Victoria Ruzvidzo
Granted, Zimbabwe’s economy is facing a plethora of challenges and in some instances these are complex and not easy to untangle.
Under such circumstances, it is natural for people to exhibit impatience because they want a better life sooner rather than later, but it is critical that we do not lose focus in the process.
Of course, we never imagined that we would at this time buy bread at almost $1 000 a loaf or a two-litre bottle of cooking oil at $2 400.
Neither had we imagined that a kilogramme of commercial beef would cost $3 500.
However, this is the case presently, but there is a whole story to this that goes beyond mere economics.
External factors such as the Russian-Ukraine operation that has upset the global supply chain and internal challenges caused by a few greedy people who have ignited mayhem on the currency market.
Myopic political machinations by those keen on causing problems in this country are a factor too.
Of course, the fact that the entire globe is burning does not comfort many here, but an illustration of the challenges is that the United States is now in recession, with its inflation rate reaching a 40-year high of 8,6 percent in May, largely due to fuel and food price increases.
Other economies are also in sixes and sevens, with some putting up a brave face.
Back home, a number of measures have been initiated to stabilise the situation.
The fact that 12 out of 16 banks were caught with their hands in the cookie jar participating directly or indirectly on the black market is most unfortunate.
For whatever reasons or circumstances, banks, which play an intermediary role in the economy, cannot be found wanting in terms of observing the law.
These institutions are led by gentlemen and women in suits, the most sober of them, or so it is believed.
How then are they found wanting?
All 12 of them?
It is indeed a sad day for our country but we hope they have repented. The economy needs men and women who will choose to do the right thing to get things ticking again and not those bent on doing anything within their means to line their pockets despite the effects on the national economy.
But the narrative playing out on social media about the colonial days being better than now is sad, if not suicidal.
It is in human nature to think the past was a glorious one, notwithstanding greater challenges confronted then.
Psychologists call it the immediacy effect. Which basically propounds that what is recently felt has deeper effect than what was previously.
It is in that vein that we may well need to align each other.
It is astounding to say the least. Ian Smith himself said there would not be black rule in a thousand years.
Evidently, that did not stand the test of time. It would not.
What kind of people would surrender their fate to colonialists whose entire architecture was designed to serve and perpetuate white minority interests?
Worse still, to the exclusion of those relating to the indigenous people, make no mistake, there was no benevolence in the entire conduct of that regime.
Let’s get specific. It callously and arbitrarily condemned blacks to remote and infertile land. And that was only the beginning.
It went further, stealing cattle, raping defenceless and vulnerable women. There were no freedoms to talk about. Movement was restricted, certain areas were designated whites only, accommodation was dreadfully inadequate, so were schools and hospitals and that’s not even all. To all intents and purposes, the Smith regime was geared towards serving white interests and for good measure, made blacks feel inferior.
This was manifest in how they conducted themselves, deeply entrenching their supposed superiority. Witness how some among us regress to that period. Independence and sovereignty are not catch phrases! They are true operative words which define a people.
I can go on with regards the grave transgressions. Students would walk unimaginable kilometres to get to school as they were few of them then.
An understaffed and under-equipped health facility was still remote and inaccessible. Though the currency was strong then, salaries for blacks were pathetically low and few could afford just a television set, then black and white. lt was not unusual for kids from a whole street to gather at that one house which had it!
Everyone now can afford So, in the same vein, we juxtapose what used to obtain during the Smith era to today.
We now have self-rule and independence, without mentioning sovereignty and freedom.
Anyone and anywhere can go to a school, college, and church and they can also build houses in areas they could not hitherto. More importantly, we own the land from whence everything proceeds.
We have made great strides in education, fair labour practices and democratic reforms as we have in access to health.
Of course I am not naive to think we do not have challenges.
We do but we also are on a positive developmental and growth trajectory.
The Second Republic inherited deeply ingrained challenges. That really is not the problem.
We are on the right path and direction. Ask any chief executive what it takes just to turn around a single company, then perhaps one might get to understand what it would a whole country!
We have capacity utilisation shooting to 60 percent!
We have easily discernible infrastructural developments. We also have more universities and innovation hubs.
We have vibrant entrepreneurship structures so that never again should most of our people look for work but they create it themselves. Agriculture is decidedly in ascendancy, thanks to programmes such as Pfumvudza.
We are still work in progress, as everything is but we are well on course. The destiny is in our hands, as it always must be.
So to my brothers and sisters who mistakenly think that the Smith regime was better, l would strongly suggest perspective and review.
We are much better off. There is absolutely no comparison. While we might face challenges in one dimension or another, that does not negate our distinct gains. Furthermore, nothing worth it ever comes easy. Our collective resolve must be unimpeachable, especially as we fight foes, both internal and external.
In God I Trust!