The Zimbabwe Disease

This is Warren Park 1 Primary School in Harare on Tuesday this last week, 15 September 2009. Teachers are reporting for duty but refusing to teach, yet parents are still sacrificing their comfort to send their children to school, But one reader here believes Zimbabweans now despise education. Because he has no education himself, he wants to lead all parents to abandon sending their children to school and reduce Zimbabwe to a Stone Age country whose people can not even drive car

Harare, Zimbabwe, 19 September 2009

I have just published a comment under the story about Jonathan Moyo's return to ZANU PF and any Zimbabwean who wishes to see what is wrong with us as a people and our country ought to read it.

Not only is it vulgar, emotional and uncouth, but it also is the chief reason why the recovery of Zimbabwe is not taking place.

The writer is obviously in the grips of his emotions and does not look at facts on the ground at all.

In his convoluted, vulgar and twisted emotional turmoil, he seems to be attempting to make the point that Zimbabwe does not need educated people in office. This is a common tactic with people who are afraid of politicians like Simba Makoni, who have a good education.

He does not sound like a Zimbabwean at all, which explains the attempt to mislead Zimbabweans and to misrepresent our people by saying that Zimbabweans do not want educated people leading them anymore.

On the contrary, my good sir, Zimbabweans now want educated leaders more than ever. You just have to speak with them and interact with them to realise this.

Today, although we have a collapsing education system, parents are still going to the extent of starving themselves, literally, in order to give their kids a good education.

People's objections to Morgan Tsvangirai have nothing to do with his education. Unfortunately, Tsvangirai supporters have an inferiority complex about their leader's education levels. They need not feel this way. Doing so reveals that they have an inferiority complex, something which is unZimbabwean. Oh yes, Zimbabweans do not have an inferiority complex ever.

I am sure you have noticed that it is only Morgan Tsvangirai supporters who bring up education at the most inappropriate times.

For the record then, although I have said this before, I will put it down for the last time:

Even David Livingstone accepted his first book about his travels around Zambia, the Zambezi and Zimbabwe that some of the leaders he met where extremely intelligent. Several times in his volumes, he makes the point that these leaders were cleverer than some of the peasants he knew back in the United Kingdom.

I have also said before that we have proof in our time that degrees are not a measure of intelligence. I know people with degrees in physics who can barely put together a reasoned argument.

On the other hand, one of the most capable Prime Ministers the United Kingdom ever had was John Major, who only had "A" Levels and no degrees. Yet he presided over stability in the UK that was the envy of most of Europe.

Zimbabweans, sir, only want a capable leader, one who has intelligence and can negotiate and beat his opponents at the table.

With or without a degree or a Phd.

So stop trying to infect people with your inferiority complex.

The issue of education and degrees is a red herring, waved about every time Tsvangirai supporters are stumped for an argument.

I feel for them. I know where they are coming from.

Their leader, the Prime Minister, even if he had 1000 Phds, would still behave in the same manner. It is who he is and he can not change that.

Idi Amin had no education at all that we can speak and he made huge mistakes in running Uganda. He killed so many of his own people and was the Court Jester of the International World.

But we can not blame his lack of education for his behaviour. He would still have become what he became even if he had a million degrees. It was his nature.

It would be mistake to allow emotions to cloud your judgement of your enemy. As I have pointed out before, one of my mot favourite cartoons is from the late 1800s, after the British army had been annihilated by the Zulus in South Africa.

The cartoon shows an English gentleman sitting on a stool in front of a blackboard, with a Zulu warrior writing on that board (like a teacher) the sentence: "Thou Shalt Not Despise Thine Enemy..."

This gentleman (if he called be that) who left the comment is dangerous to Zimbabweans because he would like nothing more than for all of us to abandon education and become a nation of peasants, to make it easier for him to enslave us.

He would like to see Zimbabwe go back to the dark ages, when we marvelled at the wonders of newly arrived foreigners, shook our heads at their inventions and declared them to be gods because we did not understand their machines.

He prefers to deal with a Zimbabwean population that despises itself and looks up to foreigners.

He has missed the boat, unfortunately. Even the majority of MDC supporters now accept that, although education is not necessary to indicate intelligence, it is necessary to train the mind to think logically and strategise, to understand the complex modern world in which technology is becoming more and more indispensable.

No nation that despises education will ever thrive. That has been proven.

Which is why all good Zimbabwean parents are going to bed hungry in order to pay school and exam fees.

You are all alone, sir. And that must explain your bitterness and emotional turmoil. Your comment says more about your kind than it does about Zimbabweans.