Career Choice Cross Roads

First President of Zimbabwe Canaan Banana & First President SA Nelson Mandela

Before I turned 40 I never imagined I would ever be passionate about Zimbabwean politics the way I am now until I started engaging Zimbabwe from diverse backgrounds in 2008.

My life before that was centred around spending my free time socialising with South African middle class and grass-roots families. I was basically just one of those working professionals who was inspired by American Black celebs like 2Pac, Snoop Dogg, Dre Dre and the Luther Vandros, TP, Monica & MJB's with a touch of Kwaito and South African Jazz artist.

Zimbabwe politics is like a drug addiction, it's hard to pull out once you have immersed yourself and understand the deep challenges faced by Zimbabweans. 

Though in the back of my mind I have been building up enough courage to enter active politics before the end of 2016, my experience working with a small group of Zimbabweans is making me have doubts about my intentions to commit my time and resources in a more aggressive and visible manner on the ground.

I have no doubts that the individuals I have been working with all want whats best for Zimbabwe but it is discipline in terms of time management and ability to effectively accomplish our agreed objectives that has been the greatest concern and nightmare. I appreciate that some of the challenges that we have all faced are influenced largely by resource availability and at times the lack of basic services in Zimbabwe and Southern Africa in general.

As for my engagement with technocrats and professionals in the business sector, many have beautiful sounding ideas but are reluctant to bee seen in a position that may be viewed as going against the status quo, as it is viewed as biting the hand that feeds you..so the popular question has been 'what is in it for me?' or a straight forward request like 'I want the Mines portfolio'. That for me means most go into politics for the wrong reasons and if that is the kind of mentality one will come across in all political entities then we have a very serious problem in our hands.

Shamiso Children's Home Marondera

I was starting to believe I can hack it like my late father and Madiba did but on a smaller scale but maybe I should just return to philanthropy and focus on building my small business empire to ensure I can retire with peace of mind or just to to work for International Organisations like UN and AU focussed on a much broader global community...my father's generation were a very rare fearless breed, perhaps the reason they were able to accomplish so much in their lives.

Our generation focusses a lot on 'self' than the 'collective' and we are failing to transform some of their great ideas and our own to practical visible outcomes. I do not have all the answers but are playing my part when ever the opportunity presents its self to do so. 

There many others in a far better position than I am trying to play their part I have great respect form them, whilst there are some abusing their position and influence to pursue the 'self' interests that I highlighted earlier thats reducing opportunities for a much broader sections of society. 

Are we doing enough as individuals and a collective to challenge what can be described as a corrupted norm in our socio-economic and political environments?

The African Diaspora Professional

The struggle working in the Diaspora.

"Institutionalised discrimination refers to the unjust and discriminatory mistreatment of an individual or group of individuals by society and its institutions as a whole, through unequal selection or bias, intentional or unintentional; as opposed to individuals making a conscious choice to discriminate.”

I know someone that I shall refer to as a 'second class citizen' who previously worked in management role in Africa, but migrated to the U.K because of family, desperate for a job they sacrificed their career progression and took a pay cut and accepted a much lower role in company A.

Company A recruited new employees which 'second class citizen' had to train to understand their roles. Second class citizen suffered personal abuse from some of the new employees but remained strong as they appreciated the value their job added to their life.

Eventually one of managers resigned and later one of the abusive employees was dismissed and 'second class citizen' was forced to work from home. The same cycle of recruitment and training of new staff continued, second class citizen thought after all the years of hard work and commitment perhaps their opportunity to move back to their management role was now possible.

Second class citizen was shocked when one of the new employees they trained called them an advised they were now the new manager. Second class citizen was not even invited to apply for the role or advised by the senior management that they were going to be looking for a new manager. Second class citizen was very upset by this and if life was as simple as leaving one job for another, I'm sure second class citizen would have already left the company.

But the reality is job hunting as a second class citizen has become more and more of a lottery, so second class citizen has to just adjust to their new environment and just try make the best of it, because where second class citizen comes from, people can not even have a meal all day.

This story is some of the realities of the Diaspora, the African Migrant worker, these are the sacrifices some have to make just for the sake of being able to access good public services they struggle to get in their home country.

Zimbabwe needs it's Diaspora citizens.

Zimbabwe needs it's Diaspora citizens.

This is not to suggest that those in Zimbabwe are not capable of running the country or that those in Diaspora are special, but the brutal truth is most of those who migrated have had the opportunity to experience different socio-economic and political environments in more stable economic and political conditions than those in Zimbabwe.

The Diaspora have also not been exposed to the deep retrogressive culture of corruption that has almost become an acceptable norm to some sections of our society. I know some might want to argue that those who have been exposed to it are now in a better position to deal with it as they understand it but how then do we identify those men and women of integrity amongst our deeply scared population?

As I see it just from the political leadership arena there is a sense of desperation for relevance and the results of those pursuits is inflated ego's and pursuit of quick fast-track solutions in favour of thoroughly researched and gradual implementation of ideas that have a lasting impression.

The downside as to Diaspora involvement is most of them now have very young families who would require access to affordable education and health care besides being able to find employment or business opportunities that would give them that sense of a purposeful life.

In short every citizen irrespective of location needs to have that sense of security, not just as in law enforcement but in being able to fully unleash their potential without being threatened by an unstable socio-economic and political environment.

So why do we sometimes sense tension between between citizens of the same country who have access to different opportunities in different socio-economic and political environments?

It's FEAR of the UNKNOWN, the THREAT created by divisive sentiment 'THEY' instead of 'WE'..

In politics and sociology, divide and rule (or divide and conquer) is gaining and maintaining power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into pieces that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy.

The concept refers to a strategy that breaks up existing power structures and prevents smaller power groups from linking up.

In South Africa, United Kingdom or even the United States how often do you hear political parties being labelled 'OPPOSITION'? It's either the Democrats, the Republicans, the Labour Party, the Tories, the ANC, the D.A and the EFF, this is because political parties are sub-structures of a nation, so in a sense they belong to that nation even though they may differ in terms of the approach to leadership and development of the country.

When terms like 'opposition' are constantly used it's almost as if we are always divided on a way forward when in reality we actually have far more in common than those window dressed differences that are used to differentiate our views on national policies.

Having a different view/perspective should not make us enemies to such an extent that we even kill each other and disassociate ourselves as being citizens of Zimbabwe.

It is only through our collective efforts, compromises and tolerance that we can build bridges of understanding and make Zimbabwe great again.

"None but ourselves can free our minds"

We all at times have a sense of ENTITLEMENT COMPLEX at varying levels for various reasons?

“When we replace a sense of service and gratitude with a sense of entitlement and expectation, we quickly see the demise of our relationships, society, and economy.” 

~ Steve Maraboli ~

What is a 'sense of entitlement'? 

An entitlement is the right to a particular privilege or benefit, granted by law or custom. However in a more critical sense, usually when one has a sense of entitlement, that means that person believes he/she deserves certain privileges and they are usually very arrogant about it. On a much broader context the term "culture of entitlement" suggests that many people now have highly unreasonable expectations about what they are entitled to.

When I was growing up perhaps the first time I felt entitled to anything was the time I became part of a group. As kids we tend to like what other kids have usually something that we may have come across for the first time, in such situations one tended to either take that item by force not because we understood we were being selfish but because we wanted to have more time with it to ourselves. It would only be through the wise intervention of older individuals that one would then be taught the importance of sharing, asking and borrowing. However this was not always the case with every child, depending on each child's family backgrounds in terms of wealth other kids would go home and demand their parents buy them that item or where parent's realise the conflict being caused by the item they would take it upon themselves to buy the item for their child and to those less fortunate they would find themselves stealing all because of that sense of entitlement that they also deserved what others had.

As we grow older our sense of entitlement also increases. We begin to exhibit certain emotions like anger, impatience, cynicism, resentment, criticism, ingratitude and disappointment.

Our generation is living in an information age where so much is shared across the internet. We are in essence an angry generation. In our social interactions it only takes so little to spark road rage, most youth are easily influenced to taking part in various forms of violence, and all sorts of other forms of aggression. If we look at the levels of unemployment of youth out there we will understand why they are angry today, perhaps for many other reasons, not the least of which is that sense of entitlement. Think about it: if we are taught we will get a job after finishing school we'll naturally feel entitled to a job after school, and if we don’t get one, we become angry and frustrated.

They say patience is a virtue, is it? Anyone notice how we have become an impatient generation, how we expect things quickly (perhaps influenced by a celebrity culture)… and entitlement only compounds the issue. When we feel entitled to something, we tend to be less patient with people and have that drive to get what we want—now—because we feel we equally deserve it. Our reaction is we become demanding of others and abrupt in our interactions with them.

Our sense of entitlement is often followed by mild forms of cynicism(mistrust of people's motives). This boils down to not getting what we think we deserve, which in turn can create a negative, jaded attitude in us. This is probably more common with adolescents who have always been a bit cynical. Part of it is being aware of what’s available and realising they don’t have it all is what fosters cynicism.

One other example is in political environments where freedom and justice are not enforced by law. When we are conscious of something out there that we don’t own but feel we deserve, it can cause severe resentment [lack of patriotism]. This destructive attitude can fuel hatred in any group of people and lead to negative behaviors as well. Instead of focusing on the few positives, we can become bitter and retrogressive.

There's no doubting we have a good number of disgruntled citizens who feel entitled to better forms of government, but have not got it up to now, most tend to embrace a “sour grapes” posture and are rejecting almost everything that the government tries to offer as solutions. I'm sure we have all at some point noted how some can criticize those who benefited from the system as a coping mechanism.

On a much broader context, gratitude and entitlement are polar-opposite emotions. When we are grateful, we feel that sense of appreciation when get what we want badly but remain aware of what it felt like without it. However, when we feel entitled and don’t get it, all we feel is ungrateful. Once again, we feel we deserve something we are forced to live without.

When I began my working career in government I worked hard and expected to be promoted based on my consistent effort. Somehow I felt I was entitled to get promoted after having done well in most aspects of my role but sadly failed to get it because of fast tracking process that favoured a certain group of individuals with war credentials that was put in place by government. I think from that moment onwards I began to experience what one could call chronic disappointment. I was sad and despondent over the perks I was going to miss out on and became depressed until I left my job.

Back to our politics and social structures. Most individuals when they excel academically and socially they also develop that strong sense of entitlement in terms of being given respect by family and society for their accomplishments, perhaps the top down approach in developing most institutional frameworks is also largely influenced by that sense of entitlement besides the 'fact' that academics and technocrats are generally more informed about process and policy areas.

On a cultural aspect I am sure we have all come across individuals who attempt to justify their leadership abilities based on their traditional bloodlines like is the case with the South African Royal family and Swazi King and even the British Royal Family. We also tend to hear justifications based on family history, like the Goven Mbeki and Thabo Mbeki, Jomo Kenyatta and Uhuru Kenyatta and even the Kennedy's in the USA and the Bush family. These are all driven in one way or another by a sense of entitlement or perhaps is it just a case of inheritance where popularity and sometimes wealth determines the political success stories of future generations? We even have the revolutionary party references used as an justifications to entitlements to govern countries, so how do we kill this culture of entitlement without being rigid about individual abilities and capabilities?

I am grateful.
I am hopeful and optimistic.
I can delay gratification.
I am at peace because I see the big picture.

We owe it to the emerging generation to escort them out of this destructive attitude. A sense of entitlement is an enemy of happiness and healthy thinking.