Do you recall that time when the lights went out?

By Mukomana We Kuseri

No, not this going out that has been caused by the wholesale incompetence of Robert Mugabe and his bother in law, Gwata, head of Zesa and recipient of a First World salary while services rot.

I am talking of a time when electricity ‘going’ (kuenda kwemagetsi) was stuff for the news, guaranteed to make the headlines because it was so rare.

A time when the prodigious land still gave homage to the sons and daughters of Africa, when trees bowed and moved their branches and leaves aside in awe of the pride that a child of the soil had as he roamed his land.

A time when the nation we call home was proud, and dared to dream.

It was on the day of The Replay, remember? You have to remember. Sometime before, the Zimbabwe Warriors had gone to battle in the city of Pharaohs, and in front of 120,000 Egyptians baying for blood, they fought like wounded warriors, fought like cornered lions, fought like the Impis of Lobengula on the mighty Shangani River as they shouted ‘Ngi’dla’ each time a British soldier fell into the waters as they refused to let King Lobengula be taken,  they fought a battle for 90 minutes which arrested the heart of the nation and caused even the lizards to stop and wait.

Fought at the urging of that undeclared national hero, the German by birth but Zimbabwe Warrior in his own right Reinhardt Fabisch, who urged and urged from the touchline as our Warriors were battered, harangued and hacked down in full view of a referee that saw nothing. One warrior with blood dripping down his face, red like the colour on the flag, previously white bandage over his head, yet fighting still.

The match ended with the Warriors losing. And it was obvious from the chants emanating from the stands that, as Fabisch rightly observed, had the Warriors dared to win that battle, a few would have left that arena in body bags.

Refusing to take that blatant cheating laying down, Fabisch single handedly fought all the way to FIFA, where the Secretary General, a certain Sepp Blatter before the infamy, eventually sent the words that all the Warriors were waiting for: the battle was to be replayed, in the neutral land of Napoleon Bonaparte.

The Warriors would do battle against the Pharaohs again.

So the nation waited for The Replay, with baited breath and blood boiling just under the surface. In Bruce Grobbelaar and Ephraim Chawanda, Fabisch trusted, for the Warriors needed but a point to go forward to the last qualifying game, against the mighty Cameroon. A draw would be enough. And in Fabisch the nation trusted.

The day of the The Replay people went by their chores and jobs in a daze, waiting to go home and watch the battle. People had jobs then, real jobs not the ones where you spend the whole day chasing passing cars trying to sell them two strips of phone juice.

And as dusk descended on an expectant nation, people looked more alert, alive, willing the Warriors on from proud Zimbabwe, knowing full well that even though the Warriors were to play in an empty stadium as per the FIFA directive, they would know that the full weight of the nation’s support was behind them. So we sat by our TVs, the neighbours’ TVs, borrowed TVs, even TVs in smallhouses were busy that day.

Then the lights went out.

The Warriors fought to the last man, and even when it seemed like the mighty Bruce Grobbelaar was beaten, miraculously the ball skittled away, to give them a corner. Ji! They matched the Pharaohs man for man, and fought like true patriots, they threw their legs into the path of danger, and thwarted wave after wave of Egyptians raids. As the final whistle blew, they fell to the ground, proud, and their fates cemented. True warriors each of them, Fabisch’s happiness like that of a six year old given a bowl of candy.

But we saw none of this, because the lights were gone. Gone until the following day, when the news finally filtered down: the Warriors had done us proud, and the Mighty Cameroon awaited. Mboma eventually extinguished the dream, but who can ever forget The Replay, on the night that the lights went out?

Who would have thought it then, that the idea of lights going out could be so nostaligic, so intertwined with the history of the country that it still evokes memories after so many years? And who could have known that what was a onetime experience can be so normal that it is newsworthy when lights actually do not go out?

What has this family; him, Dr Amai, their relatives in state companies, done to our proud country that we are left to navigate lives in the dark when the country is so richly endowed?

Now we have one of the afflictions he has imposed on us calling on the nation to pray that we might be blessed with better fortune! The nerve. The bible tells us that when the king did what was evil against God, punishment came in different forms, including droughts.

When Ahab went about compulsorily acquiring land from its owners because his wife wanted it (can you say Manzou?), God withheld rain until the land was exorcised of the idolatry and wickedness of the wife and her minions. Then the rains came.

Now they want us to skip the cleansing and just go to the good fortune bit? If we suddenly had enough money to run our power stations, who is to say that it will not be looted to build 20 bedroom houses in a land where you cannot drive to said house because of the potholes on the road?

Or to buy expensive BMWs for the sons of the nephew of the he that has damned us all? How do we raise children in a land where electricity goes and the President’s brother in law who has run the power utility to the ground is never mentioned as a culprit?

Better yet, why do I seem to be the only person angry about this?

The Warriors gave us a chance to dream, as a nation, and we recall the night that the lights went out within the context of the dream. Less than a generation later, we have blessed our children with the nightmare of a country where nothing works, where a President and his family rob the country blind and no one seems to be batting an eyelid.

Where are the Warriors of Cairo, who fought against the Pharaohs of Egypt and, against all odds, won? Am I the only angry person here?

Mukomana We Kuseri