Online Reporter
Dr Obert Mpofu
LET the young man in his desperation go out and hunt. If he kills the elephant, his poverty ends. If the elephant kills him, his poverty ends.
The same can be said of our precarious position. Where we stand as a country offers limited options but to make it. This is what we have been striving to do and exerting all our efforts towards.
We are trying to equip our people, especially our youth who now make up the majority of our population, to ensure that they are able to cater for themselves.
The starting point is to create internal capacity. We must be able to carry our own weight no matter what. If we cannot uplift ourselves, then our future is indeed a bleak one. Creating internal capacities will enable us to automatically displace any forms of dependency.
So many have been mourning the withdrawal of USAid from most of the programmes that it was funding across the continent. Instead of mourning this withdrawal, we should be seeing an opportunity. An opportunity to correct the situation that resulted in so much dependency for our people.
One should not question why the neighbour has chosen their own children and not share their surplus food, as the neighbour is within his right to decide how his harvest is to be used. We have been constantly gaping year-in and year-out from whatever USAid decides to throw our way, and this is both unsustainable and dangerous at the same time.
Unsustainable in the sense that one cannot survive on goodwill in perpetuity and dangerous in terms of the conditions attached to the aid. There is no free meal in Africa, as they always say, and the wise have always advised to despise free lunch, as there will be a hefty payback one day.
Whoever pays the piper, determines the tune. Let us not put ourselves in a position similar to the one that we just got ourselves out of, when we successfully defeated colonialism. What the rest of us Africans should be doing at this point in time is to introspect at how much we have allowed ourselves to be dependent on outsiders. Are we truly incapable of building internal mechanisms and resilience to cater for ourselves and our people? How much freedom therefore do we have or have we achieved if we are still heavily reliant on donors?
These are some important questions that we must answer with the utmost frankness. We are indeed in a precarious position as a people and as a continent and to some extent we have allowed ourselves to be in such a situation. We all know that the Americans, as part of the imperialist, are not entirely thrilled by an Africa that sets to chart its own path.
This is why they imposed sanctions on our country when we dared take back our long-lost land and emancipate our people. This is the same reason why they are spreading falsehoods that “some terrible things are happening in South Africa”, and like always they have threatened them with sanctions, their preferred weapon of choice to ensure conformity to their warped ways.
Warped in the sense that their ways are alien to us and will never be fully applicable to Africa and its people. We have our own systems which we should strengthen if we are to fully achieve the emancipation which we so desire. Our people should and must always be dependent on themselves. This is the only way to maintain our freedom.
We must shatter all forms of dependency. This must be done as a matter of urgency. This is even more important with regard to our youth, who must learn to depend on themselves at all times. Our youth should learn that no one will ever come to rescue them, so they must at all times be able to cater for themselves.
We are called upon to fully ensure that they are equipped to tackle the challenges that they face and could potentially face. As we strive towards our goals, let us ensure that we wean our people of all and any dependency syndrome that they may suffer from. Let us ensure that they are in the right mindset to tackle their everyday challenges and that they do not view themselves as lesser beings.
Africa holds most of the world’s wealth and there is no reason whatsoever why our people should ever feel inferior.
n Dr Obert Moses Mpofu is an academic and the Secretary-General of Zanu-PF. He writes in his own capacity.
