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Bernard Bwoni Correspondent
“We have very negative people in the party. If people no longer want to stay in the party, they must leave”: President R. G. Mugabe.
Negativity is contagious and if not countered with a productive and positive mindset, it spans and spreads with no bounds. It is disabling and when it festers, the mind is unable to think beyond the paralysing enfold of the here and now. It takes over and permanently replaces positivity with pessimism.
It clouds everything around and surrounding it. Under the gloomy cocoon of negativity, both optimism and positivity are relegated to distant memories. To be negative about your team is an inbuilt fear of that team’s success. It inherently becomes an inbuilt fear of one’s own potential for success or failure. Vultures often prey on that fear to permanently stifle that potential and the possibilities.
The negative people President Mugabe was talking are those individuals or groups of individuals who don’t really enjoy anything they are doing and what is happening around them. They specialise in inter- and-intra party fatalism and they always find a problem with everything and everyone, even the positive. They hold the misplaced belief that they can influence everyone around them.
The danger that these people pose is that they start to project their negative energy onto everyone around them and this can create despondency and dejection in those affected. Positivity keeps the mind in a state of balance and more often than not opens doors and pathways to resolutions. Negativity is often associated with locks and imbalance. It shuts doors.
It is correct that Zimbabwe has gone through harsh and difficult times. This has left citizens feeling despondent and melancholic. The ruling party has been hard hit with attacks from both external and internal sources. The party has stood firm against the onslaught and remains rooted to the ground ideologically and physically.
However, some individuals within the party have buckled under the pressure. This has turned some of them into inner prophets of doom who seem to derive pleasure and satisfaction from being negative about the party. There are those preoccupied with dismissing and discrediting the success of Command Agriculture for their own self-preserving intentions.
Week in, week out they are lamenting and lambasting the very necessary and the successful Command Agriculture programme. It is a defeatist and negative mindset. Nothing grows out of pessimism except retrogression. President Mugabe was right when he asked what the ultimate end result was with this negativity.
The party and the country cannot permanently remain confined in this negative net and for any forward movement there is urgent need for a joint trajectory. That is up to the people of Zimbabwe to foster national growth and healing. It is the expectation that those who belong to the Government, protect the Government they belong to from the wanton fatalism and portrayed darkness. This is in no way meant to suggest that Government is immune from criticism by its own, but a winning goal surely deserves celebration rather than ridicule.
Positive and progressive developments from the Government need to be acknowledged with the positive feedback they deserve rather than persistent ridicule. There is a need for clarity in terms of policy focus and direction and that should be the focus rather than the constant bickering. The positive feedback can only bring out more successes such as Command Agriculture. The Zimbabwean foundations are being laid after over a decade of sanctions-induced decadence and decline. What is the point of unbuilding where others are building?
Those who publicly and persistently discredit their Government’s programmes clearly have no awareness of the social, political and economic implications of the negative speculation they constantly present to the world. They are sending mixed signals and there are inconsistencies in terms of policy focus. Any negative statement about the country or Government programme has far-reaching and damaging effects on the country as a whole. There are deep-rooted self-loathing traits, attacks on Government programmes which often end up translating into national defamation.
It is defeatist to constantly put down programmes which are implemented by a party you belong to. There is no other way of putting it. As President Mugabe clearly put it, those who are not happy with Government programmes can move on surely. There are plenty political parties in our multiparty democracy. Article 3 of the ZANU-PF Constitution is very clear on the duties of members and states “to strengthen, promote and defend the party and popularise its policies among the people”. That is clear as crystal. Every party member has a duty to defend the the party, the country, their own nationhood and their pride as a people instead of devoting energies to trampling on the name of Zimbabwe and its people. If one cannot respect his or her own party programme, how would they expect anyone else to embrace that programme?
Another duty of the ruling party member is “to conduct himself/herself honestly and honourably in his or her dealings with the party and the public and not to bring the party into disrepute or ridicule”. Is attacking Government sanctioned programmes not bringing the party into disrepute?
We sometimes forget to pat ourselves on the back because negativity and pessimism have the tendency of eroding any trickle of hope remaining in us. We have a great country, we own it and owe it to ourselves to preserve and protect it from any negative onslaught.
Online Reporter