By Charles TMJ Dube

THIS being Africa Day week, it is important that we reflect, revisit and take stock of our skills and attributes as nations and as a continent.
We must also take stock of those inhibitions that have held us down. It is only when we become true to ourselves that we will cross over.
There is no doubt that we have the human and natural resources to take this country and continent to the next level.
As we struggled for independence, we had two crops of indigenes.
There were those with the faith that true enough, the colonial shackles were going to fall off some day, even if it meant a big fight to bring that about.
Then there were those who were just too full of fear to even imagine themselves free from colonial bondage.
They were born to submit and with the correct mixture of submission they could relatively prosper more than their more stubborn counterparts; for as the saying would go, if you cannot beat them, join them — even as their servant.
It took man of faith to launch the nationalist struggle.
Fear and its armory were at war against this dream.
There was a psychological warfare against this ideal.
There was also a physical one and reward system to maintain this fear which was at war with this faith.
There were soldiers, policemen, informers, prisons, detention camps, bombings, torture and all.
Africa Day is about the ideal of the unification of Africa.
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi had a bolder faith about it and they killed him because he was not just a prophet to this ideal, but a man of action who took concrete steps towards attaining this ideal.
Killing him would instill fear into those of like mind.
But now, stop here and let us have a go at Africa’s and/or even Zimbabwe’s greatest challenge for now.
It is about poverty and underdevelopment.
Hang on again, does a rancher only become wealthy after converting his cattle to cash or beef in the butcher?
We have all the necessary resources you can think of in Africa that are the envy of those countries called rich and yet with very little to show for resources that get converted to the cash or goods and services.
We have all it takes to cross the underdevelopment path. It is all in the mind. There is just that thread that we need to connect us to the correct mindset, which is one of faith.
I have all the faith that Zimbabwe will be a developed country and a force to reckon with, walking tall among the community of nations, if not during my lifetime, then definitely during that of my children and their children.
Because of fear, our people only imagine that they are resourced to resource international capital and never themselves.
They cannot generate wealth for themselves without the aid of a foreigner; for how could they, do they even have the capacity to help themselves?
Because of fear, they will even get loans to harness or sell their resources and get loaned to pay those who benefit from their very resources.
Some angry preacher was talking about how the Zambian Government sold its copper mines on loan for US$25m and how over three months the multi-national that had bought it had made a profit of US$75m and paid the Zambian Government debt without having paid anything upfront in the first place.
They cannot imagine a prosperous Africa without the hand of the whiteman.
It is for lack of ethics and love that we have remained the wretched of the earth.
The unethical agents of fear, which militates against any faith in a prosperous Zimbabwe, know where our currency is.
Criminal elements have even gone ahead to capture the state and its institutions to satisfy their own greed.
If we do not lie in all our dealings with others, whether in business or as families or neighbours, then prosperity will come knocking at our doors.
Our future is certainly in our hands, if only we take the bold steps and sacrifices that are necessary for the great leap forward.