The Observer - 23 March 2014 - 7
Can Zimbabwe be a predatory state?
T
Misheck Gondo
he victory that brought
Zimbabwe to a new
dispensation
of
independence
was
pinnacled with hope of a better
and a sustainable economy. The
emergence from an environment
epitomized by suppression in form
of colonialism gave Zimbabwe a
clean slate to do better in national
development.
It is however important to hail
the immediate post-independence
era in which policy formulation was
directed towards critical economic
issues such education for all,
eradication of poverty, employment,
consolidation of good foreign
policy and regional integration.
The post-independence era
ushered with it names such as the
Bread Basket of Africa among
other ululations directed towards
the economic strides that emanated
from a promising economy.
It is now fair to ask what went
wrong in the process of building our
mother land. The hope of a better
Zimbabwe started to disappear
as political tensions appeared.
Economic discord became the
order of the day, foreign relations in
doldrums; pre-colonial era repeated
itself in a new fashioned style led by
the sons of the soil.
The year 2000 de-intensified the
dream of a new era, the gap between
ruling classes and the proletariat
became wider, with the former
getting richer and the later getting
impoverished. The relationship was
that of carnivores which service on
eating the other.
Economists
had
vast
complications to classify which
class of economy Zimbabwe was
riding on. The characteristic of
our economy since the emergence
of post-independence political
troubles did not qualify to be part
of the three basic types of economy.
The state of affair had turned to
be that of a primitive state whose
rulers extort taxes for their personal
benefits.