The Sunday Mail
While whites consider owls adorable pets, in this part of the world, these birds are naturally dreaded and considered part of the staff — both literally and figuratively — used by wizards and witches in sorcery.
Encounters with these creatures are often regarded as ominous.
You cannot really blame us.
Such stereotypes have been handed down to us by our ancestors through folktales.
One such tale tells of how, eons ago, the owl used its ears, which resemble horns, to terrorise other bird species in the wild. In instances where it felt its authority was threatened and challenged, it would menacingly threaten to impale the dissenter with the sharp tip of its supposed horns.
As the story is told, it only took a fed-up fork-tailed drongo (or nhengure in Shona) to stand up against the owl.
In the ensuing melee or scuffle, the drongo went after the purportedly potent horns, only to discover a feathery and fluffy appendage that all along was disguised as a weapon. An embarrassed owl, now exposed as a fraud, beat a hasty retreat and was never seen during the day again.
It is claimed this is why the owl has not only become a nocturnal creature, but also capable of swivelling its neck for a maximum of 270 degrees to look out for other birds it used to torment that are now out for revenge.
As is often the case, there is a morale to our didactic folktales: Some things are really not what they seem to be.
Zizi harina nyanga! (An owl does not have horns).
Turmoil
You see, despite the pretences of superiority and sophistication, those who stole our wealth for centuries and used our ancestors as free labour to pave their streets with pilfered gold are as vulnerable, if not worse, than all of us.
Look at what is now happening in their own backyards.
Bishop Lazi never in his wildest dreams and imagination thought he will live to see the day of long queues of desperate motorists at parched fuel stations snaking through French cities and towns, as is currently the case.
Some petrol stations have even closed temporarily because of stock-outs.
The inevitable panic buying has made the situation even worse.
Apparently, the fuel shortages are being precipitated by raging strikes at fuel refineries as workers push for cost-of-living salary adjustments.
It is a festering crisis, as railway workers and civil servants have decided to join striking oil refinery workers this week after Paris invoked emergency powers to compel fuel depot workers to return to their workstations.
It is a mess!
It has well and truly hit the fan.
There are similar convulsions in the cold isles of Harare North — or Britain, as they call it —where irate postal workers are currently picketing over salary adjustments ahead of a full-blown industrial action planned for the coming weeks.
To make matters worse, UK nurses are threatening to strike for the first time in 106 years, as the authorities hold out on effecting a cost-of-living salary review that is above the inflation rate.
It must not be forgotten that train strikes are already expected to begin this month and spill into November.
Now there are growing fears that soaring inflation and the continued pressure on wage and salary hikes could lead to the dreaded spectre of a wage-price spiral, which would spawn a painful vicious circle that ultimately has the potential to cause both political and social upheaval.
They are now even talking about replacing their newly installed Prime Minister Liz Truss, who is only 40 days into her new job. Kikikiki.
This is as farcical as it gets.
It gets grimmer.
On August 5 this year, Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey sounded the alarm: “If everybody tries to beat inflation — and that is in both price setting and wage setting — it does not come down, it gets worse,” he said, speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“My key point is, if inflation becomes embedded and persistent, it gets worse. And the effects get worse.”
Inflation in Britain rose to a double-digit 40-year high of 10,1 percent in July.
The pain is similarly being felt across the pond in the US, where inflation has also climbed to a 40-year high.
Well, it has been a tumultuous and forgettable two years, particularly for Europe and the US.
We have seen shoppers fighting for toilet paper as supermarket shelves emptied. We have also seen some grocers rationing cooking oil, among other food items, and we now see fuel queues and restive workers, among a conflagration of crises.
Faced with dwindling supplies of energy from sanctioned Russia, Europe, which is now approaching winter, faces the real possibility of load shedding, punitively high energy bills and precipitously deteriorating living standards.
This is hitherto unheard of.
Indeed, how the mighty have fallen!
And all this because of a needless and totally avoidable war in Ukraine, where the United States-led NATO crossed so many red lines that forced Vladimir Putin’s hand.
It now seems the world is on the precipice of a major cataclysm.
It eerily reads like a script from the apocalypse.
Mark 13: 7-13 is instructive: “When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains …
“Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. Everyone will hate you because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.”
Working formula
With the US and Europe stewing in their own fat, as they smart from the fallout from the conflict in Eastern Europe that they actively encouraged and continue to fan through promoting hostilities, some of us in this sacred teapot-shaped republic can only watch the incredible and unfolding calamitous developments with shock and disbelief.
At least, although encumbered by sanctions and facing the same global headwinds, we can still drive to any forecourt in Zimbabwe and fill up our tanks, and our workers continue to put in a shift in a sanctions-poisoned environment.
We can proudly say without hesitation that we are currently in a better space and place, which actually sounds weird. Kikikiki.
More than at any time in our history, we are filled with overflowing hope and optimism. For the first time since serious wheat farming began in the early 1960s, our farmers have produced a record wheat crop that will give us succour in the coming year.
Our economy, which the International Monetary Fund expects to grow by 3 percent this year, is bucking the gloomy trend that is being realised elsewhere, with strong growth expected again next year.
Everywhere one cares to look, be it road and bridge construction, dam construction, irrigation development, power development and service provision, there are signs of encouraging progress, which represents a determined break from the general inertia and stasis of the recent past.
President ED has been clear from the beginning that the country could extricate itself from the rut by leveraging on its bountiful mineral resources.
It is, therefore, not fortuitous that investments in mining in the past four years have been staggering.
If anyone needed an indication about how highly successful ED has been in wooing investment in this key sector, they do not have to look no further than the big-ticket projects in lithium and platinum mining.
Over the past year alone, investors have poured in excess of US$600 million to acquire interests in Bikita Minerals (US$180 million), Arcadia Lithium (US$343 million), Sabi Star Mine (US$76 million) and Zulu Lithium (US$35 million).
They also plan to inject an additional US$600 million — US$200 million in Bikita, US$300 million in Arcadia and US$130 million in Sabi — to bring the projects to production and ramp up throughput.
Cumulatively, this implies total investments of more than US$1,3 billion.
Considering our lithium deposits, which are critical in a world that is increasingly gravitating to green energy, we could be well on our way to become a Saudi Arabia of the green energy revolution.
We are also seeing traction in the platinum sector through Karo Resources, which has since begun mobilising more than US$300 million for mine development, and Bravura, which will be raising US$250 million for its own venture.
Had the Russians not been subjected to sanctions by the West, we could have been counting significant investments at Great Dyke Investments.
Need we also mention the US$1 billion steel plant that is under development in Manhize?
The aforementioned projects alone — which are just but an anecdote for the doubters and naysayers who pretend not to be seeing these remarkable signs of success — are conservatively worth a remarkable US$3 billion.
Considering that mining projects have a long gestation period, their impact on the economy can only be incremental.
Converting our sub-soil assets into material wealth for ordinary wananchi is our secret for success.
The recent reconstitution of the board of the Sovereign Wealth Fund — now staffed by eminent men and women from the world of business and finance — and
the new policy to build up reserves in
the form of minerals and precious stones assure us that our mineral wealth will help defend our currency and store wealth for posterity.
As exports continue scaling record highs, buoyed by mineral exports, it shows that ED’s plan is working.
Despite the odds, we cannot afford to be poor when we are blessed with fabulous mineral riches.
It can and will be done.
Bishop out!
