By Dr Takavafira Zhou.
Zimbabwe. – This epistle is a product of historical analysis that must never be deciphered for anything more than that. Prioritisation is a facet of a performing gvt.
At a time when Zimbabwe is facing the most precipitous political, economic and social ills, Mnangagwa’s gvt has decided to be pre-occupied with naming roads and buildings in typical perpetuation of Mugabeism after Mugabe. The state vehicle is completely dilapidated with pancutured tyres, boiling coolant, malfunctioning engine and flat battery, yet leaders are majoring on minors. At a time when industries have collapsed, unemployment is more than 95%, hospitals are in the terminal ward, schools are down on their knees, agriculture has been riddled by high profile corruption that has become routine rather than episodic, one would expect the state to delve on fighting corruption, industrial recovery, service delivery and peace and stability.
In a classical device of dictators the gvt has gone into full drive diversion of public from its failures into some useless naming of roads and buildings. The generality of Zimbabweans who have tested positive to poverty have certainly nothing to gain from the renaming process. Would the renaming rekit our industries and lead to production and balance between import and export? Would it provide food security? Would it capacitate our doctors and teachers so that they can go to work every day? Would it improve service delivery? The answer to all these questions is a bold No.
Indeed Chinua Achebe was apt about crocodile leaders, grasping kleptocrats and quake revolutionaries. Writing in his book ‘A man of the people’ , he posited that the only notable achievement that African gvts have made in post independence is the renaming of roads and buildings.
A revolution that had so much promises has in A. Astraw’s dictum, ‘lost it’s way.’ Rather than a veritable paradise that Mnangagwa and his entourage promised us after the November 2017 soft coup, all we have received is a bullet to the head and a diet of starvation. The silver lining has remained a mirage rather than reality. Austerity for prosperity of the elites and callous and monumental economic disarticulation and marginilisation of the majority of Zimbabweans can never be accepted in a civilised world of the 21st century.
Worse still even the renaming of roads and buildings is defective, guided as it is by selective forgetfulness, cult personality and outright manipulation and discrediting of history. Why are other liberation icons not recognised at all? While the recognition of Chingaira Makoni is welcome where is Mapondera road, Nyamanda road, Edison Zvobgo road Dumiso Dabengwa road, and Dzinashe Machingura road; Morgan Richard Tsvangirai road, Henry Hamadziripi road, Michael Mawema road, Ndabaningi Sithole road, Edison Sithole road, Rugare Gumbo road and Sheba Tavarwisa road, just to mention a few? Worse still as much as I personally respect Sally Mugabe, it is ahistorical to give Harare Central Hospital a new name given its historical significance in honour of a pre-colonial hard working chief who rarely slept on duty (Harari). Rubbing such history for a gallant daughter of Ghana and Zimbabwe, who became wife to R.G. Mugabe, is a distortion of the basic and fundamental principles underpinning our history, and demeaning to Sally Mugabe.
Indeed the more things change the more they remain the same, or even get worse. The so called new dispensation will never get political traction from the absurdity of renaming roads and buildings, but service delivery and economic recovery. At any rate the renaming of roads and buildings is now the purview of local gvt and not a political party. The major challenge in Zimbabwe is lack of a shared vision between those in power and the generality of the Zimbabwean populace. As such, the pursuit of the vision of elites that is diametrically opposed to the vision of the general populace will not take us anywhere. Those who ignore the interests of the general populace in pursuit of the egocentricism will always reach a brick wall. Let the new dispensation be warned.
Dr Takavafira M. Zhou
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