EDITORIAL COMMENT: The true lesson from China

29 Nov, 2015 - 00:11 0 Views
EDITORIAL COMMENT: The true lesson from China

The Sunday Mail

Nathaniel Manheru calls it, if we are allowed to paraphrase, a dearth of ideas.
We pray he can pardon us if we rephrase his hypothesis and call the ideational Armageddon he referred to in his column in the sister publication of The Herald on November 14, 2015, as “the abomination that causes absolute desolation”.
Yes, some newspapers tried to spin it to make it look there is apocalyptic infighting in Government. And those intellectually hollow articles were themselves manifestations of the abomination that concerns us.
Zimbabwe has long passed the point where it must eschew the intellectual chicanery that allows us to hide behind personalities, some of them already denuded and bankrupt from a principles perspective, so that we start talking about those things that take Zimbabwe forward.
Our forebears were clear on objectives and strategy, and the ideology that informed those objectives and strategy. Which is why the liberation struggle was prosecuted with success.
How are we faring today?
Do we know what it is that we want Zimbabwe to look like in, say, 2050? Or 2100? Or 2200? Are we clear on what strategies, from an organisational and implementation front, need to be employed to achieve those objectives come 2050, 2100 or 2200?
And what ideology guides that programme of action? What worldview informs us, what drives us?
This is the work that our academics, intellectuals and intelligentsia should be seized with. Not all this other political regurgitation that even dogs would not eat on a bad day.
Last week, Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa presented the 2016 National Budget. Naturally, the reactions were varied, or – as the media often like to say – “mixed”. There are those who say he did the best possible under the circumstances. The naysayers say it is all doom and gloom in the “peanuts” budget.
All fair and fine. We are all entitled to our opinions. They are like armpits, these things called opinions, and most of them stink. But that’s democracy.
What we have not seen coming out of the reactions to the 2016 National Budget debate, and indeed from just about all other presentations in years gone by, are ideas. All we appear able to proffer are our stinky armpits, not ideas.
Minister Chinamasa, and all other people in every public office in this land, need constructive criticism.
The fact is Zanu-PF is the Government, elected and in office until 2018 at the very least. So taking potshots at Minister Chinamasa, or any other minister for that matter, is a pointless exercise – something akin to intercourse without the pay-off.
Yes, there are platforms for contribution to the crafting of the National Budget, such as consultative workshops. But is that enough? Can we compress public contribution to national policy-making to a mere few weeks of largely self-serving talk shops at luxury hotels? Budget strategy should be a continuous exercise.
Which is where we need our universities, colleges and researchers to step in and help inform public policy-making.
This is standard in developed countries: ordinary people are vital assets in informing the trajectory their nations should take. We should be seeing study after study coming out of the University of Zimbabwe, the National University of Science and Technology, Midlands State University, Great Zimbabwe University and the many other institutions of higher learning in our country.
We should be seeing solid position papers coming out of CZI, ZNCC, Emcoz and other representative bodies – not just wish lists of what should prevail in an ideal world.
Government’s role should be to facilitate research. It will cost a bit of money, but in the broader scheme of things – being cognisant of the fact that years are miniscule periods in the lifespan of nation states – investing in research pays for itself by way of the dividends that accrue from solid medium to long-term planning.
Furthermore, Government should move away from being an inward-looking entity that thinks it can generate all ideas on its own.
It needs to recognise the importance of tapping into the vast knowledge and skills pool that lies outside of the political classes, and this includes encouraging sharing of ideas with the many Zimbabweans spread all over the world.
Our future lies in the generation, or lack thereof, of ideas and how these can be infused into public policy-making.
The lack of ideas is the abomination that causes absolute desolation.
And as China’s President Xi Jinping comes to Harare this week, let us start truly learning from the Chinese model of investing in research to improve the livelihoods of our people.

CARTOON

 

CARTTOON

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