THE past two decades have arguably been the worst years since Zimbabwe attained independence in 1980.
In the past two decades: The nation has been isolated by the international community, chiefly over human rights abuses and lawlessness; the country’s economy has been relentlessly scrapping the barrel to a point that its currency has remained worthless; and the southern African nation’s politics has been so toxic that constitutionalism and all tenets of democracy face the danger of being outlawed.
The recently released Human Freedom Index (HFI) has aptly highlighted the dire state of affairs in our country after it placed us among the world’s worst performers in terms of human rights, freedoms and rule of law.
While many among us would like to believe otherwise and dismiss as fiction the HFI findings, which we reported in yesterday’s NewsDay edition, we sincerely believe that the HFI verdict is a true reflection of what is transpiring in our country and we urgently need to stop lying to ourselves that all is well.
Proof abounds that we are getting it all wrong, which is making it difficult for us to progress as one people with a shared vision and goal.
Because this is a very broad issue, we shall, in this brief instalment, focus on the simple things we are failing to get right in order for us to improve our global rankings and image.
One of the quickest ways for us to improve our image and build trust among global peers is to work on the issue of rule of law. Fortunately, in yesterday’s NewsDay edition we carried some stories which spoke to this issue.
Two of the stories were titled: Open air worshippers rile BCC and Zanu PF youths invade greenway. These are typical situations of lawlessness which has been one of our major challenges as a country.
- Govt to blame for Mupedzanhamo chaos
- Rowdy mob disrupts CCC presser
- Zanu PF dangles cane plots to youths
- Respect life, Church tells parties
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In the first story, we have some people who are willy-nilly and illegally occupying Bulawayo City Council land. In the second story we hear of a group people who have decided to unlawfully set up home on Harare City Council land.
This is not the first time we are hearing this, it has been a perennial challenge, especially following the chaotic early 2000s land invasions, which, in fact, invited the global isolation plight we are currently enduring.
Truly speaking, we cannot lie to ourselves that we are a law abiding people when many among us have the liberty to do as they please, disrespecting clear State laws and bylaws. These so-called worshipers and the alleged Zanu PF youths should not even be entertaining thoughts of doing what they are doing if there was rule of law in this country.
These misguided elements have these free licences to do as they please simply because of widespread lawlessness in this country. This lawlessness scourge is forever condemning us to the sewer of pariah States.
Lawlessness has rendered our local authorities, which happen to be arms of government, useless and powerless. This bane has so infested our society that it is scaring away many potential investors who are well-schooled in property rights and dread losing their properties to marauding land invaders who we have failed to rein in for the past two decades.
Herein lies one of our major challenges in our quest to improve our image as a nation.
