During the 80s just after we came back home from the War front, I remember having a sense that things were finally firmly set on the rails for the black Zimbabwean. We had inherited an economy that was pristine and yet to reach its prime, and the future had a bright radiance that everyone, visitors too, could feel.
There was finally a Parliament representative of the racial diversity in the country, a thriving agriculture and mining sectors were on the rise, schools, health, pensions funds, were all prioritised and there seemed to be a genuine thrust towards redressing the imbalances of the past.
I remember taking my daughters Phyllis and Philippa shopping and we did not have to worry too much of price changes every other week. I especially remember my betrothed checking the expiry dates on most of our purchases, an exercise which I still practice today. I think noble shoppers should do that as a matter of necessity, same as level headed voters.
As I ruminate over the expiry dates of the products I buy, I couldn’t help but think of the expiry date of many things in life. The mortality of life, vegetative, animal and human! The expiry of belief systems, rituals, concepts of God, traditions and schools of thought. I think of the progress and advances humanity has made in scientific research and medicine, food science, engineering and how it is within our reach to discover more about the earth and the universe, to push the life expectancy rates, and reduce infant mortalities.
I thought of human beings in space, the enhancement of communication and information systems and deep sea exploration. In-fact, I thought of the immense potential we hold as human beings to conquer that which seems to hold us in, to keep us captive and how we can reach out to pursue freedom and success.
As simultaneous equations would have it, I also have to force myself to limit the amount of negatives that creep into my consciousness. The grim reality of racism, the gas chambers and Nazism, the apartheid regime that once ran our black South African brothers’ self esteem into the ground, the greed of white Rhodesians on the social and political fronts.
Until I had to zero in on the greed of the Rural Party bigwigs and the years of misrule, self enrichment, corruption and the untold suffering my people have had to endure over the past 40 years, and the worst being the past two decades. I suddenly remembered a conversation I had with Tichaona, a young man who was wearing a T-shirt on Independence Day this year printed on it, MAKAFIRA MAHARA. It was painful to say the least.
The Rural Party has expired! That thought and sobering reality hit me hard, like a tonne of bricks. Tichaona was candid in his analysis of the issues affecting him as a young man growing up in Zimbabwe.
He raised poignant issues concerning why the Rural Party was not ashamed of showing such disdain for human rights, how every sector of Zimbabwean ‘democracy’ had been firmly captured by the Rural Party.
How the courts showed they were designed to hand down judgments prejudiced against anyone or any party, especially the Modern Party, who did not tow their line. I couldn’t find any reasonable argument for a party to which I once swore lifelong allegiance when confronted by the hard cold facts that the young Tichaona was presenting.
Now I am left wondering what Paul Nyathi was thinking when he was talking about the abductions of the MDC Alliance female trio. How one hour’s truth was different from the next hour’s truth in his narration of details and occurrences.
I thought of the motor mouth Rhumba Minister’s verbosity which saw him recalled from the Ministry of Lies and Rural Party Propaganda. I thought of the Supreme Court judgements of late and the credibility they are losing in young minds. I thought of how the police and the soldiers and the state security agents are deployed to deal with opposition figures with a ruthless impunity while treating the Rural Party with kid gloves.
Tichaona spoke at length about his disappointment at the way the Modern Party seems to be on the back foot all the time. About how long it will take for it to be in control of the country; about why they participate in systems and processes whose outcome they very well know will be against them? He proposed that it was time to rethink strategy, and not to fall in the same pit twice (or for the umpteenth time). I am not sure what he meant but I could follow the logic in his reasoning.
In all the musings and the conversations I have had over the past 20 years especially, one thing became clear: – the food store of the Rural Party has expired. They have looted and plundered during their ruinous 40 year rule while the 40 year old in Zimbabwe lives in abject poverty and uncertainty with his family. She struggles tired his family on a meager salary, if he is one of the few employed.
One can feel the tension all over. The heat is mounting in the corridors of power. They are losing credibility by the day and them now abducting opposition politicians is not helping. Their antics with the courts have attracted public contempt, locally and internationally.
All this while they resort to printing money while the country’s economy is in a freefall! The fish rots from the head, crocodiles too, now the rot is reaching the tail end. It’s clear to see, the winds of change are surely blowing and Zimbabwe can only be best after the Rural Party. Period!
I will reserve my parting words for a mid-week release. As you might all know by now, I am a music lover and also a musician not a rhumba artist nor fanatic. Back in the liberation struggle, I belted plenty hits with my close colleague, Mbuya Madhuve. May her soul rest in peace! So pakati apa maComrades, I will give you the song I did with the late heroine titled ‘Ane waya’.
Till that time folks, am off to enjoy my weekend best: – Pork bones and sadza! Adios Amigos.
Cde Tichatonga, Over and Out.
