It's all gloom

It's all gloom

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(READ MTHULISI'S PREVIOUS ARTICLES)

A VISITOR to Zimbabwe these days will find that not only the official carnage visited upon the civilian population has taken root, but that the local daily vocabulary is growing.

A host of words and phrases describing the situation have come up in the daily life talk and a handful of
them have gained currency of late.

Closed, prohibited, expel, arrested, car jacking, stealing, corrupt, never-ever, patriot, puppet, deport, crush died, no, selling, sell-out, million, billion, ban, shortage, disrespectful, Retired-Brigadier General, not available, blitz, stalled, and connections are just some of the words.

Take a drive along the Borrowdale Drive which passes through the State House after past 6.30pm, the road is closed till morning. Not only will you learn that, but you will discover you have suddenly stirred a hornet’s nest.

Heavily armed soldiers ready to “crush” anybody who is ignorant or “disrespectful” to want to use the First Person’s Road guard the place. The crushing occurs oftenly with innocent foreigners and ignorant locals falling victim to brutal soldiery every week.

All over the ground are spikes and drums to inflate tyres and to block cars with road signs emblazoned with ‘no through road” words placed all over. To the other direction along the Hebert Chitepo Avenue the Passport Office is closed. Only those with “connections” can renew their travel documents because there is no forex to purchase manufacturing paper.

Not only are they closed but are ready to deny anybody a passport if they don’t like him or they think is a foreigner because they have said it before that a passport is a “privilege.”

Elsewhere to the West the National Sports Stadium is closed. The giant concrete extravaganza erected by the Chinese, who happen to be our only remaining friends, is crumbling. International games take place at the Rufaro Stadium which generally closes during heavy rains.

Behind, to the East of the stadium along Samora Machel Avenue is the Fournos Restaurant where Ignatius Chombo used to eat with Peter Chanetsa. It has been closed for a couple of years now.

Don’t they say a society’s sophistication is measured by what it offers on he recreational front?

There is more: The judicial college which trains magistrates is half closed with the recruitment of new students suspended because there is no funding for their training. Blast Furnace Number 4 at Ziscosteel -- a leading steel manufacturer in the country recently blamed for indulging in corrupt activities -- has been operating at below capacity leading to zero production.

So is the Kinteryer Estate, a popular estate outside Harare that exported agricultural products earning the country forex. Don’t forget the Bulawayo thermal power station. Zesa, the electricity supply authority in the country, says people haven’t seen darkness yet and they should brace themselves for more cuts and days of darkness because there is no money to generate and buy electiicity.

It gets worse: Harare, once dubbed the Sunshine City is in a sorry state. Many facilities are generally not working. Drive around and you will see many dysfunctional traffic lights even on the railway line crossing.

Once the elected council was “fired” for being “disrespectful”, a parasitic commission was brought in.

The result has been shocking ineptitude of unseen levels perhaps matched only by that of the Zimbabwe National Water Authority which has run the city’s water delivery system into the ground.

Needless to talk about how they often turn off the tapes without warning.

The talk is that they will soon “take over’ in Bulawayo where the resisting council is almost certainly facing expulsion or being arrested or being “Chomb(o)ed” like their Harare counterparts.

Start a business and see. Petrol is not available, the number you have dialed to arrange for a meeting is not available, electricity has been cut off, fertilizer not available, and the water tapes have been dry for weeks. But there is nobody to complain to.

So what do ordinary people under the situation where everything is conspiring to irritate them? Where everything is closed, banned and where everybody is either expelled or arrested?

The first option is organised resistance feeding from evident anger. The result: Hysteric official explanation nailing deterioration, closure and everything bad on “sanctions’. Everything is linked to unpatriotic behavior of willing stoogies “selling” their birthright for thirty shekels of silver. A whole massive whirlwind propaganda drive is unleashed with the aim of brainwashing and cowing the victims of misrule.

Still the unconvinced populace remains in protest mood. At once totalitarian tactics fly thick and fast.

“Ban” the Daily News, The Tribune, “deport” the foreign journalists and deploy soldiers everywhere. Every parastatal is to be run by a “Retired Brigadier”. Demonstrations and rallies are “prohibited”. The police no longer do normal policing work but they operate on “Blitz’ format.

But there have been other avenues for people to escape this stifling and monotonous existence: “corruption” and theft. Everyday the official press reports that so and so has been convicted for “car jacking”, “stealing” from a minister’s farm or for buying “stolen” goods.

Things are just topsy-turvy in a country where everyone entertains the secret hope that he First Person could just be taken dead one of these days.

It’s all gloom.

Mthulisi Mathuthu is a Zimbabwean journalist and New Zimbabwe.com columnist. Views expressed here are his own. He can be contacted at: thuthuma@yahoo.com
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