The Sunday News
Munyaradzi Musiiwa, Sunday News Reporter
ZIMBABWEAN netizens or simply twimbos for the benefit of the youthful but vibrant and analytical generation of Twitter users in the country, have changed the media trajectory in Zimbabwe as in all other sovereign states.
This is largely due to the equally vibrant and robust education system that gave the country all the enlightenment and sophistication that was not in colonial times. This platform together with many other social media platforms alike have become the new public sphere which Dr Lyton Ncube — a media lecturer with Midlands State University would prefer to refer to as, “the platform for the heteroglossic carnival of power. The platform for the centripetal centrifugal — convergence and divergence of discourse. A battlefield without bloodshed, a peaceful but gruesome struggle for dominance.”
Unfortunately, during the liberation struggle there were no such forms of gladiators and storm troopers. The battle was real with real bullets and real blood being shed, real people losing life. It was not a joke, when an army was deployed it was indeed not a picnic. The liberation struggle was far from the ideological dominance and debates on Twitter, it was not a picnic, it was a matter of life and death, literally.
This is why today the country in every April after 1980 gallivants in merry-making as it celebrates the independence that came at the expensive cost of people’s lives. That political independence, economic independence including the social independence of the cyber-storm troopers and political gladiators some of whom are unpatriotic and treacherous was not brought by Twitter should be made clear. It was part of the freedom of speech, expression and association that was fought for.
Some pretend to be smart hiding under elusive online identities, pseudonyms. They simply forget that it didn’t start with them. The Chimurenga names were for that purpose as well. They were designed for the same purpose too, so they should never fool people to think if they hide under an elusive identity they are sophisticated.
As literate as the Zimbabwean populace is, it is disheartening that there are some Twimbos and sections of the media that are obsessed with pessimism, antagonism and low opinion of themselves. They do not believe in themselves. In their warped wisdom or lack of it, it has to be the next person who should come and rescue them from an imaginary problem that they have, they are using the freedom bought by the blood of the heroes and heroines to sell out the country through virtual communication platforms.
While the public sphere’s convening has been democratised and liberated through new media, the discourse should never be on how much the country should be sold for and to who, rather it should be on improving its socio-economic status with one vision as it strains towards attaining an upper-middle class economy by 2030.
The privately-owned media has been equally culpable through advancement of the pull him down syndrome.
Unfortunately, one does not choose family, family chooses them. These need to be reminded that they are Zimbabweans and they will always be no matter how many times they change identity documents claiming citizenship of other countries, their genealogy will always be traced back to Zimbabwe. And the earlier people realise that the better.
Zimbabwe now needs a more responsible and patriotic citizenry rather than a treacherous and hypocritical one.
Zimbabwe is slowly adopting and nurturing a job-creator mode mindset which is espoused in its Education 5.0 model which seeks to create innovators and a productive industry rather than skilled labour and a supermarket economy. The country’s 2030 vision of becoming a middle-income economy demands a vibrant industry based on a purely Zimbabwean prototype.
As rightly put by Minister of Higher and Tertiary education, Science and Technology Development Professor Amon Murwira, “We have a pleasure and happiness to do degrees but we do not do degrees for pleasure and happiness. We do degrees to produce goods and/or services.”
The country is moving away from the previous mindset of giving more focus on attaining degrees and higher education qualifications so that its citizenry looks for employment. Since 1980, the country has been grappling with these colonial legacies manifesting in the post-colonial Zimbabwe where a few natives owned businesses while the majority of the mining and manufacturing industries belonged to the white minority.
The ripple effects of this imbalanced distribution of wealth albeit having attained independence were greatly felt in the late 90s and early 2000s when the Government sought to correct the colonial injustices and historical imbalances by taking back the land and enabling the involvement of more locals in the productive sector.
The economy was quickly sabotaged by foreign-owned companies who migrated to neighbouring countries in protest against the land reform and to frustrate the Zimbabwean government as had been prescribed by the economic sanctions imposed on her.
People lost employment the import bill parachuted draining the country’s coffers. Zimbabweans have been resilient and refused to succumb to pressures from western economies that are at the helm of the global matrix of power.
A few local players have given heed to Government’s call to start thinking outside the box and respond to the needs of the economy and proffer solutions to the challenges bedevilling the country. The country is grappling with a 95 percent skills deficit in the medical fraternity and 94 percent skills deficit in the engineering sector, a development that has been hampering optimal service delivery and development in general.
The country has five percent of the required skills in the medical fraternity and paltry six percent skills availability in the science sector. Medicine, engineering, agriculture are key drivers of the economy yet they are depleted in terms of skills and qualifications.
The skills audit conducted by Government recently to ascertain the country’s skills levels showed that there is 38 percent skills availability in Zimbabwe which has seen the country failing to upgrade and maintain its own road infrastructure as well as ensuring optimal agricultural production.
As the country attains 41 years of independence it is gratifying that it has started to invest in more technical and relevant degree programmes that drive the economy and industry in order to address the needs of the country.
The Arts sector, which beyond any shadow of doubt produced the greater percentage of the twimbos, has a skills surplus of 13 percent while the Commerce skills have a surplus of 21 percent.
“Engineering has 6 percent skills availability which means there is 94 percent skills deficit that is why we have a very poor road infrastructure. You will be surprised by the state of our roads. Law skills are at 8 percent. If you look into the court rooms you will be shocked. Agriculture has skills levels of 12 percent and there is an 88 percent deficit. This is why sometimes we do not do well in Agriculture. In Arts we have a skills surplus of 13 percent while in Commerce we have a skills surplus of 21 percent,” said Prof Murwira.
He posited that it was incumbent upon Zimbabweans, to embrace the education 5.0 focus on rebuilding the country rather than being obsessed with pessimism. In that regard, Prof Murwira said Government had set up innovation hubs in all State universities that could be utilised by every willing and creative citizen.
The country therefore, needs a positive mindset and a collective effort. While it is not a secret that the country is grappling with economic challenges, the new dispensation has made significant strides in circumventing the illegal economic sanctions tailor-made to make the country suffer penury and languish in abject poverty.
Zimbabwe is the ideal post-colonial country in Africa that is reawakening from neo-colonial machinations.
Democracy cannot be borrowed, it cannot be duplicated, it cannot be replicated, it needs to be defined in the African context. Happy 41 years Zimbabwe.
