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Stephen Mpofu

The world is slowly and steadily, but positively dismembering itself.

“Wow! Wow! Wow” some publics will say in heralding the new development. But other publics, their spirit of self-determination vanquished by a pauperising dependency syndrome will cry; “no! no! no!”

Examples of the world’s progressive dismemberment are galore in post-modernity with Britain’s relentless bid to break away from the European Union one such typical example.

Brexit is apparently motivated by a people fed up with large numbers of European migrants sponging on their natural cake which the country now desires to  preserve  only for its natives as much as possible.

Then we see other EU states tightening up the borders of their hearts and so becoming insular to hordes of African and Middle Eastern fugitives from hunger as well as from political and religious violence with some migrants ending up on the slave markets in Libya and in the custody of those who smuggle them in perilous journeys across the Mediterranean sea where many run-aways have perished after rickety boats taking them to Europe capsized.

Across the Atlantic, in the West, the United States, and only super power after the collapse of the Soviet Union, also appears in a relentless bid to be too close with itself by, for example, turning her back on the Paris Declaration that calls for a world consensus in fighting global warming which poses a universal threat to humanity.

But not only does the US under Republican President Donald Trump have nothing to do with a global assault on global warming with its devastating droughts and floods which ironically do not spare the United States itself; Mr Trump’s most recent controversial goof in which he described some developing countries including those in Africa as “s**thole” states,  probably stands as the clearest example of a leader seeking to isolate its nation from the rest of the world by slamming the door on migrants.

Infuriated and disillusioned by Trump’s being disposed to racism, some black Americans have charged their president with being hell-bent on “making America white again”, something opposed to his election campaign rhetoric about his wish “to make America strong again” if he became president.

Closer to home and (yes, you) come to think of it, Africa also appears politically intent on doing things the continent’s way.

The Southern African Development Community in which Zimbabwe is a member, for example, appears driven by an unflinching intrepidity to monitor elections through representatives from the African Union as well as those drawn from Sadc in ensuring that the polls are free, fair and credible.

Many years into freedom and independence Africans have surely achieved  the requisite political maturation to keep their own houses in order  rather than have their erstwhile colonial masters telling them how to mind their own political business.

Moreover, angered at being given short shrift when their rule was at its scintillating peak, it is no exaggeration by this pen to suggest that former colonial powers may still have an axe to grind against those that sent them away packing and might therefore be prejudicial in their reading of African elections to try to fix those former colonies that vehemently oppose contemporary imperialism.

That successful elections last year in Angola, a former  Portuguese colony, were not observed by people from outside the continent amply demonstration that the AU as well as SADC and other regional African organisations have the capacity to observe elections on African soil.

However, this development does not mean that Africa would drift away from the global village to become a complete stand-alone from the community of nations.

Indeed, that dismemberment does not suggest an end to financial and technical assistance from the more developed to the less developed states.

In any case, financial aid is business and not a mere windfall and is paid back with interest to the donor’s benefit.

What the dismemberment movement means especially for Zimbabwe and other African states is that self initiative team work and patriotism become more imperative now than ever before  in political, economic and social development.

The spirit of unity, industry as well as prudent and maximum deployment of a nation’s human and material resources should take centre stage in a people’s self-emancipation.

This, incidentally coincides with the new dispensation in which our Zimbabwean nation finds itself today and which stresses the effect that first and foremost Zimbabweans are their own redeemers with outsiders coming in to help by putting the icing on the cake.

Which also means that while the country is on a war path against corruption – the  enemy number one in the economic turnaround that the new administration is working to bring about – everything possible should be done by the government in mobilising financial as well as material support from millions of Zimbabweans out there in the world  diaspora.

If India and Mexico have, among many other countries, amply demonstrated how their nations in the diaspora can help in national economic  and social development,  there is absolutely no reason why Zimbabwe cannot benefit from the sweat of its  hardworking sons and daughters abroad. But, of course, the proviso for roping in aid from the diasporans is a conducive investment environment where capital from abroad does not fall into holed pockets or bottomless pits.

When Zimbabweans working abroad are assured of the prudent use of their money back home – and see proof of that for themselves – they will surely  willingly invest their sweat back in their native country, knowing that their own future and that of their children and children’s children is guaranteed.

When more Zimbabwean workers in the diaspora remit their money back home, a time might come when it might no longer be necessary for the country to run around holding the begging basket to the outside world, especially if developmental targets similar to those given by President Emmerson Mnangagwa for each cabinet minister to achieve are met to make the economy more buoyant and attractive to investors.

When all has been said, the future of this country must in the final analysis remain in the hands of Zimbabweans themselves in the same way as other Africans must be the custodians of their own economies through indefatigable hard work and patriotism.