IN the next few weeks we shall be celebrating the wonderful achievements made by our heroes of the First and Second Chimurenga respectively.
The question that quickly comes to mind is, what lessons can we learn from them?
It is our intention in this article to look at some of the good lessons our great heroes left behind and see how best we can use them to resolve the present economic problems that we are currently facing in this country today.
Granted there are many good lessons the heroes left behind.
But there are perhaps three major ones which are critical to help us sort out our economic problems.
The first is that one must always think big and fight fire with fire.
The second is self-confidence.
The third is that one must always make hard choices if one is to achieve greatness.
It is quite clear that the above three lessons overlap.
Now let us look at the above lessons in same details.
During colonial period blacks in this country were being oppressed terribly by their Rhodesian colonial masters.
Yes, there was a real fight going on in the country between the racist settlers and us blacks.
But it was a one-sided fight.
We blacks were using strikes, demonstrations, ordinary anger, ‘shungu’ ‘matombo’ (stones) ‘rekeni’ (slings) and hands as weapons to fight the racists.
On the other hand, the Rhodesian racist settlers were using rifles with live ammunition to fight us.
Yeah, they had in fact a formidable standing army with several regiments – the Rhodesian Light Infantry, the Rhodesian Artillery regiment, the Rhodesian armoured regiment, the Special Air Services regiment, the Selous Scouts regiment, etc.
To cap it all, they had a formidable airforce.
The above Rhodesian armed forces had modern sophisticated weapons in their hands while we had the ‘rekeni’ in our hands.
No question about it, the situation was totally untenable from the black people’s side.
We were fighting a monster fire using newspapers and there was no doubt we were all going to burnt to ashes.
Thankfully great heroes from among us in the 1960s decided to go out of the country to look for fire to use to fight the evil Rhodesian fire.
When they got out there, they threw away the ‘rekeni’, thought big and became trained soldiers who in turn formed their own standing army – ZANLA and ZIPRA which they used to face the old Rhodesian army straight into its evil eye. Not only did these great heroes form a standing army, but they also acquired modern weapons which matched those of the Rhodesians and in some cases even surpassed them.
For example, the best weapon of the Rhodesian artillery was the 25 pounder.
This was proved to be inferior to the ZANLA 82 millimetre mortar at the iconic Battle of Mavhonde in 1979, which the Rhodesians lost.
With the blacks now having fire in their hands, things became equal.
Where the Rhodesians had their airforce, the blacks had their anti-aircraft guns from small ones all the way to multiple rocket launchers like the Stalin organ. Where the Rhodesian had the FN rifle we had the AK 47 etc.
Things were now equal becoming more and more favourable to the heroes until they had more fire which doused the Rhodesian fire at the end of 1979 and the Rhodesians were defeated.
Now let us come to our economic war now raging in the country.
“Tiri kurwa hondo iyi nerekeni.” (We are fighting this war using a sling).
It is true.
We are for example, fighting the invasion of our economy by South African supermarkets using the tuck-shops.
Yes blacks in this country in the retail sector have tuck-shops only.
How a mere tuck-shop is expected to beat Pick and Pay never ceases to amaze me. Today, we need economic heroes who should fight now go out there and form big retail chains to complete against the South African invasion.
Why are Zimbabweans afraid to form their own huge companies – their own standing armies in the retail sector to challenge successfully the foreign companies boggles the mind.
And yet that is the only logical way to take going forward let us not forget that the coming of foreign supermarkets is not good for our economy.
If you went into those foreign entities and take stock you will discover that in fact they are mere outlets of exported goods from outside.
About 70 percent plus goods you find there are not local.
To make matters worse, these supermarkets are also being used as collection centres of the US dollars which are then shipped out of the country making the economy drier and drier of cash.
Which brings us to the issue of self-confidence.
When the heroes took on the Rhodesians they had bags and bags of self-confidence that they were going to defeat the settler racists.
They did not doubt themselves.
However in Zimbabwe today, the lack of self-confidence on the part of MaDzimbabwe to succeed in the economy of the country is really shocking.
The negativity that is so prevalent in the Zimbabwean mindset makes one sick to the pit of one’s stomach.
The lack of self-confidence among us in doing anything good in the economy has reached a level where people are simply saying Zimbabweans cannot do anything good.
This means Zimbabweans themselves have reached such a low level that they are saying only goods made by foreigners or enterprises run by foreigners are good while anything done by Zimbabweans is bad.
How on earth we expect to lift our country out of the present economic doldrums with this kind of negativity is surprising.
It is about time we adopt the self-confidence of our heroes if we want to win this economic war.
Yeah, that we can do it ourselves.
In countries like China, Japan and Korea the people there have the sort self-confidence which makes them believe quite strongly that goods manufactured from outside their countries are always inferior to goods made in their own countries. That is why they have become the centres of manufactured goods in the world today.
We have to have the same type of self-confidence if we are to win.
Lastly we must make hard choices.
The other day the Minister of Finance Patrick Chinamasa said the days of ‘miracle money’ was over.
How true!
We should never think that we shall wake up one bright sunshine morning with Zimbabwe awash with liquidity.
We have to make tough choices.
We must produce a lot from the land.
Export goods.
Beneficiate and add value to those goods.
Own our supermarkets.
Make small profits.
Work 24 hours a day.
That way we shall overcome our economic problems.
The silly thinking that good Samaritans from somewhere will make our economy rebound should be discarded from our minds.
After all, the heroes did not wait for other people to fight the war for them.
They put their own bodies on the line and in the end won.
That is the only way for us to go.