By Richard Gandari
Despite the collective sacrifices of the liberation struggle, Zimbabwe is now a proprietorship for a minority elite. The so-called ruling party is a closely knit network of patronage under the tight grip of a self-made emperor.
Their quest for primitive accumulation knows no bounds as they extract, export and exhaust the country’s natural resources. All for personal gain.
In every aspect of totalitarianism, the country belongs to them. The rest of Zimbabwean citizens are disenfranchised bystanders and onlookers.
While the bourgeois oligarchs voraciously fill their personal coffers, emaciated citizens are limited to feeding on the crumbs that fall off their table.
This untenable social order places Zimbabwe at least two decades behind other countries in the world where normal distribution prevails.
The majority is condemned to abject poverty and arguably the world’s lowest life expectancy. Only the ruling elite and their proxies have access to excess.
Their Vene (owners) mantra is simply an unveiled reference to their own cabal. Their heartbreaking gold Mafia shenanigans, globally exposed by Al Jazeera in 2023 is only a fraction of their nationwide looting empire. Mr Mnangagwa’s administration is a monumental liability, an albatross around the necks of hapless citizens.
Perhaps it would be fairer to measure Zimbabwe using a regional yardstick. SADC is where this landlocked country belongs. Zimbabwe shares borders with Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Botswana and Namibia.
Just like Zimbabwe, all these countries were, to varying degrees, subjected to colonisation by European powers. From 1953 to 1963, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi were chained into a three-state federation under British rule. Nyasaland gained independence on 6 July 1964. Northern Rhodesia became Zambia on 24 October 1964.
However, for Southern Rhodesia, it was only after a 16-year protracted liberation struggle that the settler regime agreed to relinquish power. Zimbabwe gained independence on April 18, 1980.
Ironically it is Zimbabwe that now stands as an outpost of tyranny. One would expect the bitter liberation struggle to have induced a never-again attitude among the ruling elite but from the from the outset they chose to adopt a predatory stance.
So oppressed is the average Zimbabwean that he is as good as stateless. That is the greatest weakness of Zimbabwe as a nation. Its ordinary citizens do not feel like they belong to their homeland.
Those in power have personalised the country by perpetuating draconian laws and exclusionary economics. Paying lip service to patriotism and nation building, they have driven a large fraction of the populace into exile.
Between push factors in Zimbabwe and pull factors abroad, Zimbabweans have flocked away en masse.
Needless to say, the cumulative brain drain caused by the mass exodus has crippled Zimbabwe across all sectors. For Zimbabweans, nothing is more heartbreaking than seeking medical attention in South Africa only to be operated on by Zimbabwean doctors.
Many civil engineers involved in big construction projects abroad are from Zimbabwe. Yet this teapot-shaped country is boiling from potholed roads and dilapidated buildings.
It is a tragedy of epic proportions that Zimbabwe has become a nursery greenhouse for producing sterling human resources whose skills are only applied abroad.
Seasoned artisans and experienced experts have all gone into the diaspora, leaving a struggling nation teetering on the brink of total collapse.
The common thread running through all who have left is their disillusionment with the Soviet styled regime in Harare. Though it hurts them to leave behind families and friends, their departure is a quest for decent living and human dignity.
For instance, teachers can borrow half a month’s bus fare from loan sharks while money changers crouch in anticipation to pounce on them when they need to cash out their bank-wired salaries.
The devalued local currency is no match for the indomitable American greenbacks. To lower Zimbabwe’s casket, the country is under economic sanctions from America and Britain. For now, it is a pariah state but Zimbabwe under Mr Mnangagwa’s administration is veering towards becoming a rogue state.
Looking at Zimbabwe from any angle, one is reminded of Murphy’s Law which states that, “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” For a country naturally endowed with vast mineral resources, Zimbabwe has fallen to unimaginable depths when it comes to its people’s abject poverty.
It has also scaled the dizziest heights in terms of runaway inflation and galloping food prices. Notoriously the only country to ever print a 100 trillion dollar note for everyday commerce.
Nobody can honestly defend the myriad of blunders made by the autocratic government in charge since the country attained Independence.
Between their lack of genuine qualifications in 1980 and their unshakable grip on power regardless of incompetence, they have reduced Southern Africa’s former breadbasket into a tattered basket case.
This thing of theirs is a broken machine. It is a rudimentary contraption with no user manual and operated by geriatric laggards via trial and error.
For a country coming from somewhere, it is so pitiful to watch it going nowhere. Stuck in a self-made quagmire, Zimbabwe is a country imploding as its systems collapse.
Even its repressive state apparatus is in shambles. Security personnel are ill-equipped and poorly remunerated. Disaffection though stifled and unreported is widespread.
Many serving members have deserted their posts to join the millions abroad in what the Zimbabwean authorities call self-imposed exile.
The biggest tragedy of Zimbabwe’s demise are the innocent citizens trapped in its belly as it sinks like a dying whale.
Young people who have never clocked in for a formal job; forced to continue staying with their parents long after obtaining college degrees.
Yet somewhere across town, a barely literate Vene henchman rocks and sways in his rich leather swivel chair. Clueless about how things work, he sits and waits for instructions from his handlers.
He is a rusty cog in the broken machine, a willing participant in the destruction of his children’s birthright.
There are many others like him, readily available for deployment with spiked knobkerries, to eliminate imaginary threats against this thing of theirs.
