Please note that Chris Kabwato's articles are also now appearing in the newly-launched NewsDay every Friday under the column - The Republic.
I RECENTLY bumped into a government minister and, since he did not belong to that faction that moves around with menacing trigger-happy zombies, I decided to approach him and strike a conversation. Now this minister is an enthusiastic fellow – a man very much in a hurry to get things done. His mantra is human capital – how can the country re-build its skills base? He had some ideas but as he spoke I realised how he was re-inventing the wheel. What struck me was how in a space of ten years memory had been destroyed in government, private sector, institutions and broader society. It is a key feature of African states that once a new government comes into power there is a purging of the civil service – instead of confining changes of personnel to political appointees there is a wholesale clearance.
Africa, it seems to me, is a continent perennially under experimentation. Donors, the Bretton Woods Institutions and governments seem to be caught up in five-year planning cycles that do not bring any sustainable development in spite of “sustainability” being the operative word. But the real tragedy for Zimbabwe is how a country trying to awake from the nightmare of electoral fraud, violence, mass migration, social and economic morass, has become bereft of memory. I will give an example. In 1998 a group of scientists and entrepreneurs decided to set up a trust that would assist budding entrepreneurs within and without academia to commercialise ideas. The project was very successful for a couple years because of the wealth of knowledge, skills and above all, enthusiasm of all who were involved.
Now these were not Mickey Mouse characters – they were world-renowned scientists and they were ours – vana wevhu (children of the soil). And no one was getting paid for their time. But as we headed into the year 2000 most of these selfless individuals were looking around for their parachutes. The cauldron that had become Zimbabwe was becoming too hot – nothing is more humiliating than the pauperisation of a proud people. By 2004 this noble project was in the intensive care unit, as one politician put it in a different context. Over ninety-percent of the key players in the project had left the country as universities abroad beckoned and embraced them. A prophet has no honour…
When I narrated this story to the minister he shook his head in disbelief. How could he get information on this experience? I told him he did not need documents as such. Some of the people that had participated in the project were still around and they had also contributed on a far greater scale in government and other institutions. They were there in their homes – ignored and unrecognised. After all, they had not been part of the liberation war, the “Third Chimurenga” or the political and civic struggle for a democratic Zimbabwe. In many cases all they had done was to come back from abroad in the early eighties to make their contribution to their new nation. But now they existed more or less on the margins of government only interacting with their peers and the wider intellectual community outside Zimbabwe. The irony was that it was government itself (at permanent secretary level, I should add) that had been supportive of the initiative and the international donor community had come to the party and facilitated links with some countries.
So when this creature called the Government of National Unity (GNU or nyurusi, as one political activist calls it), was born certain contradictions began to manifest themselves. Life-time government ministers, well-fed and grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat, had to co-exist with people who had been in the trenches and now had to learn the ropes of running a government. Cynicism and cruelty meets enthusiastic naivety. No, best to describe it as poor Ali Baba forced to share the table with the Forty Thieves. A cocktail for disaster given that the civil service had haemorrhaged and everyone with suspect loyalties and occupying an influential position had been purged.
The “greyheads” that had seen it all in academia and government have not been enlisted to assist. In every sector you go the most amazing thing that confronts you is how young everyone is. Take for example, civil society, arts and culture, and the media where I am beginning to wonder whether I should retire. I am sure when a colleague of mine signs off his e-mails with the motto “We need generational change”, he does not mean this change. I would assume the generational change is a change in political and social values from the rotten ones of the last few decades to another new generation of brave young women and men. In the efforts of these young people, like our dear Minister of State, the memory of the selfless “greyheads” will be critical. We can only invent a sustainable future when we strategically use memory as a weapon, a shield and a guide. The caution here is not to be guided by the selective and revisionist memory of the rogues who have looted the national purse and hold the nation at ransom via intimidation, assault and murder. Here is hoping Ali Baba is listening…
Chris
pic: The cover of The British Council's (Harare) "In Touch" newsletter. Horizon 2010 is a project that encouraged critical thinking as well as the development of technical skills in Zimbabweans.
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