Chivhanhu

The Daily Mail, a British online newspaper, recently released an article stating and quite statistically ranking Zimbabwe as the leading nation in their 'world misery index'. I had a chuckle at this because if there's anything the British are incredibly enthusiastic at, it is denying accountability on their atrocities and formulating metrics and philosophies which disparage Africans to push and inflate their sagging supremacist narratives. It is ridiculous if not at all bewitched behavior because, rationally, the impoverished state which they deem Zimbabwe of was deliberately designed by and is a consequence of Britain's 1979 Lanchester Conference and Henry Kissinger's strategic ambiguity plan. The British are like the bully that changed his ways but still throws dirt in your face. 

Nonetheless, with all of this absurdity, we ought to acknowledge some truth to it even off of a bad mouth. Zimbabwe is indeed poverty stricken and this causation isn't entirely rooted in the Lanchester Conference but in our people and our culture. 

There is something termed "Chivhanhu" and things called "zveChivhanhu" in Zimbabwe.

It is a belief system rooted in ancestry (vadzimu) and/or prophets and traditional medicine, of which respectively I have absolutely nothing against nor do I condemn their religious/traditional beliefs and practices. However, chivhanhu people predominate the national demographic and are mostly located in remote/rural areas, meaning that their population dribbles and surpasses that of urban metrics. There are more people in rural areas than in urban areas, and, you can inadvertently throw a stone in a gathering and be pretty darn sure it hit a "chivhanhu" person. They dominate Zimbabwe, which means their beliefs, influences and conducts permeate as a culture and penetrate even urban areas, which is why there are flea markets in the CBDs, which is why there are vast bush churches even in the suburbs, which is why industrial sites and factories have turned into prosperity prophet churches. The thing about "chivhanhu" is that beyond it's religious and/or traditional aspect, it carves also the socio-economic fabric of the people. As such, most chivhanhu people are a calibre whose extended ways, thoughts and conduct styles are rooted in rurality and primitive standards. Hence why the general culture of Zimbabwe is predominantly chivhanhu and is backward as though retired. One needs an exposed perspective to recognize how economically and socially backward Zimbabwe is, you will never know it if you have never crossed the borders and ponds. 

Urban people due to enlightenment and exposure often wonder why the Zimbabwean government has remained in power through t-shirt, cap, and scarf campaigns plus donating 25kg's of maize and fertilizer once in a while and 2kg rice packages; what they don't understand is that chivhanhu people do not care about tomorrow nor do they qualify a ten years ahead cognitive span, instant gratification is what wins their hearts and their votes. The fate of the country is in the palms of those who are gratified by a momentary 2kg rice pack in exchange of a vote! Chivhanhu people do not care about service delivery, the state of the health system doesn't matter to the chivhanhu people, nor the educational system or the road network and infrastructure, they can survive without tarred roads, they don't believe much in the medical/health system they believe in prophets and/or traditional healers, hence the vast bush churches and prosperity prophet industries, education is just a practice to them and not an empowerment utility which is why they send off their ten year old girl child for marriage to a sixty-five year old madzibaba in exchange of cows or familial blessings or breaking of chains and curses. So, to win a vote from such a people you just need an apparel, mbewu, fertilizer and a short speech in their native languages which soften their hearts. Urbanization and Industrialization are concepts which were handed over to the people employed by and took after the Westerners. The politicians, the teachers, the nurses, the entrepreneurs, the farmers etc of the 1980s who bought suburban homes at a throw-away price and settled in the city and sent their children to city schools and mingled with and adapted to urban standards, those are the few enlightened people who make up the urban ecosystem and value road networks, architecture and infrastructure, legal educational and medical systems, these are a exquisitely literate people, enlightened and well versed, but they make up a small proportion of the Zimbabwean population which renders the urban electoral metrics insignificant, in fact a chunk of Zimbabweans vacated and continue to vacate the country to greener pastures, criticizing circumstances from the terraces. A lot of times settling in an environment for far too long is consuming and therefore blinds one from out of the box realities and reasons pertaining to a lack of competitiveness and development; unlike urban people chivhanu or rural disposed people do not care about Wi-Fi and reading an online article/news or updating a Facebook or Instagram post or tweeting, they care about maminutes, mbewu and fertilizer, the telecommunications industry thrives in rural settlements but e-commerce? E-commerce is a dead-end in Zimbabwe and anyone that's achieved it is a great player and town fella. Notheless rural people listen to censored news on the radio or ZBC, state loathed journalists such as Hopewell Chin'ono are only known by social media versed people, so their reports don't change a chivhanhu inclined mind which draws gratification from knowing a national president or minister set foot in their town and commercialized a tap, and sends that folklore down his entire lineage. 

Chivhanhu culture is so expansive that it's influences have impacted even the urban society and etiquette. Which is why wearing shorts in the city ridiculously gets people talking and laughing. Why? Primitively we wore revealing stuff made off of animal hide, however when the African was employed by the white into blue colar or white colar jobs or appointed as a pastor by the missionaries, he was required to cover himself and wear trousers, rendering the trousers a symbol of employment, superiority and decency to Africans so much that men who weren't employed were pressured to wear trousers to appear respectable, any man that still wore cowhide, revealing material, was ridiculed and mocked as a boy or nonChristian. Women grew attracted to men in trousers as they earned good money then and bought farms and cars. White farmers and white employers still wore their shorts though, in fact white people still wear shorts so much that wearing shorts as an African is considered coconut and/or indecent, yet we initially wore hide. This and many other examples of chivhanhu influences predominate Zimbabwe, chivhanhu people do not wear shorts they make them feel uncomfortable, profane and shy, so when they see people in shorts they project their feelings and ridicule and laugh, whereas town bred people see no issue. 

Inversion is what will set a new trend for Zimbabwe. If urban people threw away the aversion to and conception that rural and farm areas are too underdeveloped to sustain an enlightened life, and flocked back and invested in modernized farm houses, electrification/wiring, piping, tarred roads, advanced schools and hospitals there; it is my opinion and mine alone that a sudden and essential polarity will awaken in a lot of Zimbabweans and it will acquaint the next generation with the normalcy of urbanized ruralhood so much that suburbs and cities could become such discouraging places to travel to. Industrialization and skyscrapers ought to remain in the city, but human settlement ought to move back to rural areas and farms in a convenience and suburban style. There ought to be street lights, traffic lights and tower lights and digital screens/billboards in rural settlements, e-commerce platforms ought to work in rural settlements, couriers ought to boom in rural settlements with perfect road networks.

That is the future of Zimbabwe, until then the British will continue to throw dirty panties in our faces.