FELLOW ZIMBABWEANS If we arent willing to pay a price for our values, then we should ask ourselves whether we truly believe in them at all. Life doesnt count for much unless youre willing to do your small part to leave our children – all of our children – a better world. Even if its difficult. Even if the work seems great. Even if we dont get very far in our lifetime. I am not underestimating the task beforehand. We still have to cross many rivers and climb many mountains, especially at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized - at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails Zimbabwe at the feet of those who think differently than we do - its important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds. We’ve come to be consumed by a 24-hour, slash-and-burn, negative ad, bickering, small-minded politics that doesn’t move us forward. Sometimes one side is up and the other side is down. But there’s no sense that they are coming together in a common-sense, practical, non ideological way to solve the problems that we face. When you start just focusing exclusively on trying to tear the other person down instead of what you are going to do on behalf of Zimbabweans to deal with this economy, then thats not serving your party, thats not serving opposition, thats not serving anybody I am convinced that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose. Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose. For its precisely the pursuit of ideological purity, the rigid orthodoxy and the sheer predictability of our current political debate, that keeps us from finding new ways to meet the challenges we face as a country. Its what keeps us locked in either/or thinking: the notion that we can only have new constitution or not; the assumption that we must either tolerate 15 million without bread-the-table or embrace a paradigm shift I think the Zimbabweans, at their core, are a decent people. I think that we still have prejudice in our midst but I think that the vast majority of Zimbabweans are willing to judge people on the basis of, you know, their ideas and their character. And in the case of the presidency, I think what is most important is whether the Zimbabweans think that you understand their hopes and dreams and struggles and whether they think that you can actually help them achieve those hopes and dreams.
Posted on: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 11:09:46 +0000
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