A poignant day
February 11th, 2009
Today heralds a poignant day for the people of Zimbabwe. Morgan Tsvangirai will be sworn in as the Prime Minister at a private ceremony at State House after battling the forces of evil for almost a decade. As important as this event is, it is being met by the people of zimbabwe with at best incredulous joy, and at worst, disbelief that any real change can occur.
Yes, the MDC, including both formations have cause to kick up their heels and celebrate success, but at the risk of being a killjoy, let us not for one second forget the humanitarian disaster that besieges this nation.
Today, while leaders gather, over twenty dedicated and peace-loving activists continue to suffer the worst of human rights abuses in their continued incarceration. Schoolchildren are being robbed of their future as schools remain shut. The sick and elderly receive no comfort or warmth. Businesses are shutting daily, with more and more people scavenging to find their daily bread. Families are fractured and there is not one household in Zimbabwe who has not lost at least one family member to live in the diaspora. There is a multitude of children who cannot remember their parent’s faces for they have fled across the border seeking work to support their loved ones, but who too often arrive there only to face intimidation, life on the street and the flames of xenophobia.
I know many who were talking about attending festivities in the capital, and that is their due; they have worked hard for this somewhat diluted victory. But I am more heartened when I hear there are others who have chosen to use the money it would have cost in transport to attend the event for buying food and taking it to government hospitals to share in the day’s good news, giving patients a glimpse of true community spirit and how life should be.
I am not one of the disbelievers who cannot see any change occurring at home, but I am a realist: the changes are going to take time and Zanu PF are going to fight every step of the way. The hardliners in the regime are not ready to give up and desperately needed international support will only come when real results are in evidence.
The suffering will not end soon, the decay will only be arrested by damn hard work and determination, the repair to the country will take years.
But, we are still here and we now have the opportunity to make sure that we pull the community together and make real change a reality.
February 11th, 2009 11:39
All of the socialist nations in the world, regardless of continent, language, or religion, have been mired in the bottom-worst measures of human rights and national prosperity for the past sixty years. When the MDC is sworn in as PM of Zimbabwe, it will be at a ceremony filled with many thousands of people wearing the red shirts and waving the red flags of socialism. Their joy will last less than five years.
Zimbabwe will never be prosperous nor free so long as it is socialist. Instead, the economy over the net five years will bounce back from the current collapse, but then it will settle into the choking impoverishment experienced by all of the other socialist nations.
The Zimbabwe honored title of “comrade” will lock Zimbabwe into impoverishment and repression of human rights for decades to come.
February 11th, 2009 13:54
I happened on a couple of Churchill quotations which struck me as having been written precisely for the Zim situation:-
1.
Churchill’s remark after Chamberlain (Morgan) returned from signing the Munich (SADC) pact with Hitler (Mugabe): “You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war.”
2.
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings;
the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
– Churchill
I think Churchill turned out to be remarkably astute about human nature – he may be dead, but human nature is just the same. Watch out Zimbabwe!