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Joram Nyathi Group Political Editor
I READ about the Battle of Isandlwana between a British invasion force and the Zulus on January 22, 1879 a long way back when I was at school. It is recorded as one of the first major military encounters between the British and the Zulus which would ultimately lead to the final defeat of the Zulu with the fall of Ulundi, the kingdom’s capital under Cetshwayo. These became known as the Anglo-Zulu wars.

Tourism and Hospitality Industry Minister Walter Mzembi must have been in that war, on the side of the Zulus.

The following brief narrative may not be entirely correct, but it captures the spirit of my article. I just did a cursory check on Wikipedia.

It is said a Zulu force of about 20,000 attacked a column of 1,800 British, colonial and native troops at Isandlwana near the Tugela River in one of the many wars of resistance to colonial invasion.

This is how Wikipedia describes the encounter, and that’s what interests me: “The Zulus were equipped mainly with the traditional assegai iron spears and cow-hide shields, but also had a number of muskets and old rifles though they were not formally trained in their use. The British and colonial troops were armed with the state-of-the-art Martini-Henry breech-loading rifle and two 7-pounder (3-inch, 76mm) mountain guns deployed as field guns as well as a rocket battery.

“Despite a vast disadvantage in weapons technology, the numerically superior Zulus ultimately overwhelmed the poorly-led and badly-deployed British, killing over 1,300 troops, including all those out on the forward firing line. The Zulu army suffered around a thousand killed. The battle was a decisive victory for the Zulus and caused the defeat of the first British invasion of Zululand. The British army had suffered its worst defeat against a technologically-inferior indigenous force.”

In modern journalistic parlance, we would say the British were humiliated.

I don’t know if King Cetshwayo was aware of what his Impi was up against when he launched his war of resistance. They were always good at reconnaissance. But they didn’t have the technology. That meant the king relied on whatever he was told in terms of the military strength of the enemy – number of men and weaponry. But there was always a desire to fight, to defend the kingdom, to preserve it, to dream about it growing bigger.

– Enter Muzembi-
His is not something as epic. However, out of the rubble, the devastation wrought by 15 years of a war of attrition with Britain and its allies, he can still dream.

Sure, Zimbabwe has high unemployment. The old economy is shrinking while the new takes its time to blossom. Health service delivery is crippled, relieved only by the miraculous separation of Siamese twins at Harare Central Hospital, often derogatorily described as a place of death. Infrastructure is in need of a major surgical operation. Zesa, Zesa, Zesa. Education is in trouble.

These are the bread and butter issues which we are told we should immerse ourselves in, never raise our eyes to see positive possibilities. They are the stuff of all serious minded people, especially politicians who run this country.

Thankfully, we had a good harvest last season, something potentially not anticipated by Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa when he presented his growth projections in the 2014 National budget.

Still, in this miasma of apocalyptic gloom, Mzembi tells Parliament, “I spoke to Fifa president Sepp Blatter during the 2010 Fifa World Cup in South Africa and he told me that it was possible for Zimbabwe to host the 2034 Fifa World Cup as long as we keep on having such big dreams and vision.”

He added, for a full measure, “Nothing can stop us from hosting the 2034 Fifa World Cup and we are going to put our bid to host it no matter what.”

The day following these remarks in Parliament by Minister Mzembi I was unfortunate to listen to a radio programme by one Jackson something where he was talking to soccer administrator Sambo and some guys about Mzembi’s dream and Zimbabwe’s chances of hosting the Fifa World Cup.

This is almost 20 years away, but I must confess that I was shocked by the amount of negative energy Zimbabweans can emit. It can consume a diamond. It was one of the most painful experiences of listening to radio.

Literally everyone of the panellists went out to pillory Mzembi as a dreamer who dwelt in cloudland away from the lived reality of ordinary Zimbabweans. These doomsayers could not envisage relief in Zimbabwe’s seamless, inexorable stretch of devastation even 20 years later. It was a cloud without the slightest trace of silver lining. It was devastation, total ruin without a flicker of hope.

Each one in turn luxuriated in their individual encounter with the state of a nation which should never dream about the World Cup, let alone hosting it. They said we must think and talk only about bread and butter issues even as they sneered at Zim-Asset as a blueprint by which the country could leverage itself out of Hades.

I concluded that this was the everlasting legacy of negative politics in Zimbabwe. Everyone now repeats the daft “bread and butter” slogan without thinking about just how limiting it can be.

It was in that state of defeat that I had a vision of King Cetshwayo and his poorly-armed Impi confronting the British military. What hope was there for the African warriors at Isandlwana against a colossal British Empire which straddled the globe then?

I imagine that Zimbabwe’s own warriors had much inferior weapons than the Zulus when they confronted the British later in 1893 and 1896. But they had spirit, they had to meet the challenge of the time with whatever they had at their disposal.

Fast-forward to the 1960s, the period of Mugabe and Nkomo. When the decision was taken to resort to the armed struggle they didn’t possess a single gun. And they knew the Rhodesian army was deadly armed. They did not lick their wounds in despair. Something had to be done. And it was done.

One doesn’t have to support Zim-Asset to see the silver lining in our cloud. So many changes can happen in 20 years. It’s not all about foreign investment on any terms. Even in this gloom, there are companies mapping out visions.

While it is possible to dismiss Mzembi’s vision and dream as outlandish, is it also not possible to take it as a challenge? How is it impossible for Zimbabwe to host the World Cup 20 years from now? What stops us? What needs to be done and what must be done for us to be able to do it? Why invest so much energy in the impossibility of doing it?

These are the same people who, against their own personal experience, if the IMF team woke up tomorrow to claim 5 million people faced starvation in rural Zimbabwe, they would blindly endorse that view. We believe and have greater faith and confidence in others more than we trust our own senses. Why is there more faith and trust in the efficacy of IMF and World Bank prescriptions than there is in Zim-Asset, a document which is homegrown?

We trust foreign gods to save us more than we do our own. What a lost generation, a soulless nation!

Mzembi perhaps had a reason to be ebullient about hosting the Fifa World Cup following Zimbabwe’s successful co-hosting of the United Nations WTO meeting with Zambia in August last year. This came amid tension in which Zanu-PF had just posted a devastating electoral victory the previous month while the MDC-T made the now familiar protests of vote rigging. It was a nervous moment, hence the sweetness of success. President Mugabe was later to describe Mzembi as one of his “best ministers”.

He can still raise his eyes above the gloom, and that should be a challenge to us all.

“The greatest weapon in the hand of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed,” said South Africa’s famous Black Consciousness pioneer, Steve Biko.

Zimbabwe is proving to be its own oppressor.