NATIONAL AGENDA

GOLDEN GUVAMATANGA

THE biggest myth touted to post-colonial states by advocates of the colonialism and neo-colonialism is that Africa cannot, and will not, develop without Western aid. 

Right from the onset, the post-colonial state is set up for failure. 

The post-colonial state, as was the case with Zimbabwe on April 18 1980, naturally inherits a deeply fractured country, badly damaged infrastructure, and an economy already on its knees. 

As we write our own story, we will interrogate the many terms and conditions imposed on our freedom fighters, especially at the disastrous Lancaster House Conference, despite having won the war against the enemy in the bush.

There were few takeaways that played out in favour of the guerrillas at that gathering.

If anything, Lancaster was the biggest fraud in modern history that robbed the Zimbabwean masses of what was delicately designed to be their glowing future of more and plenty.

We were robbed of our right to have unfettered ownership and control of our land and natural resources.

We were denied the right to fend off the vagaries of colonialism at our own pace.

We were defrauded of the right to economically start on a clean slate.

However, our detractors are conveniently silent on the mammoth US$700 million (well over US$3 billion today) debt we inherited from Ian Smith’s reckless economic policies  

Smith’s bizarre attempt to rule this country for a thousand years is largely responsible for the malaise that Zimbabwe finds itself in today.

The man did not build any infrastructure for the excitable black people who now naively brandish him as the best thing to have happened to this country.

He did not create any platforms for our people to have a fair share of the national cake.

He did absolutely nothing to uplift the livelihoods of the masses.

In fact, he systematically wired certain characters with the fatalistic, myopic thinking that without outsiders and whites, Zimbabwe and Africa have no future in the global political economy.

The discourse of sustainable development, therefore, comes into play.

We have argued time and again that the current economic challenges bedevilling Zimbabwe did not start in 2000 when the country embarked on its revolutionary land reform.

Neither did those problems start in the early 1990s when the country was railroaded into adopting the disastrous Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) — an ‘initiative’ designed to halt Zimbabwe’s progressive policies on infrastructure and related programmes.

Those challenges, again, did not start around the late 1990s when the IMF and the World Bank decided to ‘punish’ the country for allegedly ‘defaulting’ on its dues to those institutions.

The challenges did not start on September 11 1999 when Rhodesians as well as their kith and kin openly declared another war on the people of Zimbabwe during the fateful formation of the opposition MDC at Banket Country Club.

Our challenges are deep rooted, stretching as far back as when the colonialists first set foot on Zimbabwe.

This is why you hear unrepentant Rhodesians, like David Coltart, and their lackeys in the opposition as well as the so-called civil society fervently pursuing the Gukurahundi agenda as the starting or focal point of our history.

Everything else that happened before independence must, in their warped view, be conveniently ignored and forgotten.

Again, that rather ridiculous argument is flaunted in the current debate on the existence and impact of Western sanctions on the country.

So what must post-colonial states do in order to fend off the pervasive disaster?

First, we have to dismantle the colonial structure premised on plunder and abuse of the real owners of the country.

We must do away with colonial education and focus more on skills development curricula.

The country has not really benefitted from colonial education where everyone must be absorbed into the so-called ‘formal’ employment system.

An education that has yet to bring to the country new knowledge, skills or otherwise.

As such, let us harness and develop skills in all facets of life. 

Second, we need to create new and sound policies that address the grievances of our respective struggles for freedom.

Our struggle was anchored on ownership and control of the means of production, something that we have achieved as a country through the innumerable empowerment initiatives that we are implementing for our people.

Let us focus more on projects that create a conducive environment for sustainable development.

For instance, Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube must not be worried about the withdrawal of funding from WHO by US President Donald Trump.

Instead, he should be exploring new internal avenues of funding the health sector outside of more taxes for the masses. 

Zimbabwe has spawned enough millionaires who can step in to cushion that gap.

Zimbabwe has enough resources to harness in order to fund its own projects.

That drive has been successfully employed on infrastructure development with positive results.

When Trump talks about ‘America First’, he is basically talking about policies that benefit the American people.

We can, and we have demonstrated capacity to do the same.

What is needed is the wherewithal to consolidate that thrust.

Let those with ears listen.