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Unravelling the real Zimbabwean story

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IN a Zimbabwe where issues to do with development are relegated to the bottom drawer of subjects to be discussed, the temptation to give prominence to petty stories such as the incessant opposition dogfights is always irresistible.
Our media has unwittingly fallen victim to this grand scam and one can’t help but agree with Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Media, Information and Broadcasting Services George Charamba when he said last week ‘the media have become actors in a game they don’t understand’.
This column has touched on the issue of the national story which, in reality, has eluded the media in the past.
Ignoring the national story is a huge disservice to the consumers of media products and an affront to the aspirations of any nation.
Zimbabwe’s sovereignty has over the past two decades been under severe threat from an angry West frantically trying to negate our story, our past and our future.
That this anger has been ably supported by our own, in the opposition and in the media, is an issue that feeds well into Primary and Secondary Education Minister Dr Lazarus Dokora’s argument that we need to change our curriculum.
Our curriculum has been the weak link in our quest as a country to have a national consciousness that promotes our values, that tells our story and feeds into our overall goal of national development.
This is what President Robert Mugabe, whose 93rd birthday we celebrate tomorrow (Saturday), has been advocating over the years.
What is our story?
What is our ideal as a nation?
What are our goals as Zimbabwe?
Our story is hinged on the ethos of the liberation struggle.
Our story is about unity, peace and development.
It is about resilience, hard work and patience.
Our story is about uplifting the lives of the masses.
The success of those more than 80 000 tobacco farmers who have had to grapple with challenges like high production costs and a harsh economic environment characterised by the rampant effects of illegal economic sanctions has yet to be fully told.
Currently we are headed for a bumper harvest premised on the strenuous efforts of the well-received Command Agriculture initiative but few, if any, among us are giving that story credence and prominence.
And this is an approbation of the prowess of the black farmer and of the historic and heroic Land Reform and Resettlement Programme.
Those toiling in the so-called informal sector, those people who are making the country tick, even under pressure from sanctions is a gem of a story and a template for the developing world to emulate.
Yes we can do it and we are indeed doing it!
Next month, we start construction and rehabilitation of the Chirundu-Beitbridge Highway and a perusal of those who will do the bulk of the work will show the success of the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment, which as we have been told time and again, ‘scares away investors’.
The mining sector has opened up for indigenous players but as with the Land Reform and Resettlement and the on-going Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Programmes, few among us believe we can do it!
The success waiting to happen in that sector is immense and like the Land Reform Programme, critics will without doubt eat humble pie.
The spin-offs are immense.
The development is out of this world.
And the future looks bright.
The education sector was lagging behind and that is being rectified by the new curriculum.
In 2014, during the launch of the Teacher Capacity Development Programme, President Mugabe, an advocate of a home-grown curriculum said the local education system was lagging behind in promoting and teaching the country’s cultural practices.
“Our students should appreciate and emerge from our system as proud heirs and defenders of our hard-won peace and independence,” President Mugabe said.
“One of the major weaknesses of the present curriculum has been the absence of an underpinning philosophy to guide our education system.
“Such a philosophy must speak to who we are as Zimbabweans and our values, laws and norms must be informed by this philosophy.
“We have heard especially in the past those who went to school, not highly educated wanting to behave as non-Africans.”
But before I pen off, I feel I must say a word or two about the abrasive Philip Chiyangwa.
At the moment Chiyangwa is the man.
This writer is not a fan of Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) president Chiyangwa.
He has this abrasive style, a posture and demeanour that presents him as someone who got the job to lead Zimbabwean football by accident.
But in the past week Chiyangwa has proven to be the tonic that African football has been yearning for.
Confederation of African Football (CAF) leader Issa Hayatou’s wretched two decade reign faces a serious challenge for the first time and Chiyangwa is the man to give him sleepless nights.
Southern Africa has been clamouring for the non-conformist Hayatou’s exit from the game.
Hayatou has been an unmitigated disaster, a puerile leader serving West Africa only, from where he hails.
He has been the biggest undoing to the development of African football.
An insipid and inept leader with the most archaic ideas.
This is where Chiyangwa must be supported in ousting the treacherous Hayatou.
After all, he adds to the Zimbabwean story that we are born leaders of the continent and voice of the voiceless as has been shown by President Mugabe time and again.
Let those with ears listen.

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