Letter from America: Can Zimbabwe be great again?

By Ken Mufuka

I ponder day and night whether Zimbabwe shall one day be great again.

It was once a paradise, except that the paradise was limited only to whites. The smoke stacks of Grendale Mills and Kadoma Textiles once belched thick smoke, a witness to the 3 000 livelihoods they served.

On Fridays, wives waited outside the gates, to receive their husbands’ pay cheques. After subtracting pocket money, men would stop by the beer hall before going home.

Our struggle has been aimed at sharing the milk and honey more equitably among all Zimbabweans. Four decades have passed and we are further away from our dream.

The chefs have replaced whites. By all accounts the chefs know no bounds in their oppression of God’s people or in their appetite for looting.

Then terrible events overtook the mills.

Cotton farmers were run out of the country. Cotton marketing boards were a charade for chefs to enrich themselves. The new United States President, Donald Trump, described similar events in his country. “For decades, we have enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry, subsidised the armies of other countries, and spent millions of dollars …while infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay.”

Zimbabwe, a small country, has sought to be a regional power, sending its troops to Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The ruling elite spent big on gallivanting from country to country.

The issue is that unless our opposition leaders make a clear connection between the looting of the country and a moral purpose and a vision to build a community of love, their labour is in vain.

The saints say that where there is no vision, people perish. There is a tangible apathy among the populace in the belief that the opposition has the same goals, to loot the country.

Where there is no vision, the people perish. Similarly, where there is a vision, people flourish. I have no common motif with Julius Malema, but his argument about ZANU’s vision illustrates the fact of a people who cherish darkness.

I was alarmed by the constant bickering and small-minded talk among ZANU-PF’s intellectual prostitutes. Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa entertained a “rascally friend,” Energy Mutodi at his New Year Eve party. He held a cup with the title: “I am the boss.” Verily, verily, little things amuse little minds. Mnangagwa is free to entertain anybody in the privacy of his home. Full stop.

There is more. Everywhere you turn, auditing boards find that the “chefs” have looted the country. Senior tax commissioners were suspended for violating tax laws which they presided over.

Their dark vision is to squeeze every penny from God’s children while they exempt themselves. This dark vision has spread to the police. A white woman travelling from Beitbridge to Victoria Falls via Great Zimbabwe paid US$500 in bribes. Skipping the Victoria part, she returned to South Africa through Botswana. Nokutula Ndlovukazi, a friend of mine, who runs a lodge in Bulawayo, had one visitor in three months. Bulawayo witnessed the closure of 80 lodges in one year.

Zimbabweans are still arguing about obvious issues. There was no secret about Gukurahundi.

The newspapers at the time were full of stories about atrocities. The generals and ministers in the intelligent services at the time, walked on water. They believed that not even the invisible hand of the Creator could rebuke them. There is a theory that as a result, these malefactors suffer from permanent insomnia.

“They burnt victims alive, forcing villagers to dig their own graves and bury them alive, trucking and burying the victims alive in shafts; they used any object to break the victim’s skull,” an eye-witness recalled at the time. The issue now is to accept community responsibility, show remorse and move forward.

The theft of diamonds is not a secret either. It is recorded in parliamentary reports by Edward Chindori-Chininga (now late), who headed a portfolio committee on mines.

As a child I failed to grasp the meaning of Thomas Jefferson’ admonition to the Continental Congress; “Make your cause a righteous cause.” The missing link in our struggle is the marriage between men of God and opposition leaders. There is no great cause which can suffice by itself without some form of supernatural blessings.

Chefs and war veterans, disagree on how to share their loot. They have not grasped the fact that looting impoverishes everybody. A Republican official told me: “Look at those Zimbabweans. They steal from their own people and invest the money abroad.”

Veterans live miserable lives. School fees for their children have not been paid. Sister Mai Mushavi describes the mission of these hapless youths. They are the enforcers of a depraved regime, they are proud to serve on highways where they extort money, and vex God’s children. The chefs’ children are studying abroad.

South Africa is sheltering 25 percent of our population. Trump has a new vision for America which will resonate in South Africa.

“From this moment, it is going to be America First. Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit Americans.” We must recapture our own dream, before we are expelled from South Africa.