‘Vanity of vanities’

Stephen Mpofu, Perspective

THINGS rhetoric happened in recent times right up to this week with probably only the headline saying above capable of immortalising decries by frothing mouths of rampant abuses of drugs and substances by young Zimbabweans with nothing to occupy their vacant minds which must of necessity form a power base for a progressive Zimbabwe into a brave new future.

The Second Republic Government set up a Cabinet committee a few days ago to find a lasting solution or solutions to the drugs and substance abuse challenges which have no doubt seen their suppliers, local or foreign, smiling all the way to banks to stash away their ill-gotten wealth.

Members of the public and this pen have contributed possible solutions to the challenges that riddle this country’s youth and which the Cabinet committee might wish to integrate with its own findings so that in the final analysis the young people in point in this discourse who are supposed to be the future of our nation, as it were, are mobilised to run with the philosophy “a country is built by its owners”, as president Mnangagwa has often emphasised.

To begin with, one contributor to a local station suggested the setting up of drug rehabilitation centres by foreigners if no such facility exists in our country at the moment to help put abusers of drugs and substances on the right path as contributors of development in their mother country.

Other suggestions included the upgrading of programmes for youths at centres in the country’s various suburbs to include occupational activities for the young people so that they are not lured into drugs and substances.

Yet another contributor through these columns said the Church could play a positive role by dissuading young people from the evils of drugs and substance abuse, such as violent competitions for those responsibility-annihilating objects now the subject of nationwide discussion.

Yet another contribution was that instead of concentrating on the supremacy of theories in schools teachers must also consider teaching their charges practical ways of life on completing their education.

Those who went to primary and secondary boarding schools, mission ones included, in colonial Rhodesia, as this communicologist did, will no doubt confirm the important roles the schools in question played in preparing their graduates for real life experiences.

For instance, this writer can say with veracity that students who participated in bricklaying lessons became career builders in public life upon graduating from school as did those students interested in carpentry who eventually earn a living as carpenters in public life along students interested in gardening who lived successful lives as farmers after graduation.

Thus, if the Cabinet committee on drugs and substance abuse casts its net far and wide it will no doubt harvest contributions from the public to help end once and for all the damning challenge facing Zimbabwe’s youth today.

And come to think of it (yes, you) the Government might also wish to set up a body to find solutions to the current widespread rantings by women vis-à-vis gender imbalances in jobs in our country.

It is a fact that women account for more than 50 percent of the Zimbabwean population and yet in jobs in various institutions men by far outnumber the females.

Some if not more female protesters and a few male supporters no doubt blame male chauvinism for discrimination against women in jobs.

There is some truth here in the sense that some men are reluctant to support their daughters in pursuing higher tertiary education on the lame excuse that they will be enriching not themselves but their daughter’s husbands and families who will stand to harvest monetary wealth from the highly qualified woman.

But, let us also call a spade a spade here by pointing out that women are also their own enemies.

One example of this is that they lack self-confidence and confidence in other women. An example of the latter is that where a woman and man compete for election as Members of Parliament, for instance, women often rally support for the male rather than for their own kind.

In this pen’s opinion, and no doubt in other progressive minds also, some way should be found to balance male and female genders in various job occupational spaces for peace and amity to prevail in order for men and women to pull the development plough together like a span of oxen and cows without leaving behind banks in farrows for weeds to grow and choke sprouting seeds meant to feed the nation as a whole.