On Zimbabwe: 'The best within the confines of the law' can be enough

Evan Mawarire. Credit: BBC

The nation state of Zimbabwe, Southern Africa is yet again in the grip of an economic and social crisis. This is nothing new in Zimbabwe given its travails of the last 10 years which has seen its creeping authoritarianism given full vent under Dr Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party.

Poorly thought through economic policies, cronyism and the recalcitrance of a ruling elite has meant that a country deemed the bread basket of Southern Africa has become a shadow of itself.

The high literacy rate Zimbabwe is famously known for has not been able to be employed to grow the economy and improve ties with the rest of the region and indeed the world, as Mr. Mugabe has become more entrenched in his paranoia about the West. Instead the young , educated and entrepreneurial have been forced to seek greener pastures elsewhere, where their worth is either under- appreciated or envied to the point of being a risk to their lives.

Suffice it to say that the situation in Zimbabwe has given room for an entrenched few and their interests, to perpetuate themselves in power to the detriment of the self-actualization of the many.

Against this backdrop, enter Evan Mawarire. The Zimbabwean Pastor has taken to social media to exhort his fellow citizens of Zimbabwe to down tools and not leave their homes because of the corruption and mismanagement of the economy which has essentially stagnated Zimbabwean society, and prevented the likes of him from self-actualizing and looking after their family's needs.

It can perhaps be said that since Zimbabwe made news headlines in 2009 with the near collapse of its economy and the resultant threat to its social fabric including peaceful co-existence, this is a first for an ordinary citizen to speak out in such a manner against the difficulties he and people like him face every day in Zimbabwe.

He has asked for "Non- violence, non- inciting and stay at home" of his fellow citizens, to spur change. This should force the government of Zimbabwe to deal with the situation in the country, which amounts to a decimation of the economy, and a threat to peaceful co-existence. He describes the action he proposes as "the best within the confines of the law".

The mantra of his #Thisflag movement might well be the cry the citizens of Zimbabwe have been waiting for, to snap the many out of the torpor, that allows for the destructive excesses of the very few.

A threat to societal cohesion and peaceful co-existence writ large

Photo Courtesy of VOA

The aftermath of events in which the police killed two black men in Minnesota and Louisiana, and in which an army veteran- a black man- killed 5 police officers in Dallas Texas, is put in perspective.


Yet again, the loss of innocent lives has prompted soul searching in a nation that prides itself as having built its democracy on a foundation of constant striving for peaceful co-existence, justice and the self actualization of its citizens.


As Barack Obama, President of the United States expressed in his address to some 2000 people in the city of Dallas at a memorial service of the killed police officers, "I've seen how inadequate words can be in bringing about lasting change. I've seen how inadequate my own words have been".


Now that is quite some admission from a leader who it can be argued and with good reason, prides himself in the ability of his words to fire the imagination, to provide perspective, to inspire a fervor for justice.


But how is this so? The answer perhaps lies in the extent to which a people are engaged with a co-existence rooted in fairness and in truth...


It can perhaps be said that an individual, a group of people, an institution or indeed a nation would adopt a position or justify actions however inimical to societal cohesion and hence peaceful co-existence, if nothing serves to challenge these ideas and actions.


It must also perhaps be said that only a constant and committed striving for the values of fairness, inclusion, compassion and justice could possibly be able to pose such a challenge.