The Sunday Mail
Clemence Machadu
Howdy folks!
Your country boy gets really worried each time he opens the classified sections of local newspapers.
Just go to the properties section where they sell residential stands. There you will find sellers demanding $50 per square for land.
If you want a 500 square metre piece of land, for example, you part with $25 000. What the blazes is really happening here folks? This is just not proper!
Let us get to brass tacks: Why did our gallant sons and daughters wage Chimurenga I and II? Takamboendereiko kuhondo kwacho? And when we attained Independence on April 18, 1980, what were we getting independent from? Respite from the sounds of AK47s and grenades?
You see, I think the best way to answer these pertinent questions is by looking at how we were living our wonderful lives before the coloniser came to interfere. In other words, who didn’t have what then? And who has anything now? How do we reconcile our current way of life with that of the pre-colonial era in terms of ownership of natural resources in general, and land in particular?
Folks, before the white man set foot in this resource-rich motherland, everyone had somewhere to point as their land, where they would grow crops, hunt animals for meat or dig their food and other resources. No one lacked that privilege.
It was their birth right.
And now that we are independent, how many of you can point to a piece of land which is in their name? How many have title deeds to land?
Folks, why should I call Zimbabwe my motherland when I have to part with an arm and limp to own a very small piece of land? Why should I call myself independent when I have to buy the very land we fought for? Was the blood of our gallant sons and daughters not sufficient enough to “buy” back our land? Why should we now have to pay these usurious amounts of money on top of the blood?
Is money now more precious than the blood? And who has that kind of money anyway? We are in a country where the majority are still living in poverty and most folks can’t even afford basic goods and services.
Why should they buy their freedom? Kutenga rusununguko gwedu? Nhai Nehanda Nyakasikana we-e, ndozvawakafira here? Folks, if the majority can’t even afford to buy materials to build land, why should they buy the land that previously belonged to all in the first place? If land was a basic right before colonisation, why should it now be a luxury?
Why do we say our gallant sons and daughters died for this country when we still have to part with usurious amounts of money to have entitlement of the same country? Kutobhadhara mazimari kuti titi nyika ndeyedu! Imi, where is the independence here?
Who has the $25 000 dollars in their pocket to buy land right now? Young people, do you have that kind of money in your bank account? Most of the young people are the ones currently bearing the brunt of unemployment and have nothing to really show for their independence, except that they can now walk in First Street?
Young people, how long does it take you to raise $25 000? And by the way, do you even have a job to get an income to buy your basic requirements other than land? Young people are the majority of citizens in the republic.
Folks, how come the majority doesn’t even have the basic requirements to lead a simple life?
Folks, why should a young person feel that they are independent when they don’t have land? And where has all that land gone? Who are these people who are now parcelling land to the majority at such a seemingly extortionate premium? How did they get it? How come they are more independent than us?
Hama dzangu, it pains me that the country’s land now has to be partitioned, the same way it was scrambled for by colonisers and auctioned to the highest bidder, and that the winner has to take it all. This, in a low-income economy where poverty and inequality levels are high. Land must just be given for free to anyone who requires it. There are those who require it for agricultural purposes and others to build houses.
These are just basic needs which should be viewed as such.
Otherwise, we will continue to open Zimbabwe for business to foreigners while locals struggle because they don’t have the money. Folks, money is not the right currency to buy land in the republic. The blood of vanasisi nanamukoma is the right currency.
That currency should never be replaced with money. Today, land is owned by a few old men and women who are not doing anything productive. They only visit the land once in a blue moon for a picnic. This at a time when mayouthies are looking for somewhere to grow tomatoes and vegetables to sell so that they earn a living!
We need a new revolution. Land is our right.
Later folks!
