF’s indigenization drive has garnered much support at the expense of the MDC. While the MDC was busy offering people jobs, ZANU PF was offering them mining claims and the ownership of shares, regardless of whether those people understood what a share is, or whether those promises have materialized or not.
In Zimbabwe, no one wants to work, not really. People want to be the boss, the one who steers the vessel, and not the rugged sailor who tugs at the oars and provides the kinetic energy for the ship. Bhora Mugedhi makes everyone a striker, but you can’t have a football team of only strikers. The shot has to be built elegantly from the back. We can can’t all be bosses.
But unfortunately, we have seen the perks that people can get simply from being at the right place at the right time, and from singing the right political tune. If Zimbabwe was a merit-based society where hard work paid off, would Chenjerai Hunzvi be such a familiar name? Would we know anything about Jabulani Sibanda? Would all these people we publicly hate, and secretly envy, be where they currently are?
We remain victims of the quick-buck syndrome. ‘Let’s chase out the foreigners’ ,we say, ‘they are taking everything from us.’ How about taking a moment and learning from them instead? The Pakistani businessman with his small shop full of trinkets understands the idea of delayed gratification.
He understands the fact that while hard work rarely ever pays off in a lump-sum, you can still make a million dollars if you sell millions of needles at ten cents each. But Zimbos? No. We want the quick deal, and then we want to get into a private jet and gloat to everyone else, like the now-legendary “Sir” Wicknell ‘Biggie’ Chivayo, who is just one of the symptoms of a sick society, molding from within.
The Chinese philosophical concept of yin and yang emphasizes the importance of balance and unity in the face of apparent duality. There are always at least two sides to a story. Esteemed compatriots, maybe this is one case where it helps to look East. Perhaps I’m misguided, and barking up the wrong tree, but I think we need to take a close look at ourselves and acknowledge the inherent paradoxes we encapsulate.
Only with brutal honesty can we really deal with the problems besetting our country. While we cannot take the time to meditate collectively as a nation, we can at least use the media we have, to reflect and to introspect. This is the only way we will reach a deeper understanding of the problems bedevelling us, and reach a better diagnosis of our current predicament.
It is only when we all realize just how complicit we all are in creating the current shoddy state of our nation that we can take effective action. An honest and proper diagnosis reveals that what Cuthbert Dube did is just an amplified version of what the same civil servant who is complaining about his PSMAS contributions did this very morning, when he asked for a bribe to simply enter a bona-fide Zimbabwean into the national registry; an action that takes a few minutes, and for which the civil servant draws a salary.
The same policeman whose medical bills were not paid last year, regardless of the fact that he was a fully subscribed member of a medical aid scheme, is the selfsame guy who is accepting a $5 bribe on Luveve road in Bulawayo as you read this article. I would also not find it hard to believe that there are some in Zimbabwe who are, in comparative wealth, to Cuthbert Dube what he is to the civil servant. We are a spectacularly wealthy nation, despite what the analysts and polls say. Ask Obert Mpofu.
Zimbabweans are a resourceful people, and the last decades have necessitated an admirable craftiness. Despite all prognostications, we weathered the storm of a hyper-inflationary environment, and we lived to tell the tale from houses that still stand. It took a lot of creativity, but tattered as it was, our will as a nation weathered the storm, and we still stand, like the silent stones at Great Zimbabwe that have weathered many a rainy season.
But many adaptive behaviours can also turn into impediments when conditions in the environment change. We have gotten used to bending the rules. So much so that, even when it’s easier to just follow the rules, we improvise ways to make it less straightforward. Everything has to be a zhet.
Our behaviour as a nation is so corrupt, that to put people like Happison Muchechetere and Cuthbert Dube up on the altar is a pitifully inadequate sacrifice. We must sacrifice our current way of life, where we move like vampires, seeing our fellows as means to a fast buck. We have to sacrifice the petty convenience of having your passport processed a bit faster just because you “know a guy who knows a guy.”
We have to sacrifice the foolish bravado that makes us disregard the rules, even to our own detriment, when we vouch that we drive better when we are drunk. Corruption begins with smalls things, and grows to envelop the whole nation, like an insidious fungus that first assaults one potato before ruining the whole crop.
Compatriots, we are all complicit.
And as we all rush to lay blame everywhere else except on our own doorstep, and everyone tussles to be the one who gets credit for slaying the beast; the beast himself sleeps easy, assured that as long as there is disagreement about who wields the spear, that spear will not come. In a real-life tragedy of the commons, and a poignant example of a failure to apply game theory, all our best minds want to lead. We have a whole football team made up of Luis Suarezes.
Our moral fabric is in tatters, and we’re busy trying to make something with it, instead of examining the integrity of the material. We are a sick nation, and we continue to skirt the issues and politicize every minor thing. Like the Easterners, we need to take time to examine ourselves, to meditate on who we are as a nation, and move past the artificial divisions that divide us.
Many a commentator wants a commission, or a committee, or some taskforce to solve the current endemic corruption. What we fail to acknowledge is that corruption isn’t a monster that’s out there, like a dragon waiting to be slain. No, corruption is a set of practices, to which we are complicit , and which we continue to tolerate. the years under ZANU PF have left us so damaged, we fail to realise just how aberrant our behaviour is.
A new dawn is on the horizon for Zimbabwe. I see it. But I’m afraid that as we begin to rebuild, it will be much easier to fix the sickness of our economy.
Our moral life?
Well, that will be a whole other matter.
You can visit Shaun Matsheza’s blog here
