By Farayi Mungoshi

SOMETIMES when you want to build something new, better and greater, you have to tear down the old.
That takes a lot of guts, self-belief and sacrifice especially when it comes to tearing down an age-old system, not because of who is running it but because it is prejudicial and discriminatory.
And if the next generation does not catch it or understand it they will be like the children of Israel who started complaining to Moses saying; it was better to have been left in Egypt where they could eat better instead of being in this desert – in other words they were saying it would have been better to remain slaves so long as they were fed.
The problem with being a slave is that you don’t own anything and the next generations will certainly not remember you because there isn’t any legacy worth writing home about you. It will be like you never existed. Maybe that’s what others want but not all of us.
It is important for us to know and understand what it means to rule ourselves, ignorance to this would only throw the people back into colonial rule and slavery.
The Land Reform Programme was put into effect by President Robert Mugabe because it availed equal opportunities for black folk to be their own bosses and landlords in the land of their inheritance but do not forget not everybody was happy with this decision, especially the West. This move disturbed ‘supposed’ business relations with the West that had been put in place long before Zimbabwe got its independence, and now all of a sudden they could not lay their hands on the wealth of Zimbabwe as they had done for generations past.
This affected a lot of things in their countries, but because it did not affect our households directly then, we do not see or feel it and because most of us look down upon ourselves we do not actually believe that we’ve got something to offer the world.
I do not speak from a political analyst’s point of view, neither am I that well-read like some of my doctor and professor colleagues. I write and speak from the view of the general public; what I see.
In 1999 after I had been away from home for over a year I remember going into a certain supermarket in Britain. I remember smiling to myself upon seeing a can of Cashel Valley beans from Zimbabwe. I picked up the can of beans and said to my then wife, “Look at this, this a Zimbabwean product.”
She smiled and showed me another product being sold in this shop, also made in Zimbabwe, Palmolive Colgate toothpaste. We laughed. What did you know! I said to myself, it is different when you are told we trade with so and so as compared to actually witnessing the trade. But because most of us have never travelled abroad, we did not know there was trade on even some of the most basic and common of household commodities and not just the diamonds and gold.
Even their supermarkets got affected and the ordinary man felt it. Prices rose in Britain, ask those who are there the prices of these goods before and after 2000 – 2001, but can we say directly Zimbabwe caused this?
Who would want to believe that? Some of our own would even argue with what I am saying because in their minds, “Murungu akapenga. He can create his own, he doesn’t need us.”
We seem to forget we were the labourers.
And of course they can go make or look for the very same product elsewhere but at a higher cost.
Self-belief is all we need, a decolonisation of the mind and a belief in ourselves that we can do it.
Zimbabwe was slapped with sanctions because it had woken up to the reality that if you want something bad enough you have to go and get it. This is about world rule and control. If you do not comply like the Middle Eastern countries with their oil, you are made to look bad through the media; on television, radio and social platforms till everybody begins to believe a lie.
All of a sudden you are branded a tyrant, what of the 1 000 people believed to have been gunned down by police in US in 2015 alone? A figure as recorded by US News – The Guardian, Mintpress, and even Wikimedia was reached by November 16 2015 with most of them black obviously, since an average black man stands a chance of getting gunned down by the police three times more than an average white man. Then they want to talk about human rights. What human rights when they contradict the very basis, foundation and fundamentals upon which the laws of their nations are built, which is the Bible.
This is not about what political party you belong to, it’s about our legacy and knowing who you are; valuing yourself and knowing who to deal with on equal grounds.
If we are inferior then what is the fuss all about? We know through our day-to-day dealings that if someone is irrelevant to you, you don’t relate.
If Zimbabwe is so irrelevant then why all the talk about Zimbabwe? It is because we are relevant to this world, we have something to offer, that is why the world and in particular, the West, love to talk about us. It is us who have not yet woken up to that fact.
This is the ripple effect, or sins of the fathers, that, according to the bible, revisit the third and fourth generation. They believed they were superior when we were the same, and we were made to believe that they are superior, which is a lie.
If our ancestors knew the repercussions, I would have said to them today, “Dai musina kutenda kuvati varungu, vachena ava nekuti tarisai nhasi vakutoti ndiana Mwari vedu” because murungu or mulungo means god.
Do you then blame their children for wanting to rule the world? And as we are an ancient people we know and understand the power of words, that they have got creative energy.
The one true God taught us that.