The Interview Part 2

PART 2

(After their greetings and small talk, Sibongile launched the session in earnest)

ABS: What’s your strategy on improving other aspects of the Zimbabwean social life – health, politics, religion, standards of living?

PPP: The Progressive People’s Party intends to inherit a welfare state from the National Transition Authority. Savings from an e-government can be used to fund social grants for widows, the elderly, orphans and people living with disabilities. Pensioners must access their moneys without undue delays. Food parcels from NGOs are welcome but honestly speaking a payout in cash makes a whole lot of difference to the lives of these vulnerable people. It gives them choices and a modicum of dignity. Its working wonders in South Africa. It somehow stimulates economic activity. But don’t get me wrong – the intention won’t be that of creating party patronage or dependency syndrome but to alleviate suffering.

ABS: His Excellency, Cde Mugabe was appointed an ambassador of WHO for NCDs but dethroned 2 days down the line due to a global outrage. The health system in the country is in shambles. The elites go overseas for medical attention. How are you going to fix the rot?

PPP: All referral hospitals must be re-stocked with all the necessary drugs and equipment. Money wasted on foreign trips and a bloated cabinet must cater for giving quality health care to the people of this once beautiful country. Remember, with a lean e-government, such savings are possible. Government clinics will also need to be refurbished. Doctors and nurses must be adequately remunerated. Health, like education, should be provided for free.

(Sibongile nods her head)

ABS: Traditional healers, faith healers? We have an avalanche of prophets with huge followings who claim to cure all ailments? Can you somehow capitalise on that?

PPP: Just like we have ZINATHA, religious denominations in the country must be regulated. Faith healers must be registered and their financial records kept for tax purposes. There must be a common code of ethics to be adhered to by all parties concerned to curb unscrupulous practices. We have prophets swindling or fleecing the gullible public of their hard-earned cash. This is a deplorable practice. Men of the cloth are sexually abusing congregants. There are reports of under-age marriages. There are rape cases. All these despicable vices by vicars and prophets must result in de-registration of perpetrators of the crime. Committing crime under the guise of God is unacceptable. Criminal proceedings must be instituted against the so-called-men-of-god if they flout the laws of the country. But if the clergy can heal the people, unite the people, instil good morals, well, that must be encouraged and supported.

ABS: In your social package to the people, what will be the role of traditional leaders?

PPP: Traditional leaders need to be de-politicised through leadership training courses and workshops so that they are able to function well in an e-government. They are free to belong to any party of their choice but they mustn’t misuse their positions to coerce people to vote a particular party. Frog-marching electorates to rallies or threatening citizens must never ever happen in our envisaged new political dispensation. As part of the rebranding exercise, we will design new official traditional attire for our headmen and chiefs. They will have to throw away the ridiculous hats, bangles and trinkets they were given by the colonial regime. Even our judges will also have to discard their wigs. We will revive the old monarchs like the Ndebele Kingdom, the Mutapa Kingdom and the Rozvi Empire as part of our cultural heritage.
Africans need to re-invent themselves. We need to have self-pride, self-respect and self confidence. That is what great luminaries like Steve Biko, Martin Luther King and Malcom X advocated for. We must refuse to be called Blacks. No one is ‘black’ or ‘white’ in the true sense and meaning of those terms. Colour-coding races is very misleading. Furthermore, the word ‘black’ has negative connotations. It reinforces and conjures concepts like the Dark Continent, Dark Ages, black-sheep, black-magic, black-market, blacklisted, blackmail etc etc. In contrast, ‘white’ is associated with chastity, purity or holiness. If there are Blacks of Africa, Whites of Europe, why are there no “Yellows” of China, “Browns” of Asia or “Reds” of Latin America? In short, the black-white narrative is a racial invention whose usage must be discontinued forthwith. The words Nigger, Negro, Kaffir are frowned upon in polite conversation.
Words like chairman and spokesman are now supplanted with chairperson and spokesperson respectively. The words tribe or native is sometimes used to refer to backward local people of Africa or Latin America. Rarely are the terms used to refer to Europeans or North Americans. Ethnic groups in Europe are specified as British, Nordic, Slavic, Irish or Scottish but rarely as native tribes. No wonder Arabs of North Africa cannot be called blacks and people of European descent who were born and bred in Africa are rarely called Africans but Whites! It’s a semantic mess!
We have a judicial process in our local courts conducted in English and an interpreter to translate in vernacular when there is no English person in the court. We have are political leaders speaking English at rallies or press conferences. We have documents and academic books written in English. Our learners are taught in English. Our women aspire to appear English and go to great pains to enlighten their skins, bleach their hair, wear wigs or put artificial hair extensions. It’s so pathetic. Some men always spot clean-shaven heads not out of cleanliness but because they are not proud of their kinky hair. Beside the e-government, we need a language revolution. We need a cultural revolution. We need to rewrite our history. Our children need to be taught about the great civilisations of Africa. We need to glorify our African scientists, inventors and philosophers. We need to take pride in our cultural traditions and beliefs so that we can be proud of ourselves.

ABS: It seems you have everything figured out. Do you have anything else to say on social life come the new dispensation before we can take a break?

PPP:  It will be short-sighted of the political leadership to embark on such social transformation without changing where ordinary people live. Mud and thatch houses are out of place in the digital age. We need to put willing rural folks in planned villages where water, electricity, clinics, public transport, wi-fi and other amenities can be provided. That will require abundant supplies of quality cement, rural and urban planners, architects, engineers and artisans to build new rural and urban settlements for the future digital society, powered by strictly green energy supplies.

ABS: Thank you very much for your fascinating insight into the future but I would want us to take a short break and thereafter continue with our discussion.

PPP: My pleasure, Sibongile.

(They shook hands and adjourned)