I am Desperate for Change in Zimbabwe but..

Cde Rutendo Benson Matinyarare

The musings of so- called "Government Agent and ZANU Apologist".

I want change! In fact, I'm desperate for change, because I miss holding my mother and having my family together. I want reform and rights for us as a people because I want to speak this same sh@&% standing in my own country! I'm tired of corrupt, greedy, gluttonous politicians with no care for the development of the people and this, our Pan African revolution. Suffice to say, I am even more angry at us, a self-centered, self-righteous citizenry with no acknowledgment of our own culpability and ineptitude in lifting ourselves and our nation.

Sadly though, even though the momentum of the past few weeks is encouraging, filling every Zimbabwean with a cohesive, optimistic euphoria, I'm skeptical. I sense the winds behind the people right now are not winds driven by the interests for Zimbabwe and its people. I feel nothing good will come out of ‪#‎ThisFlag‬ movement, as it is, because it still reeks of the same non-transparency, trickery, self interest and opportunism that has become our national character. Compounding it is the fact that most fellow Zimbabweans today, don't really have a clear view of what's empirically wrong with our nation, we are fragmented in our desired outcome and we have no clue or consensus on how to deliver this change.

Peaceful protests, stay aways and such other civil disobedience will never change the status quo and evil of selfish rot in Zimbabwe, neither will it dislodge this hardened bureaucrat who already feels affronted. Violence, although seductive to some, will not suffice because it will be met with extreme retribution and Zimbabweans are simply not prepared for the trauma of the aftermath of this romance.

So, even if this movement hopes to succeed on the last resort of dislodging the government, through a military mutiny or pushing the military to crush them for the west to intervene (very unlikely). This would still leave us with the ashes of a smouldering nation, dead economy at best, political infighting, a political interregnum [vacuum], military dictatorship and or prolonged political unrest at worst. And of course the lingering but worsened bad old Zimbabwean habits of selfishness, short sightedness, denialism, deceit that are rife in us today. All of which plays us well into selling out to white capital like Mandela.

I would support this movement if it was truly organic and it technically understood everything that is wrong with our country, how to fix it but admitting what can't be fixed immediately and they looked for a negotiated compromise because it's more likely to succeed.

I wish they at least understood that corruption is the cancer in the Zimbabwean system but it's not the immune destroying virus that allowed the cancer to take hold in the first place.

The core of our struggles is:

- Raw global capitalism, the imperial fight for the control of our resources, combine with our corrupt leaders and citizens selfishly sabotaging the same struggle for self determination, by our abdication of our national and civic duties due to self servitude and lack of foresight.

I would like our president gone, for he is too old, no longer in control and no longer capable of taking us forward into the next phase. However, I'm wise enough to know that he is a strong man and he won't be pushed out without being given a safe passage particularly for his family. Nonetheless, if violence has to be used to get him out, Zimbabwe and the region will be the losers.

As much as I want him out, I wonder if he has groomed anyone. I desire to see a progeny who will lead us back into unity, continuing to champion the struggle for black self determination, maintaining the gains made by his predecessor, while driving us into the future with avant-garde Afrocentric strategies fit for the era. Notwithstanding, be rest assured that such a person would be resisted by the order, so long Zimbabwe will not sell out wholesale to the white establishment, until we Zimbabweans together with Africa raise from the big slumber and show a capacity to develop ourselves.

Until we develop our selves, until we start offering solutions for our own challenges, the west will never partner us but they will forever expect to come and use us as slaves, dictating to us how we should develop in their interest.

- I want ZANU out but ZANU is not going anywhere because they hold hard power, they have a legitimate mandate and there are hundreds of hungry party members down the ladder waiting patiently for their chance at the trough. So we need to be smarter than butting heads with them using 1900 techniques to change a system, because then we could be butting heads in Zimbabwe for the next 50yrs. We are the generation of the pen, the generation of intellect and compromise, let's look for the path of feasible success, least resistance and unity. The Afrikaners achieved power from the British without bloodshed after they had lost the Anglo Boer war.....there are smarter and more uniting ways for achieving progressive change in a country.

Let's seek innovation and creativity from the minds of our youth to bring change into Zimbabwe because that is what it will take to make Zimbabwe competitive with the rest of the world after any change..

Brut force [hard power] or civilians inducing hard power [military power] to be used against them so that a one more stronger will come to the rescue, is no longer the way to gain change. We have the ruins of Libya and Iraq as testament. Besides, Zimbabwe doesn't have oil, so why would the one with monopoly on violence want to intervene? And if they did, what would be the price?....We need unique thinking as young Zimbabweans if we are to beat hard power both at home and abroad.

(The views expressed herein are Cde Rutendo Benson Matinyarare's. He can be contacted on rutendomat@me.com)