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Dead consciences walking
Marko Phiri
June 14, 2006

Post-independence Zimbabwe – or more specifically post-2000 Zimbabwe - has inspired innumerable academic treatises and opinion pieces at a level not seen even during the "white years." This could be because of factors like the birth of cyberspace and other factors that are beyond the gamut this contribution. Still despite that proliferation, the country finds itself rapidly heading for depths unknown. However, this deluge has been important in that it has helped sit ourselves on the couch, and in Freudian fashion, pour out what we think will be therapeutic and see the country back on its feet. But the getting back has many steeples that go beyond the obvious where the rulers of the land have run roughshod on all things humane. Despite the innumerable treatises running parallel with the economic gangrene, pointers to what has engendered this are not as innumerable however.

Since the year 2000 when the mayhem at the farms began, this period also marked the flooding of the public sphere with social, political and economic commentary about where we are going as a nation. Naturally, amid such analysis, not only is the genesis of those problems dissected, but fundamentally solutions are proffered which are in good faith despite divergent and sometimes violent perspectives. As we journey further into a future unknown by nobody but the seers, clairvoyants and - for the monotheists – the Creator God, what needs to be asked is the contribution of the people themselves to the state of the nation.

From civic society to religious leaders to people of various opinions, they all collectively could be said to be in the fashion of Atlas in Greek mythology carrying the globe on his shoulders. Of course the argument would be that it is the oligarchs, the pseudo-democrats who have Zimbabwe on their shoulders and this perhaps based on first, them occupying the seat of power, and second having at their disposal state instruments which are euphemistically said to keep the peace. It is fairly easy to point where the country collectively has erred within the context of "we the people" carrying the country on our shoulders. Was is not eerie that when the mayhem on the farms began, there actually were men and women of colour who took in the race hate with such passion one thought these people were deranged? Were there no stories of neighbours snitching on each other when one was "suspected" of being a member of the opposition? "Suspected" as if there was anything wrong with being an affiliate of a group of patriots who came – not really in the name of the Lord – but appeared to be responding to the people’s cry for a better life.

The snitches, the moles who you unknowingly break bread with, are the people who can readily be identified as having precipitated the country’s fall to this abyss. As said before it is fairly easy to apportion blame, but this analysis is based on the wisdom of King Solomon who in the Book of Proverbs says a fire does not thrive when there is no tinder. Political affiliation sometimes tends to resemble cultic devotion: though everybody else sees the self destruct button the cult members seem bent on poking, the cult members themselves wonder why everybody else is not joining in the fast track to heaven. But this loyalty occurs within even the most bright minds in our midst thus it brings in other dimensions about that fervency.

The very fact that the oligarchs thrive on patronage has meant loyalty is rewarded by largess such that these cease to be matters of the conscience, but veritably matters not even of the belly but rather matters of gluttony. Because the stomach of a good man will not take in stolen food, a glutton will keep stuffing himself though he knows he has had enough never mind that his amoral stomach is complaining! Therefore any nation whose collective conscience has been numbed naturally sees evil and celebrates it. Why? Because their sense of shame has been party to a Faustian pact.

While other pro-human rights and democracy activists have forfeited their lives to the post-independence struggle, that self-proclaimed stalwarts of the nationalist movement insist that their latter-day struggle was born from meddling outside this country’s frontiers point to a crisis with many accessories. Thus the day of judgement will not have the men and women who ruled the country with reckless abandon on the dock, but also foot soldiers who are your next door neighbours. They smile and wave, but they still insist Zimbabwe is not ready yet for a new political dispension, and to prove it, will set ruling party war dogs on the same neighbour they will ask salt from! That is the tragedy of Zimbabwean politics.

Stories were told in Bulawayo during the 2000 legislative elections about father and son running battles because the son had declared his support for the opposition while the father threatened to disown the son because the father was a ruling party dye-in-the-wool faithful. Thus the analogy with cultic devotion. The father still disregarded that the son was unemployed; that the so-called basics were unaffordable given his miserable wages. These are the people who gave the ruling party its bite and, by logical progression staying power. These are the same men and women who put on their Sunday best and join you during the communion procession. These are the same parishioners, as a story I witnessed a few years ago in Bulawayo, who told ruling party activists their parish priest was generously doling out food. "Where did he get it? Must be working in cahoots with the opposition to demonise a democratically elected government," was the thinking that informed the informants!

That is one dimension to view this mass disregard of appeals of the conscience, something that has been with us for the past six years. Others will say since 1997 when the dollar began its free fall. While it has been known that the clergy played a major part in the struggle for African independence Zimbabwe offers very bad lessons about politicians who have used state resources to kill the conscience of moral and religious leaders. But the greatest tragedy no doubt has been the death of the long suffering men and women who still view equally starving neighbours as traitors because they decided to chant a different slogan. Does it point to the power wielded by other mortals over fellow mortals? For the men of the cloth who have reportedly largess from the oligarchs to seek favour or intercede to the Creator God so these men and women may rule till eternity, that is the biggest indictment they can have hanging on their consciences while they still walk this earth. This despite the manifold woes the flocks of these revered men still have to live with each day, and the same people from whom the "spiritual allies" of the oligarchs expect generous tithing. This is the Zimbabwean tragedy not even the Greeks would have imagined. Interestingly within the same vein of Greek reference, have Zimbabweans taken the hardships like the Stoics? Time will tell.

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