Born free, born miserable?
A guy whose opinions I always respect posted a Facebook comment on Independence Day apparently pissed off by what he said was an obsession with negativity among Zimbabweans scattered across the globe as they reflected on what April 18 meant for them.
Turns out the many sons and daughters of the soil, from the “children of the war” to the “born frees,” the sentiment was that there was little to celebrate considering that the independence had spawned blood, sweat, tears, frustrations, broken bones, broken homes and hobos.
These are folks who left the motherland in search of “better lives” elsewhere. And of course these are compatriots who continue fighting for their right to vote by the authors of their misery who know too damn well that the political preferences of these millions lie not with the founding nationalist but elsewhere. For these political elites, political oblivion is a certainty if the Diaspora vote is allowed.
Thus it was that over this past weekend some young men spoke (“obsessed”) about hardships, never mind the setting: they were attending a lavish wedding of a childhood friend who could afford that kind of luxury “because he was in the Diaspora.” A young man in his late 20s, early 30s thereabout said: “I wish independence had come in 1994.” Obviously this was in reference to South Africa, seeing the young man getting married was working in SA and for him to be able to have a wedding in Bulawayo with a limousine and all that glitz was ample proof that South Africa still afforded the average Joe stupendous economic opportunities. But you still just have to point to the unending contradictions: the SA economy is still in the hands of “white capital,” and you only have to listen to Julius Malema, yet it is still affording young black men like the wedding guy a dream life seeing his fairytale wedding back home in Zimbabwe.
This wedding guy obviously has no concern about Julius Malema’s politics, never mind still the ubiquitous poverty that continues to stalk South African citizens which Malema likes to point at in what others see as his radical political views. Meanwhile, back at the wedding, another young man said: “Independence should have come last year, then things would still be swell and we would all be working!” Talk about a harsh indictment for the nationalist fathers who are touting youth economic empowerment among other unorthodox means that employ such things as cudgels and sjamboks as what will bag them the coming polls.
At a time when the populist clarion call is the stripping of the country’s wealth by whites and the need to return of that wealth to indigenous peoples, young jobless youths obviously are yet to buy that. And one can actually recall some old grannies being heard yearning for the white years, and this time is it young men long accused of being born-frees with no appreciation of the sacrifices the nationalist fathers made who are seeing beyond the rhetoric. You have to hear the sentiments from young people from Matebeleland especially and all the talk about young economic empowerment concerning who is really benefiting from this whole exercise. It certainly isn’t them. Yet the exchanges at that wedding do tell us that someone sure is out of touch with this demographic despite the tunes being beamed on national television penned by born frees in celebration of masimba kuvanhu. If a thirty-year old young man, because of his dire economic circumstances, can curse the placing of indigenous resources in the hands of a fellow black man in the name of political and economic independence, then surely the MDC-T folks who are telling Saviour Kasukuwere to slow down are not speaking out of turn.
After all, Zimbabwean seems to know where the country’s wealth has gone since 1980 and the latest efforts are but attempts to up the self-aggrandisement ante.