History is fraught with periods of viral outbreaks and cataclysms that have threatened lives and caused untold suffering on humanity and livelihoods. Covid-19 is but one of the many, though novel and whose threat seems to be reaching unprecedented extents, it still remains a glitch on the continuum.
The world is grappling to come to terms with the implications of this virus and its toll on nations and humanity. Lockdowns have come with serious implications for the citizens and indeed, the nation state.
There are salient philosophical and social issues associated with decisions for and against their implementation and effects on lives and livelihoods. Is it humane to quarantine a whole human being? How prudent is it to impose a lockdown on a people and economies that are already struggling? On a people groaning under the yoke of disadvantage, debt, and economic and social inequality?
While these things do appear to be justifiable on the global scale, Cde Tichatonga took time to take stock of goings on in his village as a microcosm of global events, a village where we are served stale chimodho and typhoid water. I am sitting here thinking what lessons Sabhuku Scarfmore’s lockdowns will offer Zimbabwe’s economic players (or maybe more aptly, participants in the Zimbabwean disaster).
There would have been lessons learnt by industry for instance, how the Human Resources Departments can reconfigure jobs, roles, working hours and the inclusion of or participation in the e-world and how best to harness the comparative advantages of IT over actual workplace office presence in some roles among other issues lockdowns have taught us of late.
But, alas, I have to kick myself out of the reverie as the painful realisation came to the fore – Industry that needs such services is almost non-existent in my village. Zimbabwe has been on ‘lockdown’ for as long as my second daughter has been alive, and her first daughter is already in Grade 2, where, she usually colours in a very crocodile like demon with a green, red and yellow scarf on its neck.
Livelihoods of Zimbabweans have been on lockdown ever since the Rural Party decided, delusionally, that they have the exclusive divine and inalienable prerogative to rule Zimbabwe ad infinitum. The majority of the people in my village have been eking out a living for as long as they can care to remember, and for some younger people, the imbroglio they grew up in seems to be the normal. Do they know any better?
Queues in towns, shortages of basics, cash shortages, petrol queues, civil servant protests and a disproportionate fear of security forces are all now ‘normal’. That doctors, teachers, nurses, mine workers, parastatal workers, and indeed even the very security officers who turn on their own parents, once all enjoyed a healthy salary, could save up to buy livestock, a car, a house is an idea and an ideal at once foreign and seemingly utopian to them. But, ndozvatakarwira hondo here izvi, for things to look so miserable?
The very social fabric and livelihood of the Republican has been stretched and shattered whilst the gullible have swallowed the ‘new normal’ hook line and sinker. But there are the majority of the people who, in my opinion poll, are the erstwhile workers who once earned ‘enough’ to fend for their families comfortably and are now pensioners who can’t afford a cup of tea with adequate sugar and milk for a straight fortnight on their pittance of a pension; the subsistence farmer who used to sell grain to GMB, to the auction floors, to David Whitehead and Cottco, to green veg markets and still afford inputs, implements, seed and fertilizer for the following season, without the controversial command models;…and still save up comfortably feed, clothe and educate their children; the multitudes of G40s who joined the workforce over the years and witnessed the sometimes drastic and other times gradual depreciation of their salaries’ buying power versus prices, rentals, and their ability or inability to have a savings cushion; the prospective entrepreneur, who found the unstable economic environment and erratic Statutory Instruments hard to negotiate. Indeed, livelihoods have been disrupted – and this has got nothing to do with Covid – 19 or the Supreme Court ruling on matters MDC. Tiri kukuonai!
There is no shortage of fools in the palace. Educated ones at that…and wearing suits too. Every time Scarfmore speaks now, people expect a ‘monkey see, monkey do’ mimicry of Cyril. Now people are touring Herod to imitate Cyril’s R500 billion injection in the economy. Hahaha, vazohwanda mumunda wenzungu manje Cde Scarfmore, regai Mukanya vaseke zvavo.
On the other hand, Mutuvi (like his name suggests, should just shut up – ngaangonyarara zvake uya – zvaanotaura seems so far removed from reality, he seems way out of his depths and now grappling at straws – his pronouncements and promulgation a seem designed to impress the Bretton Woods institutions than they are panaceas for Zimbabwean economic rescue.
Ukuwo Panonetsa Manhundodya is busy living up to his name. Yes, we remember Panonetsa, you promised you’d resign if the bond note fell against the US$ – uchiri kuitei muOffice? Yanetsaka Office iyi Panonetsa! The two of them together is a real disaster, dollarising, dedollarising, monetising and demonetising, EFT taxes, parallel rates and papers posing as money – ahh it’s a fireball of confusion let loose on the economy. I just don’t know whose foot tastes better than the other’s because this destruction tag team love putting their feet in their mouths and shout loud nothings. Let’s just say that they learn from the best, Baba vaTongai.
Lives were lost in Chiyadzwa, lives were, and are still being lost in Kwekwe, Kadoma, Shurugwi and other mining towns, and we know that the hands of the Rural Party big wigs are involved. ‘Vafana vangu veElShabaab,’ ranted one of them ignorantly, (maybe whisky was taking charge of his so-called brains, who knows) isu vanaCde Ticha tiripo. Kusanyara! No wonder why only Mining was opened before the Lockdown has been declared over.
Lives were lost in Chiyadzwa for the US$15 billion to disappear without a trace? Scarfmore threatened to prosecute, name and shame the big wigs and other uncouth characters who have been siphoning funds out of the economy – whatever became of that exercise? Asi vakatya kupotsera dope?
Lives were lost when people decided to exercise their right and protest about the disputed election, – and what did the new government do? They turned their guns on the citizens they vowed to protect. And that, ladies and gentlemen, did not have anything to do with Covid-19, Judge Patel’s ratio decide on MDC or the price of tea in Wuhan.
It is once again Cde Tichatonga’s assertion that Scarfmore’s government only acts decisively and inclusively once they remotely feel or presume that their tenure is under threat. Their state of preparedness or unpreparedness to deal with disasters is only evidenced and betrayed by their unfortunate emphasis on enforcement rather than pouring finances into practical problem-solving measures and buying medicines and construction of medical facilities.
They are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Police, packed in trucks, (forget social distancing, in flagrant disregard of the regulations they want to enforce) go to disrupt lives and livelihoods at vegetable markets and Mupedzanhamo, armed to the teeth, testament to Scarfmore’s ‘magnanimity’ in matters violent – all reminiscent of the infamous Murambatsvina. Now the not so swift MDC led councils have been tricked into destroying vendors’ wares. Destroying your votes, agh Cdes, svinurai mhani! What, if any, tell me Herod, tangible sustainable alternatives are you offering the very Zimbabwean whose livelihood and indeed, whose very life, you have disturbed, except his walls and a hungry family?
Lives and livelihoods in Zimbabwe have been lost and disrupted way before Itai Dzamara spoke up in Market Square. Before Evan Mawarire spoke up, and this scourge continues today and try as they may to silence us, the objectors’ voices will continue to raise alarm at such apparent abuses. Before even Stern Zvorwadza became famous over his one-man demonstration and later became infamous for endorsing you all know who, hahaha. The conscious Media houses will not and cannot be silenced, even when some choose to bury their heads in the sand and are paid to be partisan in reportage, singing Her Majesty’s praises while the threat of Covid-19 lurks in the background.
We shall speak up against this dark cloud that has enveloped the nation, where the Rural Party’s and Herod’s bootlickers ‘live’ and the rest merely exist as an inconvenience to them. When Scarfmore once chanted ad nauseum, “The voice of the people is the voice of God”, who knew his empathy was merely crocodilian? Covid-19 or not, hunger is a real threat and asking Zimbabweans to adhere to lockdowns, and brutally enforcing them without offering realistic alternatives, is not only heartless but also evil. All we are sanding is that the government carries out its mandate and realise that all Zimbabweans’ lives matter!
I have a burning question one which is common nesu vari analogue. It’s on uya Mahere nauyu Chiremba. Tell me more. Kunzwa ndinonzwa asi handinzwisisi zvirikuitika. Chiremba varikubhadhara roora paTwitter here or…agh shuwa I don’t understand a thing. Ok, ko vaonana kwacho vachadii, will recreation of human kind take charge immediately or chiremba vakungonoputiswa homwe? Help me understand fellow Cdes!
Till next time folks, pork no es, nyevhe and sadza. Adios Amigos.
Out
