Harare, Zimbabwe (News of the South)-Zimbabweans have been betrayed by a predatory, economically incompetent state of largely selfish and corrupt men who believe the entire nation owes them, an analyst has said.
Alex Magaisa a political analyst and law lecturer at Kent University in the UK said this on the occasion of the commemoration of Zimbabwe turning 37 years since independence from Britain in 1980.
Magaisa who is former advisor to Morgan Tsvangirai in the Government of National Unity (GNU) says people used to have great hope in the country but it has faded.
“With millions scrapping the bottom of the barrel to make a living in Zimbabwe and a couple of million or more others having voted with their feet to foreign countries, there is a high degree of disenchantment, a far cry from the glorious days of 1980, when the country won its independence”
“They (people) had great hope and the country was full of promise. But 37 years later, most of them have been pauperized by a predatory, economically incompetent state managed by a cabal of largely selfish and corrupt men whose sense of self-importance makes them believe the entire nation owes them”.
Magaisa said despite the born-frees being aware of the evils visited upon the blacks under the colonial rule, the present situation was proving of not much difference to them.
“Yes, they are repulsed by the crass racist system that kept citizens apart on racial grounds, marginalised the black citizens and limited their opportunities in life. But they look at their own experiences and see much that has not changed”.
“In place of the white supremacists of the colonial system there is a cabal that uses the state to pursue self-interest and don’t care about the rest”, he said.
“The state is still violent and repressive. The citizen under the colonial state and the post-colonial state is still marginalised and treated like cannon fodder. For the citizens, the state has hardly changed-there have been more continuities than changes between the colonial and the post-colonial”, he said.
Zimbabwe which celebrated turning 37 on Tuesday is caught in an economic mess that has left it with a staggering 90% unemployment rate, uses a basket foreign currencies after its own Zim-dollar lost use and has de-industrialized to shocking levels.
Its only leader since independence, Robert Mugabe 93, has grown old and frail leading to factional fights within his own party as members jostle for strategic positioning in preparation for his demise.
Members of opposition parties are currently engaged in various schemes to come up with a grand coalition which will face off against Mugabe’s ZANU PF party in the 2018 elections.
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