Online Reporter
Communion with Bishop Lazarus
Successful courtship is quite a complicated enterprise, if not mystical, as it depends on connecting two different human beings and souls on both a personal and spiritual level.
You see, human behaviour and relationships are as complicated as they are inscrutable.
In some instances, love overtures do not always find a ready taker.
So, for love between couples to catch on and blossom, there must be a meeting of minds, hearts and souls. Even in the event that a love proposal is accepted, the relationship still has to survive the vicissitudes of daily strain and tumult to eventually graduate into marriage.
In this part of the world, we have always had different types of courtships depending on circumstances. However, the more acceptable union for families was when a would-be bridegroom, through a go-between or marriage mediator, approached the family of a damsel to ask for her hand in marriage (kukumbira).
In this instance, the marriage could only be consummated long after the elders had ululated and emptied beer gourds to celebrate the obligatory lobola payment, thus marking the formalisation of the union of the two families.
And in circumstances where the amorous couple failed to control their passions and urges, it was not uncommon for the would-be bride to elope (kutizira mukumbo), in which case the marriage was regularised afterwards.
It was, or still is, akin to settling on unregistered land with the hope of regularising later. Kikikiki. There is always the case of that odd couple that does not have the decency to inform their families and just co-habit regardless (kuchaya mapoto).
Our society also accommodated the desperate bachelor who was dying to be with the love of their life but did not have the much-needed resources to raise lobola.
Provided he was able, he had the option to squat at his future in-laws and volunteer his toil in lieu of material lobola payment.
And then there was a seemingly uncontemplatable and much egregious option — maybe the only card to play for the witless and charmless species among our male race that found it difficult to get hitched — where the smitten bachelor, tired of being spurned and turned down time without number, could literally kidnap their target and lock them up until they coaxed or extracted affection from the wantaway bride.
They eponymously called such a practice musengabere after drawing similarities with the notoriety of hyenas to snatch and flee with prey that would have been hunted down by other predators. It was tough luck if it was your woman who would have been snatched. Kikikiki.
Thank God, this rather curious, unconventional and desperate strategy to woo and court lovers has since faded away.
Be that as it may, our society has always disproportionately favoured the fairytale-style romantic story through which lovebirds connect and nurture their love until it sprouts into a lovely family. For those who grew up in the village, nothing demonstrates the art of wooing quite like the python. The python’s scales are a prismatic trap. Beneath the canopy, it coils motionless — until a frog hops near.
Then, with a slow, deliberate flex, the reptile ripples its flanks. Each scale catches a stray sunbeam, shattering it into rainbow shards: emerald, sapphire, flame. The frog freezes, transfixed by the shifting mosaic.
Light dances, swirls and hypnotises.
The dazzle blurs all warning signs.
A final pulse of muscle, and the python’s skin goes dark — just as its jaws close around stunned prey, the last flash still flickering in unseeing eyes.
No rigging . . . Just dazzling
Similarly, last week, Zimbabwe demonstrated that it had mastered the art of wooing and dazzling on the international arena after bagging a whopping 182 votes out of 190.
Let Bishop Lazi help those who fear mathematics: That figure actually represents about 96 percent of the vote.
That is a diplomatic tsunami.
Only eight countries said no. Just eight.
If these were local elections, we would have unfailingly heard the ritualistic and routine protestations from the usual quarters that the vote had been rigged.
Well, Zimbabwe earned its place on the table through sweat and patient diplomacy.
As President ED declared last week, “we now have excellent diplomatic relations with the world”. Such an observation would have been laughable in 2018, but today it sounds more like an understatement, what with the near-unanimity of the vote. But you just need to consider what it took to get here.
When the Second Republic launched its “engagement and re-engagement” drive, sceptics sneered and jeered, regarding Zimbabwe as a pariah that deserved to sit in the naughty corner for daring to wrest its land from scions of white settlers.
But over the past eight to nine years, Zimbabwe has earned its stripes and respect back.
Because here is the truth that Western think tanks struggle to digest: Zimbabwe is no longer a problem to be managed.
It is a partner to be wooed and courted.
A chair at every table
Clearly, the UN victory was built on a foundation of regional leadership that would make any nation proud. Zimbabwe just finished chairing SADC from August 2024 to August 2025, during which period the regional bloc held a historic joint summit with the EAC to address the conflict in the eastern DRC. Historic because it was the first time two regional economic communities dispensed with the straitjacketed strictures of old diplomacy and pragmatically invited the M23 rebels at the table. That is diplomacy. That is maturity. The wisdom behind this overture was to seek a durable solution to the challenges in the eastern DRC.
Had it not been for interference by overweening self-serving international powers, which in part forced the lead mediator in the conflict, Angola’s João Lourenço, to step down in frustration, the SADC-EAC process would have, ceteris paribus (all else being equal), delivered a favourable outcome, what with the inclusion of all belligerents in the dialogue.
And as if that was not enough, later this year Zimbabwe will take the helm of COMESA — a 21-member bloc that is incidentally the largest regional economic community in Africa.
So, sum total, in the space of two years, Zimbabwe will have chaired SADC, COMESA and secured a UN Security Council seat with a staggering 182 votes. This is nothing short of a remarkable turnaround. It has to be remembered that it was the diplomatic fallout between London and Harare that flared up into a brawl that sucked in the US and European Union, who did everything in their power to soil the country’s image.
Judging by the past few years, it is fair to say that the frosty relations between the two countries have thawed.
The decision by London to post a charmer, rather than a gladiator, to Harare in the person of Pete Vowles — a man who once had a stint as an educator in Mudzi, Mashonaland East province — was quite an instructive response to the zeitgeist of rapprochement that governed contemporary relations between the two.
And trade relations have responded accordingly. During the era of the Second Republic, which has deliberately decided to turn swords into ploughshares, trade volumes have jumped by more than 437 percent from US$90 million in 2016 to US$483 million in the year ended March 2025. All this means that while the dispute over the Land Reform Programme — that painful, necessary, bloody chapter — is not forgotten, the programme’s irreversibility has since been settled. British businesses are not waiting for politicians to apologise. They are selling.
And the numbers do not lie.
The old snake is shedding its skin
It is not only London that has responded to Zimbabwe’s charm offensive, but also the US, too. Last year, Washington formally began the legislative processes to repeal ZDERA — the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act — a nearly 25-year-old sanctions law that has blocked Harare from accessing loans, debt relief and financial assistance from the IMF and World Bank since 2001.
The repeal provision is contained in H.R. 5300, a Bill sponsored by Representative Brian Mast of Florida. In fact, Section 303 of that Bill repeals ZDERA outright. Now, Bishop Lazi is not naive. While there are conditions attached, including compensation under the Global Compensation Deed, the direction of travel is unmistakable. For two decades, Zimbabwe was locked out of the international financial system, but that door is now creaking open.
Zimbabwe’s infectious charm has also percolated to various other sectors as well, not least in the tourism sector.
Where travel advisories used to be contrived and weaponised as a blunt tool to shoo away investors from Zimbabwe, ringing endorsements have now become the norm. Being voted the best “must-visit destination” in 2025 by Forbes Magazine was the icing on the cake that announced to the world that Zimbabwe is back.
And who can forget the free public relations that came from amiable Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, who filmed the final episode of their feature-length special of the Grand Tour, titled “One for the Road”, in Zimbabwe. During filming of this British motoring television series, Clarkson famously declared Zimbabwe possibly the most beautiful place he had ever visited.
Overall, on the one hand, we have an American business magazine with disarming rave reviews about Zimbabwe and, on the other, we have smitten British celebrities falling in love with this charming country we call home.
It is simply a remarkable and good tale to tell.
Better days are ahead
Let Bishop Lazi close with Scripture.
Isaiah 43:19 says: “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”
For two decades, Zimbabwe walked through that wilderness.
The sanctions were the heat.
The hyperinflation was the thirst.
The isolation was the endless sand.
But the new thing is springing forth.
The rivers are flowing.
Bishop Lazi has a message for all those Doubting Thomases who still think this is all a fluke. They should listen, watch and learn.
Watch the factories being built in Harare.
Watch the tourists taking selfies at Great Zimbabwe. Watch the steel trucks rolling towards Beitbridge. Zimbabwe is not coming back.
Zimbabwe has arrived.
And the best part?
The journey has only just begun.
This country, which Julius Nyerere described as a “jewel” in 1981, is shining brighter than ever.
Bishop out!
