On Friday morning as people were rushing to work I paid a visit to the barbershop. After spending almost a month without getting my hair cut, and also missing the city gossip from my barber man, I made my booking early.

As I was sitting on the bench waiting my turn I could hear whispering coming from two men sitting next to me. So I moved closer so that I could hear their discussion. I remember when I was growing up my mom used to tell me that men should not gossip but here I was eavesdropping and pretending to be reading the newspaper. I was staring at the COPAC draft Constitution summary published in the state-controlled newspaper.  Still trying to position my ears like a satellite receiver, my turn arrived and I grabbed the chair with my ears still attached to the conversation.

“Haa unonyepa haihwine” meaning you lie its not going to win. At first I thought it was a soccer match but later I heard names of political parties being mentioned. Why are these men whispering I asked my barber man?  He replied with a smile and said they are talking politics. They are arguing over the draft constitution, he added. The two gentlemen were in a debate on who will claim victory if the ‘YES” vote prevails in the referendum and does it also mean a certain party can triumph in the coming elections based on the referendum outcome. All I could hear were arguments – not many facts – maybe this was due to self-censorship, or maybe they hadn’t read a copy of the draft constitution.

Since this barbershop is also frequented by Members of Parliament (MPs),  I was told the debate started a week ago when one MP was saying that after the “YES” he predicts a win for his party in the harmonized elections in July. I asked for an opinion from my barber man and all he could say was that it depends on the situation.

Since it was a public place he was self-censoring his opinion.

Critics of regimes where hardships thrive are quickly labelled anti-revolutionary, pro-white capital and every epithet from the lexicon of rabid nationalists who have doubled their resolve to right past economic wrongs but in the process lost sight of their goals.

I recalled this when I watched on TV young fellows walking in celebration of the President’s birthday where the spokesperson of the young patriots parroted the kind of language that has come to define Zanu PF.

I did not know whether to laugh or cry.

You have on one hand youth NGOs being harassed by the repressive state apparatus, while many more others such as those who have emerged from academic hallways as student activists being hounded by men in dark glasses.

On the other extreme you have fellow youths adopting the lexicon of hate speech and you have to ask why the circumstances of this demographic can elicit such radically polar interpretations.

Are these young people from the same planet, you wonder.

Surely one’s political beliefs are a democratic right, yet when such differences are extant, you have to view this as a typical case of privilege pitted against deprivation.

And when you look at it like that, you obviously conclude that these people who would be saddled with the same post-independence “born-free” epithet from the usual suspects have different access to state resources when in fact that wealth ought to be universal.

And that is the tragedy of present day Zimbabwe.

Those “eating” from the trough of patronage imagine a perpetuation of the status quo, while the laggards aspiring for a piece of the national cake seek its end.

With elections approaching, it is no wonder then to see young people fighting each other, and the political elites who many agree long lost their relevance find these young mouths to reclaim that relevance.

It is Benjamin Disraeli who wrote in the political novel Sybil back in 1846 that: “The youth of a nation are the trustees of posterity.”

You have to ask yourself if this at all holds true here.

An excerpt from an interview the late Prof. Solomon Mutswairo gave in 1998. Makes wonder why these “un-telegenic” so-called nationalist public intellectuals fail to see the hypocrisy and futility of their rhetoric.

Angela A. Williams: Dr Tafataona Mahoso believes that Zimbabweans should begin constructing their own African reality in this post-colonial era. Do you agree, and how does writing poetry in English fit into your belief?

Solomon Mutswairo: Well, there has been a lot of talk about going back to our culture. I have no quarrels with that. There is nothing wrong with going back to one’s culture. But culture is a dynamic force; it is something that grows. We cannot think in terms of going back a hundred years into our culture. I believe since it is dynamic, we should accept that dynamism which seeps into our present society rather than wholly accepting those cultural norms that are no longer timely. So, thinking along those lines, I should like to think that those elements of our culture that are good, acceptable, should be retained. And those which are not will fall apart. Therefore, we will be forging ahead with a new culture, a hybrid kind of culture, which incorporates both the Western and the traditional. I do not believe I could be an advocate for a purely traditional culture in Zimbabwe, because we are now greatly influenced by other cultures, particularly the Western culture, which includes European and American. And American influence is very great, not only in this country but throughout the world, in terms of clothing and food and music and dance and general thinking. So, how are we going to retain purely that which is Zimbabwean? I say that we live in a culture within cultures, a new culture in Zimbabwe that fits our young. This is quite obvious in our music. The most popular music is not quite traditional. More particularly, it is more Western, which means our culture is moving from one phase to another. So, that’s what I believe. Are you going to dictate to the people to accept a particular cultural element, or are the people going to choose? So, what the people want is going to be an established kind of culture. It cannot be dictated. For example, I have never seen Dr Mahoso engaged in the traditional dances although he advocates going back to tradition. And I’ve never seen any of these educated people engaged in our traditional dances. They are like pieces in a museum that they would like to preserve.