Is Zimbabwe Slouching Towards Aristocracy?

For MaMoyo Fadzayi Mahere's supporters who have been saying I am against the ascendancy of young people into positions of power, I urge you to check out what I said in 2015. My observations were inspired by the simple act of watching a debate between students who were campaigning for the student-body presidency of one of South Africa's universities. In general, the young men and women were very impressive. Be that as it was, it was Hlomela Bucwa who struck me as one who was a cut above the rest. It was quite clear that I was watching someone who was exceptionally special. I was thoroughly impressed. Someone had done an incredibly good job of identifying and grooming a supremely talented young South African.

"That one," she said as she pointed at one of the merry little chicks, "it will grow into a healthy cockerel. "The one over is going to be a hen that will produce a lot of egg." On and one, my grandmother identified the future characteristics of the chicks. The weak ones in the flock of fledgling were also identified. So effortless was the identification process it left my young mind in a state of incredulity. How was I supposed to believe that the fate of newly hatched chicks can be casually discerned by an old peasant shelling groundnuts? Well, all I had to do was to wait and see the chicks grew. Wait and see, I did. The results were spectacular. I had a village elder with some amazing power of prophecy, so it seemed.

"That one," she said as she pointed at one of the merry little chicks, "it will grow into a healthy cockerel. "The one over is going to be a hen that will produce a lot of egg." On and one, my grandmother identified the future characteristics of the chicks. The weak ones in the flock of fledgling were also identified,. too So effortless was the identification process it left my young mind in a state of incredulity. How was I supposed to believe that the fate of newly hatched chicks can be casually discerned by an old peasant woman leisurely shelling her groundnuts? Well, all I had to do was to wait and watch the chicks grow. Wait and watch, I did. The results were spectacular. I had a village elder with some amazing power of prophecy, so it seemed.

What I had witnessed was not so much my grandmother's ability to look into her invisible magic crystal ball in the process of foretelling the future newly hatched chicks. She had watched the physical attributes of the chicks. From their barely perceptible differences, which were not that obvious to my callow mind, she had made her amazing "prophecy." With time, I was to behold the same identification of the fate of young people by elders.

An outstanding example involved one of my former university chemistry professors. Every year, he had this knack for identifying some of the brightest students. Once he had spotted them, he approached them at the end of the year, an offer for a holiday research job in his hands. Year in and year out, he had some of the brightest students under his direct tutelage. You see, in every course he taught, he kept track of the performance of his students, thereby spotting the smartest students in the process. Pretty much all of them went on to be outstanding scientists --- no, I was not one of his students. By the time he was scouting for talent in my stream, I had forced myself into the research team of one of his equally outstanding colleagues, with whom he was close friends. That friendship has lasted for decades. I have been a beneficiary of that enduring friendship.

Anyhow, I digress, but please do indulge me on this one. Here is the point: There are naturally talented people out there. We ought to have a system to help us scout, identify and groom these leaders that we will need in the future. The entire process cannot be accomplished overnight, far from it! Protracted and arduous, it will be. For this reason, the process has to be started at an early stage much like I have seen at American universities in a model that South Africa seems to be replicating in an impressive fashion. We need not imitate the South African model or the American model since we have our own unique peculiarities that we have to take into account.

For the forgoing reason, of course, I do have grave reservations that we can inject adversarial politics into our colleges and universities without running the risk of precipitating physical fights; after all, one of our most popular political chants is: "Pasi nevasingade zvandinoda!" This loud and very public wishing the visitation of death to one's political opponents, a dangerous and very persistent vestige from the Liberation War epoch, has often spilled over from the sphere of mere verbal threats into the realm of the literal commission of murder in the name of our political parties and vulgar ideologies that cheapen the value of human life. Zimbabwean politics, replete with wanton roguery and unbridled thuggery, can be downright deadly.

What we are left with are the few and the brave working under the cover afforded by the metaphorical darkness of cyberspace and internet platforms. You will often hear derisory epithets like laptop brigade. No one likes to be mocked in this manner, but it is a testament to how we have created a highly toxic environment that inhibits would-be leaders from real engagement with the people for whom they seek to farther the cause of peace and prosperity and justice. In my opinion, this may very well explain the emerging phenomenon of activists jumping into our political arena with the kind of flourish that one expects from a inerrant and infallible messiah riding onto the scene not on a pathetic little white donkey, with a bunch of peasants waving palm fronds in guarded and ephemeral gratitude, but a golden chariot drawn by a team of thundering snow-white horses. Some of these activists do have international recognition, which does provide them with a patina of protection from political reprisals in the event the cause our leaders some discomfort. Perhaps this apparent plague of activists is how we are simply reaping the wind of the deliberate marginalization of our best and brightest people from the political and social spaces.

What bothers me more than this marginalization and the seeming infestation of impatient and some disturbingly intolerant new entrants into our political space is the potential reappearance of an insidious form of an aristocracy or oligarchy, and even a deadly combination of both. This is were the mighty and wealthy of the land end up with the exclusive right and, frankly, means, to groom their own scion. Inevitably, we will find ourselves with aspiring leaders "leaders" who cannot connect with the city-slum dwellers and the peasants who eat their sadza with soup made out of garnishing bilge water with nothing but salt. I find it doubtful that a person with a full stomach can adequately speak and genuinely act on behalf of people with empty stomachs. Therein lies the danger with an aristocracy. Let us never fool ourselves into thinking that one day we might end up with a benevolent aristocracy, which is as oxymoronic as it sounds.

Right now, I fear we are getting inexorably trapped between the rock of what appears to be an epidemic of delusional activists, fast-talking tricksters and, on the other side, by the hard place of a tandem of self-righteous aristocrats and entitled oligarchs. As we say in the village, yes, I am a villager with no apology to make for it, tiri parumananzombe kana panyanga dzaMushore.

From a Facebook update written on the 27th of July 2017.