What do you mean ‘#Sofarsogood’?

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If the #1980SoFarSoGood theme that Zanu PF adopted for this year’s Independence was meant to make Zimbabweans feel good about themselves, it failed dismally.

If the #1980SoFarSoGood theme that Zanu PF adopted for this year’s Independence was meant to make Zimbabweans feel good about themselves, it failed dismally. If anything, it has served to remind us how bad things really are!

BY CHIPO MASARA

It is shocking to imagine that the likes of Professor Jonathan Moyo actually thought out such a theme and believed it would find favour with Zimbabweans. It must mean Zanu PF actually really believes Zimbabweans are so naïve that like babes, they can be compelled to believe even the most ridiculous of imaginations. Unfortunately for Zanu PF, Zimbabweans are an intelligent lot and they have pretty good memory.

I don’t suppose anyone who has been subjected to the over three decades of Zanu PF’s misrule would have forgotten the suffering the country has gone through and continues to go through.

The 2002 havoc on the farms that saw thousands of black Zimbabweans losing their jobs at the farms as Zanu PF decimated national agriculture is conveniently forgotten, just as government’s most cruel Murambatsvina project can still make some people proud.

Apparently, the lawlessness that showed itself in hundreds of uninvestigated murders, disappearances and many thousands of displacements must be forgotten because Zanu PF has coined some ludicrous Independence slogan called Sofarsogood! The destruction of tourism owing to this violence and lawlessness must also be sent to the back of people’s minds so that people can listen to Zanu PF preach its “Sofarsogood” theme before thousands of people driven to the National Sports Stadium.

Who would have forgotten 2008? The empty supermarket shelves, the wads of worthless Zimbabwean dollars, the hunger, the violence, the great exodus to the Diaspora…?

But maybe 2008 may be too much in the past. Let’s talk instead of the state of Zimbabwe in 2015. The country’s industrial sector has collapsed and the few companies that remain are struggling to remain afloat. And, if fortunes do not change soon, these companies will most definitely close down. The blame clearly goes nowhere else but on the Zanu PF government, whose chief spin doctor now seeks to have people believe the country has sailed smoothly since 1980.

Joblessness has become the order of the day, frustrating especially the thousands of university graduates who remain unemployed after spending so much time, money and effort going through the rigors of degree attainment. Most of these graduates have since packed away their degrees and settled for street vending.

All the while, our government still maintains the country’s unemployment rate stands at around 11% and not the over 80% reported. I assume the government considers even those that sell tomatoes and make $20 a week employed! Does it not make you wonder that the majority of Zimbabweans settled in South Africa and currently in danger of the ongoing xenophobic attacks, have chosen to put up with the danger instead of coming back home?

And then there is the hunger that is stalking the country, making it so hard to believe that Zimbabwe was once able to supply grain to other southern African countries. Today, we stare hunger in the face. And to rub salt onto the wound, the government says it has no funds to address the food shortages and has no choice but to beg for help from the donor community — the same donors that have so often been portrayed as enemies of the state working towards regime change.

Instead of addressing the root cause of the hunger problem—things such as climate change, unsustainable farming practices and some land remaining idle — the country is being made to believe by the ruling party that the current drought is a direct result of Joice Mujuru, the former Vice President’s witchcraft! Is it any wonder that the same party believed diesel could come out of rocks!

And to think our neighbour Zambia experiences almost the same weather conditions as ourselves, yet they have so much surplus grain they must export more than half their yield! And that most of the farmers producing food in that country were kicked out of Zimbabwe by this same “Sofarsogood” crop of politicians! It makes one sick! Thirty-five years after the country attained independence and inherited a jewel of a nation, everything has decayed, broken down or, as in the case of our currency, simply made to disappear!

As we commemorate 35 years of independence, the government is no longer able to provide its citizens with clean drinking water, cannot provide electricity and now superintends over a rotten health delivery system and unmitigated poverty among the populace.

With all this staring us in the face, someone can have the nerve to tell the people that everything is good! In reality, Professor Moyo, there is absolutely nothing here to celebrate and there is nobody who does not see that! Things are far from good!

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