Insulting youths that follow Passion Java is a failing strategy – Mlilo

By Nyashadzashe Ndoro | Nehanda Politics |

Political commentator Mfundo Mlilo has warned that “insulting youths that follow Passion Java is a failing strategy” and that it’s important to seek “to understand their behavior and the social and economic mechanics that drive their instincts.”

This comes after the US based flamboyant preacher created a stir in several towns along the Harare-Bulawayo highway on Saturday making pit stops in Chegutu, Kadoma, Kwekwe and Gweru on his way to the City of Kings and hundreds of fans in each town mobbed his car.

This prompted critics to slam the youths saying they were wasting energy following “fake prophets” instead of engaging in politics in order to revive the country’s economy. Mlilo however disagrees.

“Let’s get things right? I have a different view! There is something called mobilisation by exclusion. It does not work. Insulting youths that follow Passion Java is a failing strategy,” he said.

“Rather seeking to understand their behavior and the social and economic mechanics that drive their instincts is at the root of building an alternative movement. This kind of thinking got Donald Trump elected President with all the disastrous consequences that followed.”

Prominent Zimbabwean journalist Hopewell Chin’ono has been vocal on social media arguing that the youths were celebrating the same people who are part of a regime that is behind their poverty.

“The Zimbabwean youths MUST open their eyes to the reality that the crooks they run after like senseless groupies are actually working hard for the same system that has made their lives miserable, broke, jobless and addicts!” Chin’ono rallied.

Commenting on the recent video circulating on social media, of a big crowd of youths following Java, Chin’ono said: “Put aside the public stupidity, these people are not wearing masks!

“If this had been Nelson Chamisa he would have been locked up! Joanna and Cecilia have spent 55 days in jail for addressing a press conference where everyone was wearing a mask!

“Now to the stupidity, this is what Dr Nkosana Nkosana meant when he said Zimbabweans mirror ZANU PF leadership! Such foolishness is very difficult to cure! Bulawayo?”

UK based law expert and political commentator, Dr Alex Magaisa urged political leaders to at least inspire youths into seeing the “boundless possibilities” if they join politics.

In what he termed “a clash of generations: repairing potholes of the mind,” Magaisa said ‘leaders shape ‘imagined realities’.

“There’s a generation that remembers a Zimbabwe of high standards; a country that worked and had promise. There’s a generation of young adults with no such memory. Their universe was shaped by falling standards; a Zimbabwe that doesn’t work; without promise.

“One generation remembers a Zimbabwe where buses had a time-table and ran on time; cities where running water and electricity were the norm; a Zimbabwe where the milkman left milk bottles at the gate and the postman delivered letters in the box and the Zimbabwe Dollar was proper money.

“For the other generation, queuing for water at the borehole is normal. For the bucket generation, the bathtub and shower are exceptions. Mushikashika. Kungwavhangwavha. Potholed roads. Dark streets. It’s the norm. It came into a world without things that others take for granted.

“One generation is motivated by the aspiration to at least go back to how things were, for things worked. The other has no such motivation because it doesn’t know any better. It doesn’t have that memory. The only life it has known is a life of low standards; things don’t work.

“In the past, they learned to write application letters and CVs. They aspired to work like their parents. Today, it seems pointless because even their parents have no jobs. From school they find refuge on street corners and in intoxicating substances; excited by little things.

“Is it any surprise then that there’s a pre-occupation with frivolity & an apparent lack of care for public affairs? One generation measures its world by the memory of what it knows is possible. The memory of the other is a world shaped by hyperinflation & useless “billions”

“Without freeing minds and showing the boundless possibilities, the nation will continue to generate more and more for whom mediocrity and frivolity are “normal”. When you know no better and when you don’t have better to do, frivolity and mediocrity become a way of life. You chase after cars and hope a mbinga will drop a few dollars for you to pick.

“It’s the challenge of leaders to inspire people into seeing these boundless possibilities. Leaders shape ‘imagined realities’ and sell them to the people,” Magaisa wrote. Nehanda Radio