Charles Ray not a youth empowerment hero

These youths were acknowledging what they believe to be the Ambassador’s “youth empowerment passion” expressed when he often removed his ambassadorial splendour to become “the ordinary man in the streets all in the name of meeting the Zimbabwean youths at their point of need.”
Hence a new hero was born in 2011, all for the cause of our youthful lot, we are told. Here was an organisation that claims to act for Zimbabwe’s youths, enshrining within the history of 2011 the assumed benevolence of the US ambassador.

The message is clear: that in the year 2011 it was the dear Ambassador’s passion and love for the unemployed and “without livelihoods” youthful masses on the streets of Zimbabwe that gave deprived Zimbabwean youths their hope for empowerment.
As such, we would then be made to believe that our youthful hopes for 2012 must remain in his and his country’s custody. Really? The implications of this award on the 2012 resolutions of an empowerment-agitated Zimbabwean youth are clear.
Indeed if we are not careful, the multitude of Zimbabwean youths will be made to embrace the villains of Zimbabwe’s sanctions imposed socio-economic woes as their heroes. These fraudulent heroes would then only lead us into blinding darkness, to be stripped off our inheritance, being Zimbabwe’s vast natural resources, which remain the only guarantee to attaining real and sustainable empowerment.

The threat of such an outcome must cause us to seriously reflect upon and determine who our real empowerment heroes were in 2011, who we must continue to look upon and rally behind in 2012.
Should we allow ourselves to be misled into betting our future on the wrong horse, we may well see ourselves led into thorny woods, in the opposite direction of our dawning prosperity?
Could Ambassador Charles Ray really be the one whom in 2011 championed the empowerment and human rights cause of Zimbabwe’s youthful lot, such that some must now award him in “bounteous gratitude”?

The rest of us can only pray that such “bounteous gratitude” is not expressed in the name of our whole lot, a class action on behalf of Zimbabwe’s youth.
Should such an award at all resemble a class action, then it is within our rights to bring to question the nature and origins of this empowerment hero being imposed upon us all.
We should indeed raise such questions, more so in a world where villains can be painted the colour of heroes, while real heroes are tarnished and vilified till they are condemned and spat upon by the very socio-economically oppressed whom they only seek to liberate.

Is it not the sheep that embraced a leopard believing its discoloured and perfumed spots to those of friend and protector? What are the true heroic acts of 2011 that defined the socio-economic hopes of Zimbabwean youth; gave them purpose and emboldened them to walk into 2012 in fearless pursuit of a prosperous and therefore human rights guaranteed future?
Could we not find such acts within our Government’s indigenisation and empowerment laws and programme, or emanating from within a Zanu-PF party that remains the advocate of such empowerment, all inspired by President Mugabe?

What of the many appointed to ensure a successful empowerment programme against great odds, including the Ministry of Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment’s Saviour Kasukuwere?
Or are you already thinking, “oh no, another apologist”? Well, if reality and truth demands it then let it be so. The objective at least is that we debate the hard realities and truth concerning real empowerment endeavours and heroism of 2011, upon which we can arrive at our own informed conclusions.
Must we attribute heroism and human rights accolade to an Ambassador representing the sole and declared interests of the United States of America in Zimbabwe, interests being pursued by the very sanctions that have deprived millions of Zimbabwean youths their socio-economic rights to education, health care, livelihoods etc.

These are the same sanctions the USA now unilaterally imposes against our diamonds seeking to deprive billions of dollars in revenue critical to ensuring that the youth recover the socio-economic dignity long eroded by sanctions.
American interests have officially declared as a threat to US foreign policy the very indigenisation and economic empowerment policies that will primarily benefit Zimbabwean youths for generations.
Can America’s Ambassador therefore be the hero of youth empowerment? Could he ever express a truly legitimate passion for our empowerment and still keep his job as America’s representative in sunny Zimbabwe knowing that indigenisation and economic empowerment policies will ensure America’s crisis riddled companies return at least 51 percent of our national wealth.

Did the youth organisation that gave an accolade to Mr Charles Ray prior considered any one moment our declared hero spoke out against sanctions that have debilitated the hopes, dreams and socio-economic rights of the multitude of Zimbabwean youths?
Could they remind us of Ambassador Ray’s unreserved support for an indigenisation programme that seeks to ensure the economic empowerment of Zimbabwe’s youths by guaranteeing them equitable share in their country’s abundant natural resource?

Such prior considerations need to be made before any heroism is endorsed in the name of Zimbabwean youths.
Knowing that his accolade might be brought to question Mr Ray took the pre-emptive measure of redirecting his professed heroism to ” . . . the leaders of youth organisations and other human rights organisations in Zimbabwe, those who work tirelessly to create a space for young voice and alternative voices.”

Understandably he, like the American government he represents, appreciates the fact that it is not his heroism that will achieve American ends in Zimbabwe. Rather, America must rely on the manipulated heroism of millions of Zimbabwe’s rallied youths, heroism being rallied and directed through pro-democracy and human rights organisations capacitated by millions of dollars in western funds.
The only question is “which and whose human rights are they advocating?” Whose purpose does western defined and advocated democracy serve, that which is participated in by Zimbabweans free from sanctions or that of western interests seeking to achieve regime change? Mr Ray confines his attributes of heroism to those young Zimbabweans “creating a space for young and alternative voices”.

He has learnt from Libya and Egypt that these voices, spread under the cover of freedom of expression, assembly and association will aid his United States of America to finally do away with a Zanu-PF led government whose policies have not been friendly to American interests.
Will the Ambassador bestow such heroism on young Zimbabweans advocating Zimbabwe’s natural resour-ces to be distributed equitably and exploited to the exclusive benefit of the socio-economic rights of indigenous Zimbabweans.

Have any of us heard of a local human rights organisation complementing the Government of Zimbabwe to ensure it achieves transparent and successful indigenisation and economic empowerment that will see socio-economic rights guaranteed.
In the end human rights have been manipulated and sacrificed, at the behest of western “funding partners” whose government’s interests determine which rights shall make heroes among us.

The line that distinguishes between real empowerment heroes from pretenders has been blurred, such that villains are being presented to us as heroes while heroes remain condemned as human rights violators.
We may recall President Mugabe lamenting his vilification during his launching of the Mhondoro-Ngezi, Chegutu Zvimba Community Trust, which Trust now guarantees youths a 10 percent share in the world’s second largest platinum deposits.

President Mugabe expressed how he had become “quite a devil” in the west, his sin being continued insistence that the empowerment of Zimbabweans must be achieved through recovery, ownership and control of their natural resources and inheritance that had for too long benefited western economies and helped achieve the “American Dream”.

When receiving his award Mr Charles Ray acknowledged the bright Zimbabwean economy that lies ahead.
He, however, avoided giving overdue credit for the expected sustainable growth to a Government whose indigenisation and economic empowerment policies not only seek to resuscitate local industry but will establish a foundation of young indigenous entrepreneurs empowered by the wealth of Zimbabwe’s vast natural resources.

The year 2012 offers an empowerment opportunity to Zimbabwean youths, should they now rally in full force behind their real heroes whose endeavours will cause Zimbabwe’s natural resources to benefit their socio-economic needs and aspirations.