adminStephen Mpofu
It is both reassuring and exhilarating the realisation that Zimbabwe’s neighbours are steadily but surely getting to grips with the great reality that accrue from DOING unity with a sister state in the latter’s economic woes, rather than merely lip-servicing that great value.
But to be fair, it was South Africa, this region’s economic power, which not so long ago came out guns blazing against Zimbabwe’s foreign-engineered economic trials and tribulations and calling on other nations to rally to this country’s support.
The truth is that all countries on this globe are embarked on a journey to an unchartered future. As such, if two or more countries scratch each other’s itching economic backs – such as Zimbabwe’s right now due to infestation with Western-imposed sanctions bacteria – the affected nations are bound to maintain a foot-and mental-hold on the root toward a bold new future for its people with dialogue, tolerance, peace, unity and hard work as guiding principles.
If the back scratching is reciprocated on a regional basis, such as the Southern African development Community, the grouping is bound to enjoy solidarity which strengthens the statehoods of member states.
It is a common and universal truth that at their birth as free and independent states, Sadc countries – and other free nations elsewhere in Africa and beyond – did not bear the DNA of their former colonial powers, although some people might claim that the languages of former foreign colonising states that remain as official languages in independent states are such examples of the DNAs in point.
The truth, however, is that languages of colonising powers were superimposed by colonialists to denigrate indigenous languages and instead serve as the lingua franca of the colonial era and in a way making local languages appear inferior to Africans to this very day.
To be sure, a common desire for self-determination was the revolutionary spirit that united Africans in their quest for freedom and independence even in those countries where blazing AK 47s or other guns did not provide the signature tune to influence the struggle for self-emancipation.
A dearth or virtual extinction of that unity of purpose in Zimbabwe today as well as in other countries has flung the door wide open to contemporary imperialists to intervene in the affairs of independent, smaller or weaker states as we experience in Zimbabwe today with foreign countries trying to make themselves our god fathers by dictating the way we conduct our affairs politically and economically.
The same lack of political cohesion has seen some power hungry leaders going beyond many waters and shamelessly scavenging the black market for political pot-bellies to graft onto their own kwashiorkored images in hopes of luring the masses to carry them shoulder high and into power where they are wont to entrench themselves until senility or heartbeat failure intervenes.
The national dialogue now under way in Zimbabwe and in which politicians, church people, professionals and all other citizens are stakeholders seems in this pen to be the only way to achieve consensus vis-a-vis national unity, peace and unimpeded economic, social and political development for the good of our nation as a whole.
The deputy chief secretary to the President, communicologist Mr George Charamba, could not have done more in explaining the plurality of those who must engage in the national dialogue when talking to the Zimpapers’ Star FM radio programme, the Minister’s Desk on Monday; otherwise some sceptics might raise barricades against the current dialogical discourse, fearing that it was the ruling party, Zanu-PF’s courtship for marriage with the opposition MDC Alliance in order to turn Zimbabwe into a party state under which democracy would be stifled if not silenced altogether as has happened in one-party dictatorships elsewhere around the globe.
In short, the destiny of this nation lies squarely on the shoulders of every patriotic Zimbabwean as a stakeholder and not on puppets of foreigners who love our country primarily for purposes of exploiting, and carting back to their native countries, rich mineral resources pulsating in Zimbabwe’s belly.
While we are at it, kudos are due to the African Development Bank which has expressed its commitment to helping our country in overcoming the current economic stalemate and to the United Nations for the world body’s expressed willingness to assist this country in view of the drought situation which threatens wide spread food shortages and famine.
It is also to be hoped that like Botswana, other Sadc member states as well as other African Union countries will line up with the assistance that this country desires during our economic distress.
Online Reporter