No one and nothing holds our future but ourselves. It is at the point of decision-making that our destiny will be shaped; we need creative minds that will see and reimagine our politics to open the doors that will let the future in.
Arguably, our present circumstances are the preparation of ZANU PF but our future is our creation. Memories from the 1980s should help us build our future. The future may seem a distance away but it begins now; it starts right now! I know too where everything is hidden, it is not in ZANU PF but lies in our daily routine; change that, we change our destiny.
To be comfortable with our future, we have to take charge of it; it must not come neither as a shock nor a surprise to us, we must welcome it but remember too that it will soon be our past. A move to the future is an unending process; as Matabele citizens, we have got to keep pressing on.
We cannot move towards the future by merely lying down on the tracks of history waiting for the train to the future to run us over. Looking back and feeling sorry for ourselves is no way to the future neither is standing by nor complaining about our circumstances. We remember the past for the lessons drawn from it; we do take inspiration from it but let us not forget that our lives belong in the future.
Predicting that which you have no control over is a difficult job; for that reason the best way of predicting Matabeleland’s future is for Matabeles to invent it. We cannot develop anything unless we can envision it in our minds; we need to visualise the Matabeleland we want and then start building and living it now.
As I have said in the past, let us plan the Matabeleland we need, look at what is possible and prioritise our goals now. We need to acknowledge that our political needs and wants lie outside the Zimbabwean State scheme of things.
I believe that our future must not be left to chance; the future is a matter of choice; it is not to be waited for but something to be achieved. The current Zimbabwean government has had more than 35 years in which it could have served Matabeleland for Matabeleland but has, with calculation and deceit, abdicated that responsibility.
We are not naive to think the journey will be easy; it will never be straight forward but littered with obstructions. We will be crushed at times; we will meet rejection. All we need to do is believe we will succeed and just keep pressing on.
MTHWAKAZI INDEPENDENT 