Art is not a mirror to reflect society but a hammer with which to shape it.
- Bertolt Brecht

The HIFA opening show was far less spectacular than in previous years but hugely enjoyable nonetheless. Sitting under a starry Zimbabwean sky watching the colour and energy of the performers made me feel very pleased to be alive. Of course a lot of the talk about town is that HIFA have succumbed to pressure and toned down on the political content of the opening show, and its probably true. Some of the people that I’ve spoken to have been disappointed by this. Last night’s show was all about love, harmony, respect and peace. Many Zimbabweans embody these sentiments … if only our politicians did too.

Four headlines on the front page of The Herald over Workers Day caught my eye:

- RBZ retrenchees stage demo
- Ethanol plant to lay off 4,500
- Infighting in labour unions blights Workers Day
- May Day a damp squib

Certainly, Workers Day has lost some of its luster. But surely this is less because of infighting in the labour unions, and more because soaring unemployment (of which RBZ and the ethanol plant are just two examples) has made being a worker – and particularly of being a worker in a formal sector job in which you are accessible to organising in the way trade unions have traditionally operated – an impossibility for the vast majority of Zimbabweans?

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.

I got inspired by this article called If you Change, your World will Change by Andrew Horton and I hope you will too.

You play an integral role in the way people treat and respond to you. If you are not enjoying the way people in your environment are treating or responding to you right now, there is only one thing you need to do. Change the way you treat and respond to all the people around you. As you know it is impossible to change anyone else, but changing yourself is one simple decision away. As you change the way you treat people and you begin to show people how you want to be treated, almost as if by magic, everyone around you will begin to treat you differently.

Action Idea: Evaluate your own behaviour and try to discover how you are contributing, allowing or encouraging people to treat you the way they do.

People will only ever treat you the way they are allowed to treat you. You behaviour, actions or lack of action, is encouraging people to treat you in a certain way. If you want to change the way people treat or respond to you, then break the pattern, which is allowing the current circumstances to prevail. You are indeed in charge of everything in your experience. If you want to change anything in your environment, the change needs to start with the one person you have 100 % control over, namely, you.

When you accept that all change begins and ends with you and you finally take responsibility or said differently you take charge of your life and future, you empower yourself to begin making progress towards the life you have always dreamed about. What are you waiting for? If you want to change anything or everything in your life, that change is only one decision away. By making one different positive choice, you can completely change your life for the better. We are living in one of the most volatile, changing evolving environments mankind has ever experienced. These times we live in are both exciting and scary, but offer the most incredible opportunities for anyone, who wants to explore and discover new horizons. The thinking and ways of doing business, which have got companies and individuals to where they are today, will most certainly not get us to where we want to go tomorrow. Open your mind and start exploring new and better ways of doing things. It is no longer an option to vegetate in front of the television every night watching other people’s lives and successes. The world has opened up and the global economy we work in every day has moved the goal posts and changed the playing field forever. The people competing for your job are not similar people to you who live in your suburb. Your competition sits all around the world, in some cases with empty belies, eager to grow and become more. If you are to remain competitive, open your eyes and begin to see that if you are not growing your knowledge and skill base every day, you are actually going backwards. Time is the ultimate equal opportunity employer, it never ever stops or rests, has no reason to hesitate or to look at the past or the future, it simply expends itself entirely in the now.

Once time has passed it is gone forever and can never be recovered. Stop wasting even one more minute on frivolous activities, which may deliver pleasure in the moment. Start to invest into improving and growing your knowledge. I am not suggesting that you stop entertaining yourself completely. I am however suggesting that you reduce the number of hours you spend a day entertaining yourself and increase the number of hours you spend educating yourself every day. As you grow and become more, everything in your life will change. Resources which may have been unavailable to you will almost miraculously appear in your experience. People, who you only dreamt of as possible allies, will see you in a very different light and approach you and want to support you. Everyone around you will begin responding to you very differently, you entire world will change, when you change and commit to a path of on-going learning and growth. I have no doubt that the more you invest into learning; the more you will end up earning.

Okay, so this is nothing like the Kenyan political graffiti we shared recently. But if this wall in Highlands, Harare is anything to go by, Zimbabwean youth are warming up their spray cans and getting ready to express themselves.