Democracy is a scam

THE “chicken bus” ride back to the village on Friday evenings was always a carnival on wheels.

Most often than not, the bulk of the motley crew of merry evening travellers were casual workers who would have pocketed weekly wages from their various workstations in industry.

During those halcyon days, where the wheels of local industry indefatigably turned day and night to supply the region and beyond, it was possible for those who did not mind doing nondescript menial jobs to make the journey from the village to the city.

They would wander around industrial areas, hoping to be fortuitously engaged for temporary duties, especially in companies that were hard-pressed to meet burgeoning orders.

And many were indeed engaged as temporary labourers who were often paid, just like the rest of the posse in industry, on Friday.

The ritual was then to buy some goodies, including a generous supply of beer, to keep them company along the way, before setting out on the return journey back to the village.

The more ice-cold beer bottles that were emptied, the more animated and loud the imbibers became, often occasionally breaking into song and dance.

But one of the major notorious distinctions of the Friday evening “chicken bus” was the numerous stops or “recesses” prompted by incessant pleadings from overindulgent drinkers desperate to relieve themselves.

And this meant the buses were always woefully behind schedule, sometimes arriving at their destinations in the wee hours, after which the dishevelled travellers would dodder, crab-like, to their villages.

Some of these inebriated men are responsible for tall tales that are still part of village folktales after either mistaking tree stumps for the fabled goblins or confusing fireflies (zvitaitai) for ghosts.

Argh, those were the days.

Then the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) happened around 1990.

Apparently, some little gods sitting in commodious, air-conditioned offices in Washington thought it was wise for the Government to reduce expenditure, cut the size of the public service through retrenchments, remove subsidies and increase the number of goods that could be imported without the hassles of obtaining an import licence.

It was not long before the deleterious impact of this toxic combo of policies became apparent.

More and more people found themselves out of work and those who wanted to find jobs in industry were disappointed as companies progressively closed shop.

Disillusionment gradually set in.

It became worse when political mandarins in Washington, Brussels and London slapped sanctions on Zimbabwe at the turn of the millennium.

The ranks of the jobless naturally swelled.

Proverbs 16:27 cautions: “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop; idle lips are his mouthpiece.”

Bishop Lazi believes that part of the growing problem of drug and substance abuse that we are presently grappling with, particularly in urban areas, is caused by idleness.

Despite Government’s best efforts to reindustrialise, companies are not yet absorbing workers at a fast enough rate.

Iron hand

It seems many people do not actually appreciate the broader implications of drug abuse.

You see, the British were at one time the biggest drug dealers in Asia, Singapore included, as they actively encouraged the trade and consumption of opium, which is considered a depressant drug.

The business became so big that from 1825 to 1910, the annual revenue from opium accounted for an average of 30 to 55 percent of the total revenue in Singapore, which became a thriving opium distribution centre in Asia, helping support the British administration.

However, merchants, both from Europe and China, later became increasingly reluctant to employ opium users, who had unsurprisingly gained notoriety for being “less productive”, “unreliable” and “troublesome”.

And when Singapore became a sovereign, independent nation on August 9, 1965, its leaders, especially Lee Kuan Yew (LKY), who served as prime minister for the 31-year period between 1959 and 1990, realised that their ambitious nation-building project could not be driven by drug addicts.

This marked the beginning of a very brutal war against drug abuse, led by LKY, who fervently valorised values such as productivity, sobriety, self-control, rationality, industriousness and asceticism as indispensable to his grand project to modernise the city-state, which was then plagued by numerous problems such as unemployment, housing and education challenges, as well as lack of resources.

The most notable intervention was in 1975, when the Misuse of Drugs Act (MDA) — which had been enacted two years earlier to tackle the use, possession and trafficking of drugs — was amended to impose the mandatory death penalty for those who manufactured, imported and trafficked heroin and morphine above certain quantities.

The method of execution was by hanging.

While the presumption of innocence is a cornerstone of the justice system, Singapore’s regulations actually placed the burden to prove innocence on the accused.

The penal system was subsequently amended to include mandatory jail terms for repeat offenders, while individuals could no longer be admitted to drug rehabilitation centres twice.

Under new regulations introduced in 1998, drug users caught for the third time were charged in court and sentenced to long-term imprisonment of up to seven years, including six strokes of the cane.

Singapore ultimately took a hard-line stance that considered drug users and drug peddlers as the “same class of people”, thus justifying harsh punishments, including caning, even for drug consumption alone.

Proverbs 13:24 says: “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.”

It seems Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew took these words to heart.

And this is how Singapore overcame its problems of drug abuse.

But LKY’s methods were not without critics, as the West, itself plagued by problems of drugs and substance abuse, stridently opposed the purported heavy-handedness of the Singaporean regime.

The Bishop wonders what they make of the Philippines former president Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody war on drugs. Kikikikiki.

Peculiar paths

Of late, President ED — who, however, does not believe in the death penalty, having survived the hangman’s noose on a technicality — has been preaching the gospel of not sparing the rod by disciplining children to become upright citizens.

“Rovai mbama vana vati tasa,” he notably counselled during a recent engagement in Bulawayo.

This has, of course, courted the ire of those who believe we need to mollycoddle our kids in line with supposed Western values — whatever they are.

When will Africans finally realise that the West is full of hypocrites?

Democracy and human rights are only used to scam people in this part of the world into preoccupying themselves with pursuits that do not materially change their circumstances.

They now want to foist homosexual values in our societies under the guise of human rights, even when the practice still remains controversial and contentious in their own societies.

They campaign, through their sponsored non-governmental organisations, for ending the death penalty here, even when they still uphold it in their own societies.

On Friday, US presidential hopeful Mike Pence was even proposing expediting the death penalty for those convicted of mass shootings.

They also push for the legalisation of abortion in our societies, even when the same subject is still a thorny issue in their own jurisdictions.

Hypocrites!

1 Timothy 4:1-5 is instructive: “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.”

But Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew had the fire in the belly and indomitable resolve to chart his country’s own path without the condescending counsel from outsiders.

The city-state, where Cde Robert Mugabe drew his last breath, is now a model of a prosperous, modern state.

Western scholars and politicians, unable to accept LKY’s methods, now grudgingly label him a “benevolent dictator” — whatever that means.

They cannot possibly stomach the example of a man who transformed his country from an economic backwater to an enviable modern state while using his own peculiar model and value system.

It is a lesson for all of us.

After decades of decline, we can only similarly build a prosperous country if we chart our own unique path.

Whatever we have been doing for the past five years has been working, and we need to double down. Output in agriculture and mining continues to rise; so, too, have been revenues accruing to the State.

We have progressively begun building our infrastructure — roads, dams, bridges, clinics, schools, et cetera.

And new companies are beginning to open, raising hope for jobseekers.

Irrigation development is being expanded, while farmers are increasingly switching from subsistence to commercial farming.

All this is happening at a time when our peers, unencumbered by sanctions, are struggling to do the same things we are doing here.

During an elections campaign rally in December 1980, Lee Kuan Yew once said: “Whoever governs Singapore must have that iron in him or give it up. This is not a game of cards; this is your life and mine.”

All our lives are at stake.

We need that same iron and resolve as we face great questions of the day in our teapot-shaped Republic in order to accelerate our journey to the Promised Land.

If we can imagine it, it can only become possible.

Bishop out!