Mutumwa Mawere

Post colonial Africa is now 52 years old and the promise of independence in terms of human development has largely not been realized. The statehouses are firmly under the control of the "majority?" in the 53 countries of Africa but the economy remains under the control of a minority.

When the existence of Zimbabwe was penned in 1980, expectations were legitimately high that a new civilization was in the making and finally that citizens may storm the statehouse and tear down the leaders not with bullets but with ballots.

The birth of Zimbabwe as a post colonial nation state was a defining and historic moment that represented a noblest idea that a nation blinded by a racial past could rise above the prejudices that characterised it.

The political leaders who negotiated the Lancaster House agreement were clear on what was at stake and the change they sought to effect.

A few of the signers of the agreement from the liberation movements had extensive political experience in colonial and state government. Equally the majority were financially challenged with financial resources that ranged from nothing to poor. On the whole they were less wealthy than the colonial incumbents.

After 52 years, it must be accepted that the promise of a prosperous and dynamic continent that independence was expected to bring about remains elusive.

The construction of a post colonial order was premised on the belief that restoring political power to the majority through a constitutional democratic order was in and out of itself a necessary and sufficient condition for economic and social transformation.

The end of apartheid in 1994 was widely expected to usher a new era but regrettably the country remains divided and unequal. In 2005, the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) survey reported that 4.2m people or more than double the number in 1996 at 1.9 million were living on $1 a day.

On 18 July, 2008, President Mandela celebrated his 90^th birthday. 

The world has acknowledged and recognised President Mandela's magnanimity, courage, humility, and generosity of spirit and he now finds himself as a global brand celebrated for what the brand represents to humanity. 

Our generation is privileged to be alive and relevant as free Africans at this historic moment in the continent's development. Despite the transition to democracy, South Africa remains an unjust society.

Notwithstanding the fact that the sovereignty of Zimbabwe is constitutionally in the hands of citizens, the post election negotiations facilitated by President Mbeki exposes the fragility of the democratic order and confirms the view widely held during the colonial era that there was a need to prepare natives education and gradual acquisition of property rights before allowing them to be full participants in the democratic order. 

While it may be absurd for a country to go through an electoral process and then proceed with negotiations that on the face of it go a long way towards undermining the sovereignty of citizens, the stakes are so high in Zimbabwe that the interests of citizens have been reduced to a subsidiary status to the interests of the two contesting individuals i.e. President Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai.