A component that cannot be disputed in the current dispensation is the work ethic.
The servants of the people are on the grind and are unrelenting.
Players in all the sectors, private and public, right up to the chief servant, President Emmerson Mnangagwa, have shown, and continue to show, their commitment to turning around our fortunes through the crafting and implementation of programmes to take us out of the mud.
This we commend and celebrate.
And the launch, this week, of the Information Communication Technology Policy, which seeks to ensure that technology contribute meaningfully to national development, is a most welcome development.
Technology, harnessed, and in the words of the President “made productive and transformative”, will make us leap where others crawled.
But technology, as pointed elsewhere in the paper, will not be beneficial if it continues to be used in the manner it has been adopted in the country.
For example, as stated, technology that enable people to get on the various media is not beneficial if these platforms primarily play the heckler role which does not serve society.
Indeed, in the so-called Information Age, it is sheer fallacy to talk of power and development that is not backed by necessary technologies.
Technology is helping in the coming to fruition of brilliant ideas and thus must be fully embraced.
If we do not adopt technology in our affairs as a nation we will not be able to fully defend our people from the vagaries of life, protect our resources, guarantee our safety and well-being.
To be a thriving nation we require the latest technology in our hospitals and clinics, in our manufacturing sector, in our education sector and in our day-to-day affairs.
Through the latest technology, as a nation, we will determine our future, we will safeguard our history and maintain our identity.
Most importantly, let us develop technology that best suits our needs.
It is not a question of lapping up every form of technology.
There is technology that, while useful elsewhere, would be detrimental to us as a people.
Indeed, a ‘technology’ like Las Vegas in the country will not be of benefit to the people of Dzimbahwe.
All technology must be tested and weighed before adoption.
Let us promote and finance innovations by our own because these are being created specifically for us.
It is common knowledge that because of poor funding and lack of appreciation, we have lost brilliant sons and daughters of the soil who have taken their innovation to the West, which has embraced their ‘madness’.
This is why the launch of the ICT policy is a most welcome development; to some of us it is a ‘no more’ statement.
No more shall we lose our brilliant people.
I encourage and urge our people not to forget who they are as they embrace the latest technology.
Transformation and adoption of new hunting and survival techniques do not change the spots of the leopard; a leopard it remains.
Thus, African and Zimbabwean we must remain as we progress.
Things we hold sacred must remain so.
No technology should tamper with our heritage, culture and traditions; it is on these tenets nations anchor their identities, no matter what they adopt.