Makoni Blasts "Fake National Healing", Destruction Of Health and Education

Dr Simba Makoni, Interim President of Mavambo.Kusile.Dawn political party, delivers the keynote address at the YMCA/YWCA gathering at Ranche House College in Harare today. He spoke about the need for genuine national healing, job creation and giving future generation a solid foundation with world-class education in order for Zimbabweans of the future to be able to properly integrate themselves into the Global Village



Harare, Zimbabwe, 13 November 2009

Dr Simba Makoni was invited to a "Week of Prayer" gathering by the YMCA of Zimbabwe today, where he spoke on the topic of Global citizenship.

Makoni bemoaned what he termed the lack of "genuine national healing and reconciliation", saying that Zimbabweans who have been traumatised over the last decade or so can not easily be assimilated back into the global village until they get healing and justice.

To him, he says, true healing and justice starts with the individual and this is why the process can not be led by politicians with vested interests or any politician for that matter.

His other point was that the people of Zimbabwe, especially the young generation, have been denied the possibility of a brighter future by the destruction of education and health. One can not be a globally competitive citizen of the world unless one is equipped with the skills and the health to be able to take the best that the world has to offer.

The YMCA/YWCA gathering has also drawn delegates from other African countries, including Mozambique, the DRC and Namibia.

One lady who stood up after Dr Makoni finished his speech said it was eerie that, although the Mavambo president spoke in a Zimbabwean context and geared his address to a Zimbabwean audience, his points raised things happening in her own country, Mozambique.

Makoni had drawn an analogy between the global village and a typical and normal African Village, which he said has always operated on the basis of unwritten but widely observed laws within the community. There was never need for anybody to take the law into their hands if they felt hard done by. They knew that they could always rely on the Chief or Headman to apply the laws fairly to everybody.

Today, it is different, "there are different sets of laws for different sets of people," Makoni said, pointing out that offences against one group could be ignored by the law enforcement agents if the group was thought to be undesirable by the authorities, whereas in an African village, the law applied equally even to the most hated man in that village.

One point of interest that he brought up was the issue of the delay in justice, with the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe, for instance, sitting on a 33 month backlog of cases to be heard. "Justice delayed is justice denied," he told the gathering.

The former Finance Minister of Zimbabwe also revealed that, right now, Zimbabwe;s supermarket operators say that the goods on their shelves are 85 imports and 155 locally manufactured goods.

The same supermarket owners say that in days gone by, before Zimbabwe's decline, 80% of the goods on their shelves were Zimbabwean-made, with the remainder being merely imported luxuries.

Makoni explained to the meeting that the high rate of imports means that our industrial capacity is still not being utilised. Which means there are no jobs in those factories that are operating at between 10% and 25% capacity.

"What will our people use to buy those imported goods that now fill our shelves. We are the ones who should be exporting, creating greater employment opportunities for our children here in Zimbabwe and our youths."

"We are now a trading economy, and a trading economy can not absorb the potential workforce we have in this country."

The last part of his address dealt with leaders of Zimbabwe, some of whom he said go to church every Sunday and claim to be Christians, "yet they can watch and preside over 'long sleeve, short sleeve' - what sort of Christians are they?"

Long sleeve, short sleeve is the practice from the June presidential election run off last year, when people were mutilated after being asked whether they preferred long sleeves (hackingoff of the hand) or short sleeves (hacking off of the entire arm).

It was a well-received speech.


Comments

  1. It's encouraging that the people involved are turning to prayers at a time like this. It can't be a good experience to live through. The hardest part must be the feeling of desperation and hopelessness at not being able to do anything about it.

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