Not Yet Uhuru
Today marks the 30th anniversary of Zimbabwe’s independence from colonial rule.
Today we celebrate casting away the yoke of the hated settler, allowing us to move towards our African dream of self-determination and equal opportunity for the black peoples of Zimbabwe.
Today I will braai, and drink whisky, knowing that I, with my opinions and libertarian sentiments and big mouth, am hated by the very state our heroes fought to create.
Today I remember that because of my ideas and opinions I have been legislated against, my lips shackled in the very bonds the settler masters tried to bind our celebrated heroes with.
Today, as usual, I feel a little less free than yesterday.
Today is not MY Independence Day.
And I love the way the great uncle was busy swanning off to Bingu wa Mutharika’s (geriatric) wedding when there are more pressing concerns on the homefront, we can only be grateful that it was a stone’s throw away not in some European enclave. Not that he has ever been overtaken by a great sense of urgency when saving his octogenarian hide is not involved. It’s sad how quickly the ideals of the struggle are swiftly cast aside in the face of riches, fame and power.
If you are always looking over your shoulder to point blame for present failings you can never look forward and create a future. Just look at Liverpudlians and their victim complex.
2 birds with 1 stone I believe.
Well, Bingu IS 76 and getting married, at least his new wife is a widow …
Clap clap Stavros, cheap shot but well done. Feel good?
@Stavros – the irony of commenting is that you reveal more about yourself than the person you are trying to show up.
I can appreciate Stavros’ sentiments. It’s like the pleasure you get when you kick the dog because you perceive it to be weaker. until it turns around to bite you.
It was really stretching the imagination when 30 years ago Zimbabwe became governed by Marxist guerrillas. Such a fantasy would fantastically become pear-shaped even before the union jack was lowered. As Alex de Tocqueville would argue, people would rather be equal under slavery than unequal under liberty.
Liberty brings responsibility and accountability, ideals inimical to a socialist cum totalitarian state. Lets not even kid yourselves, the MDC does not believe in Liberty as well- nor does the general voter. Uhuru is a damned farce, the more years we celebrate our freedom, the deeper the totalitarian grip of slavery clutching our proverbial balls. Instead of screaming our lungs out loud, we turn the grip into some masochistic fetish!
So what are you saying … we should silently wallow in our self-pity because we’re doomed anyway?
The collective schema of the scrotum will ensure we are doomed! And those dangling our balls enjoy it ever so much. Thus the only salvation comes from destroying the very essence of a collective society and instead of state freedom the people start asking for individual freedom. very unlikely as the average voter is very myopic, as you can tell from every blog on Zim’s 30 years. its only this blog that has called it a farce….almost everywhere the hallelujah’s are deafening. like i said its a fetish of some sort now?!
Works for some.
Unfortunately the notion of individual freedoms orver state interest only began to manifest on a national political level during the riots of 1997 onwards.
I don’t think right now it’s myopia that makes people celebrate The Independence … it’s all genuine, even I feel the pride I’m expected to … it’s jsut that we all need to see what this is.
With many revolutions, one tyranny is swapped for another.
@ACM – well, this blog and mine.
However, by calling independence a farce, that does not vindicate the farce that was UDI and/or British rule.
That quotation in your comment implies that there was liberty before independence – if you call the state which existed before 1980 liberty, then well, you were certainly not black during that period.
The failures of African states have absolutely nothing at all to do with the economic persuasion of the post-independence governments or that they are black or that they are Marxist guerillas. The UDI government, like the apartheid government and their previous administrators were mostly uneducated ruffians too.
If those previous administrations had even had the slightest inclination to provide an equitable state regardles of race, they would have had flopped on their bellies in the same manner which the current administrations have; indeed, they did not even try because that would have defeated the whole purpose of their existence.
The African state for the purpose of being and still is one backwater economic adventure for a few finance houses in the UK and those european motherlands. THAT is why any meaningful participation by ordinary black folk which would interfere with ownership and hence return on investment for those finance houses, leads to a rapid withdrawal of investment.
Africa has never had a political problem. It has always been economic. the politics just determines how and by whom the natives are controlled.
At independence, what we call independence, we just had a change of guard.
Africa was last free when there was no state, before the white man’s economic mischief created a state, with state machinery, and even hut tax for those who did not want any part in their mischief.
Awww “well, this blog and mine.” … awwwww feeling a little unappreciated there, chav?
As for freedom, we can never be totally free until we cast off the chains of the tiny minority that have enslaved us into economic and political servitude.
No taxation without representation!
Nah, just got touched by the all-zim-bloggers-are-celebrating-independence wankfest
Im still looking for a justification for taxation