Tsvangirai's appeal to Zimbabweans in the diaspora to come home last week was a bit of a damp squib. His appeals were met with disdain. The crowd geered and shouted "Chinja!" "Chinja" invoking the words of the Movement of Democratic Change's moto at its own leader, who appears to have been swallowed wholesale by the ruling regime's antics.
It must have brought an embarrassing after-taste to what has been a rather promising campaign for Tsvangirai. His recent bout of travel brought a fraction of the 200million that he intended to bring back home. Embarrassing, because people in the diaspora have seen through the placid talks of better economic and political conditions back home. Embarrassing, because Mugabe has vowed to get more than 200m from friends in China.
Begs the question, what was the purpose of Tsvangirai's visit?
The words he expressed to the diasporan community in UK would have sounded logical to the uninitiated. A return home will mean fellow comrades in the diaspora going to meet family members and re-establishing ties before their names are forgotten. Whole hoards of professionals can aspire to come back home to find fresh jobs that pay well.
The elderly can stop stressing over speaking bad english and put rest to the routine of practicing etiquette behind closed doors; they will return to homes where there is still dignity in being old and Zimbabwean... ( I think) I bet they will finally stop dreaming in English and fight off the pain of knowing that no one, not even the little ones, will care to listen to them...
Parents of children born and raised in the UK, among other places can afford to go back home and take pride in their children speaking foreign tongues to a hoard of locals; UK would have afforded them a one easy jump up the social ladder! :)
That's the ideal, specially packaged for the uninitiated!
Yet what is becoming abundantly clear for the Zimbo living anywhere else on the planet is that it is still early days yet!
Lest we forget, elders speak of "kusakurumidza kumedza kutsenga huchada..."Take it slow, be unsassuming yet wise, measure twice, cut once; a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step...lores that are internationally relevant.
Confidence on local politics an economic development is still at its embryonic stage. There are a myriad of pre-conditions for many. Security of employment and security of investment is just but one of them. What guarantee is there that the young nurse who has invested for 5 years in heavy toil in the UK can come home, invest in a grinding mill, and see profits grow while he goes about looking for a job?
What guarantee is there that persecuted teachers, fleeing the country for a better life can return back home, continue from where they left off, and still find regular employment?
60 year old Zimbabwean teachers now living in foreign lands must reminisce on a time when they held their heads up high in villages across rural Zimbabwe. Now their peers cannot even afford to replace the clothes covering their behinds!
No. Zimbos in the diaspora will not be returning home anytime soon. The land of their birth appears more foreign than the land of their work. Trudging along, missing home, starved of love, bereft of affection, hoarding commodities; they continue looking out the door to an ashen environment, proof that others have eaten at the fire already. What's left now are the ashes and traces of bone picked clean.
..We worship the toothless men and women who discarded few bits of bone and meat, after sucking them grey, and enriching their stomachs with the succulent juices and tastes...
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