Self-hate will not take us anywhere
5 min read
By Margaret Kamba
When you go around the central business district of Harare on particular days, there are certain spots that have long winding queues where no covid-19 health guidelines are observed at all. When you inquire what the queues are for, it is always something to do with accessing the foreign currency at a lower rate than that found on the black market.
The RTGS-USD gesture by government that is aimed at ensuring all Zimbabweans have access to the American dollar at an affordable rate is a very noble gesture. The gesture however seems to have become burdensome or this is due to the administration by those disbursing the money, it is not clear.
There is always something about the place that disburses the foreign currency. It is either there is no money available on that particular day or the network is down. In the event that there is cash, there is always something about the failure to disburse to the numerous individuals that have come.
I do not understand why it is not possible to have each bank disburse to their clients automatically. A lot of people have these bank accounts linked to whatever banks, be it CBZ, Steward, FBC, NMB or whichever bank. The bank should at least automatically allow each account holder to have access to that 50USD once money enters into their account.
The argument about having access to foreign currency is one that boggles the mind. To think that we find ways of squandering hard earned local currency to buy foreign currency which we use to buy locally produced goods is out of this world.
Imagine this. A landlord only wants to have rentals in foreign currency which currency he or she uses to buy in a supermarket for goods that he or she can otherwise buy in local currency. So the tenant because the landlord does not want local currency goes to the black market where he or she buys the foreign currency at an exorbitant rate in order to pay the rentals. At the end of the day the money he or she has spent the whole month working for is lost in the process. There are no savings made and she or he finds no value in the money which she or he earns.
It is sad that it is only in this country that the local people have no value for their own currency. It is only in this country where men and women prefer to keep their money in the currency of another country. It is only in this country where people have confidence in a currency which they have no control over.
What is sad about this whole scenario is that, in all this process, someone somewhere does not hesitate to say negative things about the government which affords them to take in that foreign currency.
There is a group of individuals still living in Rhodesia, where the white man used to rule and things according to them were flowing with milk and honey. These are individuals who see nothing good about the current government, hear nothing good about it or want to imagine anything good at all. To them it is always ‘during Smith’s time’ and they forget that during that same ‘Smith’s time’ First street was reserved for the white man to walk on and they were banished to the reserves where farming produced little. They forget that in those days, their fathers were called ‘boys’ and their mothers would be liable to the abuse from the white man.
It is to those days that they wish we could return to where even after independence was taken, the black government has had to repeal some draconian laws that see no benefit to the black man. It is to those days that they wish we could return where education was only meant to make the black man serve the white man and not earn his own wealth. It is to those days that they wish we return when the black man sat on the back of the truck while the white man sat in the front seat with his dog. These things are still happening and you find some black people doing them as well.
They forget men and women died to liberate this country from colonial rule. They forget men and women were maimed to ensure that the land is given to the landless black majority. They forget men and women are still unaccounted for as they fought to make sure the black man has dignity and is viewed like a human being. How then on the back of this sweat should we see the people suffer at the hands of a few that think they must get rich overnight over services and facilities that are for the majority?
The level of inhumanity in our people is beyond imagination. This inhumanity can be found even in public service offices where basic documentation is a nightmare to acquire and shockingly lame excuses are given in order to push individuals to paying extra for a service that is already charged.
You find men and women carelessly speaking ill of a vaccination exercise that is aimed at protecting citizens from unwarranted death. They question why it is compulsory and compare with countries that are lagging behind in terms of vaccination progress. These are men and women who spend time on the television with only the aim of finding something to negative to say.
What is strange is that some people only speak well of something when they know they are getting something out of it. Whether or not it benefits the next person, they do not care. Look at the Land Reform Programme for instance, in this day in age, you find someone thinking land should be given back to the white man despite the way that the same land has transformed the lives of a lot of people. You hear comments such as “hatingararami tese neminda” and they forget everything is in the land.
What kind of self-hate is this that makes men and women living in their own country think little of themselves and their country? What kind of pain is this that men and women feel when their country is plunged into progress? What kind of feeling is this that makes men and women wish they return to colonial days where they were nobodies?
It can only be lack of knowledge that has plunged us into such misery. It can only be a fear of the unknown that makes us not want to explore a future and build one for ourselves. It can only be low self esteem that makes us want to have others control us so that we blame them when things go wrong. We should build our own country the way we want to build it and in our own terms. We should lay a foundation for ourselves and our children that we want and the way we desire learning from others and how they have done it.
Those that have travelled and learnt abroad must duplicate some of the best models in the world and merge those with home grown models and build a perfect home for us and our children lest the future generations judge us. Our schools are producing the best innovators and we must harness this untapped talent for a better tomorrow because the best is yet to come.
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