[civsoc-mw] : Zimbabwe. Telling it like it is. An open letter from detained Zimbabwe journalist, Hopewell Chin'ono

[Keyboard Boyd Kilembey]

Zimbabwe is a hopeless case. The main problem is the Shona vs ndèbele
mentality.

On Tue, 28 Jul 2020, 12:51 , <cammack at mweb.co.za> wrote:

>
> Date: 27 July 2020 at 22:06
> Subject: Zimbabwe. Telling it like it is. An open letter from detained
> Zimbabwe journalist, Hopewell Chin'ono
>
> A brave and powerful letter of resistance from Hopewell Chin’ono. Local
> and international efforts continue to secure his quick release.
>
>
>
> *CHIN'ONO LETTER FROM PRISON !*
>
>
>
> 26-07-2020.
>
>
>
> HARARE---I have made a deliberate and sensible choice not to lower my
> expectations in life and be part of the “Stay Positive” brigade and that
> decision is non-negotiable.
>
> That nonsense of being asked to stay positive when there is nothing to be
> positive about is what made this country the absolute Shit Hole it is today!
>
>
>
> At a social level, this “Shinga Mwanangu” claptrap has seen our sisters
> live miserable marriages generation after generation, whilst being pummeled
> daily by bullying and horrible husbands.
>
> This is NO different to what the Emmerson Mnangagwa regime is doing to us
> by refusing to fully implement Political Reforms that would set this
> country on a strong economic footing.
>
> What is there to be positive about in this country and why should citizens
> be asked to suffer whilst smiling at the outcomes of their tormentor’s
> cruelty, a tormentor that does not seek to change his ways?
>
> We have no clean running water, no electric power, no jobs, no money, no
> political will to Reform from Emmerson Mnangagwa, no fuel, we have
> CORRUPTION galore, no health care, nepotism and mismanagement of State
> institutions continues, looting of State and national resources also
> continues unabated, fraud by the political elites remains standard and yet
> you expect Hopewell Chin’ono and the country to be positive?
>
> Positive about what exactly?
>
> We have no bright future under this regime and it is deliberately killing
> that future for generations to come, should we be smiling to that tragic
> reality?
>
> NO! I will not lower my standards and join the “Stay Positive” brigade in
> a hole by making life there comfortable instead of getting out and seeking
> a normal human existence.
>
> My father taught me that if you are in a hole, don’t make life there
> comfortable, GET OUT.
>
> The elites have been making life in our hole comfortable for themselves by
> buying generators, buying solar equipment installations, drilling
> boreholes, buying 4 X 4s, seeking medical treatment from South Africa and
> the list goes on.
>
> What my father taught me is what I have chosen to do, I have chosen to be
> on the right side of history, I have chosen to be with the people, and that
> requires me to work on getting out of that hole!
>
> I have made this choice at a time when I could have been with the
> tormentors making millions like what the Regime Associates do daily, but
> that is not how I was brought up!
>
> I might not live to see a better Zimbabwe through natural or unnatural
> circumstances, but I am at peace with the decisions that I have made, and I
> am not afraid to die for holding those principles.
>
> Many have asked me about that probability as a price for speaking out, I
> respectfully ask you not to ask me anymore.
>
> I know the price for speaking against a gangster State, but more
> importantly, I also know the huge price for keeping quiet.
>
> It is a soft genocide that we are seeing everyday as we bury our loved
> ones dying in hospitals without medication.
>
> We shall all die, but it is what we leave behind that will count many
> centuries after we are gone, so I am at peace with any such eventuality
> were it to happen to me.
>
> It has happened to many others, and it shall happen to many others too
> until our politics becomes civilized.
>
> I am a product of my existence and as such, what I say and what I do with
> my life is a reflection of how I was brought up by my parents!
>
> We live under an incompetent and corrupt government that hires private
> jets for Vice Presidents, a Government that dishes out cars to traditional
> Chiefs when hospitals have NO ambulances!
>
> A government that has left the poor to die from easily treatable diseases
> and turned public hospitals into death traps, and yet some amongst us have
> the nerve to ask me to stay positive?!
>
> We have been asked to stay positive since 1997 when this crisis began,
> what has that positivity yielded for our people 22 years later?
>
> Some make these calls whilst sitting in their Range Rovers or call me from
> air-conditioned mansions in Harare asking me to be positive.
>
> It shows the huge and shameful disconnect between the Haves and the
> Have-Nots of this country and it also shows that whilst making their
> millions, the elites of this country will continue being happy cohabiting
> with this regime’s broken moral compass!
>
> I want to put it on the record, until this government starts doing the
> right things, it’s Regime Associates and Apologists should Stop asking me
> to be positive!
>
> It is nonsense and it is insensitive to ask me to be positive when I am
> seeing compatriots die daily because of this government’s shortcomings!
>
> I do not seek to be accommodated at the feeding trough like many amongst
> us, that is why I turned down the offer to sit on a parastatal board when
> it was made last year, what I am after is a better life for all.
>
> A life that gives all hard working citizens of this country a fair chance
> to live a decent life.
>
> They will never get it at the rate at which this government is destroying
> our country, they will never get these opportunities if elites continue to
> seek accommodation instead of CHANGE in return to keeping their business
> interests going!
>
> The selfishness of the elites is only truly self evident when those
> opportunities are blocked for their own kids, that is only when they join
> the masses in protesting.
>
> But why would they complain when they were getting forex at 1 to 1 and
> when they don’t spend hours in fuel queues like the ordinary citizen?
>
>
>
> There is a name for that, SELFISHNESS!
>
>
>
> I come from Murewa where one of the first black millionaire businessmen in
> Rhodesia, Mr Kanyasa of the Farai Uzumba bus service fame chose principle
> over money.
>
> He died in a Rhodesian jail fighting the racist colonial regime’s
> oppression and racist corruption.
>
> There were many black businessmen like him who made profit not for
> profit’s sake.
>
> Those are my heroes, those are the people that I look up to because they
> understood that being rich on the back of regime favors in a pool of
> government induced poverty is the equivalent of losing your soul to the
> devil.
>
> If they had taken the “stay positive” route, Rhodesia would have stayed in
> colonial and racist shackles forever or much longer than was necessary.
>
> Mr Kanyasa from Uzumba and of the Wafawanaka totem had the largest fleet
> of buses in Rhodesia, a hard working millionaire businessman.
>
> He also had supermarkets and land, but he chose to support the liberation
> struggle giving freedom fighters clothes, food and money and allowing his
> buses to ferry them where need be.
>
> He paid the ultimate price for it, but today he remains an icon of our
> liberation struggle and to this very day those with a moral compass
> remember him in their thoughts.
>
> I have no such wealth like Mr Kanyasa, so why should I reduce and recede
> my integrity by tacitly supporting a broken regime when a man who could
> have thought of saving his millions chose to do the right thing?
>
> I have questioned myself why black millionaires of today and political
> elites become so insensitive to the suffering of our people to the point of
> losing their moral compass and expecting someone who is going to bed on an
> empty stomach to be sensitive!
>
> Positive about what?
>
> “Being positive” doesn’t fix political and economic problems, it doesn’t
> fix crippling power shortages, drug shortages, cash shortages, fuel
> shortages or water shortages.
>
> If it did we would have been living in a better country where the citizen
> was happy!
>
> It shows that we have NO decent community and business leadership when
> people in privileged positions in our society ask us to be positive in the
> midst of an uncaring Regime.
>
> It shows that we have NO leadership when the privileged define silence
> against a corrupt regime as patriotism!
>
> This government has induced a chaotic existence in pursuit of easy
> pickings from things like fuel cartels and forex trading at the central
> bank, the RBZ!
>
> This “stay positive” brigade is shameless because they speak from their
> own position of privilege and they are unconcerned by why we are not
> positive as long as their lives remain on track and their interests are
> protected?
>
> The regime is aware of this weakness so it seeks to co-opt them and
> pretends to sort out their economic concerns through tinkering with the
> economy whilst the looting continues, and the regime also gives them futile
> seats on the table to feel special.
>
> When truth, justice and common sense become secondary elements to one’s
> existence, when decency, empathy and compassion become tradable
> commodities, then the “stay positive” brigade becomes NO different to our
> persecutors!
>
> It is aiding and abetting the suffering of our people in pursuit of
> business favors from this regime.
>
> This regime should simply implement Political Reforms and stop asking for
> “positivity” from citizens groaning under a political crisis that manifests
> itself through economics, when it is giving us nothing in return!
>
> If you so wish to be positive about this gross incompetence, corruption,
> nepotism and mismanagement, please do so on your own, but don’t attempt to
> guilty trip us into supporting the very people who have made our lives
> unbearable!
>
> Stop asking me to be positive, Ask Mnangagwa to implement Political
> Reforms!
>
>
>
>  HOPEWELL CHIN'ONO is an award winning Zimbabwean international Journalist
> and Documentary Filmmaker.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
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