Capitalist N*ggers
So, they are at it again, the capitalist n*ggers [apologies to Chika Onyeani, author of the book by the same name], wearing black empowerment caps but having nefarious self-aggrandising hearts. Someone Tweeted the other day about how Robert Mugabe inspired the spirit of hard work in Zimbabwe, but the twit neglected to mention it is economic mismanagement that inspired the so-called hard work that has earned and turned many into veritable entrepreneurs. We all know that there is nothing like “hard work pays” in Zimbabwe, you just have to listen to the stories of the few men and women still in formal employment who have locked up managers, beaten up company executives because of the unpaid hard work they put in but at the end of the month take mouthfuls home empty promises. It is no wonder then that when you talk to anyone, virtually all poor Zimbabweans have dreams about waking up in the morning with stupendous wealth, and this is writ large when you follow the dogfight emerging from the black empowerment band wagon. Argghh, the pomposity with which some of these capitalist n*ggers speaketh.
You just have to recall the visit to the United States a few months ago where the empowerment crusade was taken, and you could see this former journalist dude speaking as if he had all the answers about anything, yet today a firebrand jailbird is giving it to him claiming missing dosh, thanks to these unsanctioned foreign jaunts. It was US acting President Ronald Regean [he was a former actor you see] whose wisecracks have become stuff of legend who quipped, “Hard work never killed anyone, but I figure, why take the chance.” Exactly. No hard work, just claim your economic birth right as a black Zimbabwean and you got it made. It will be recalled the “deposed” AAG president said it loud and proud that Zimbabwean folks gotta strike now for the indigenisation drive will not last forever, “don’t say we will come home to invest when thing are all right, the time is now,” the Muezzin bellowed from the roof tops. Everyone has come to know all claims to black empowerment in the name of spread wealth to the poor is nothing but a smokescreen for government officials and their associates to strip the land of its wealth. You just have to look at the community trusts created in mining areas that have been riddled with controversy as government officials fall over each other depriving toothless grannies of at their right to tea with milk and bread with butter in their twilight years. And what do you know, these are the same people who still insist it is these same grannies who will vote for them in the next election! Upfumi kuvhanu, perhaps the worst misnomer to emerge in Zimbabwe’s post-independence discourse.