We are a Nation of vandals: PERIOD!

In advancing her thesis, that the political and economic elites use shock therapy to awe and subdue their targeted subjects, Naomi Klein, in her book, The Shock Doctrine: The rise of Disaster Capitalism, gave many case studies and how the targeted subjects usually react. Klein posits that the physical shock ‘therapy’ is usually used by the political elites and the economic shock ‘therapy’ is usually used by powerful economic nations towards smaller, poor nations, usually in order to unjustifiably extract some natural resources without properly accounting for such resources. For Klein, the culprit central to the economic shock was fronted by Milton Friedman famed for his Chicago School of economics globally. Klein’s thesis could have equally applied to Zimbabwe but she chose South Africa, where she aptly titled, Chapter 10 of her book, Democracy Born in Chains: South Africa’s Constricted Freedom.

Though Klein was writing for an international readership, her thesis can equally be applied to the Zimbabwean situation where the government has been accused so many times of using shock therapy in its treatment of its citizens. Economically, currently, I think Zimbabweans are experiencing the Cambridge School of Economics shock therapy. The treasury chief has been saying the treasury coffers have been on the plus side for sometime now since October 2018 but there is nothing to show for the ordinary citizen to appreciate such statements.

Since the year 2000, after the rejection of the then proposed national Constitution through a referendum, the nation experienced an advanced state of shock. And the acts of vandalism become visibly rampart. Public telephone booths were vandalised. Road sign posts both in countryside roads and urban settelements were vandalised. Fenced off farming areas where vandalised and sometimes the stolen wires were used to make snares to trap wildlife for game meat or ivory. Telecommunication signal systems were not spared for both the landline based telephone system and the railways. The power utility Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission Company (ZESA) was not spared. The period 2000 to 2009 was a period of madness, the nation was on self destruct button.

That madness still persists today. I am still shocked. How could people cut electricity tramission wires for a stretch of about 10km? When power went off about three weeks ago the official line we were fed was- “… main board caught fire at our bulk source at Criterion sub.” That Criterion Power Substation is the one located along Bulawayo-Plumtree road, opposite Emganwini Surburb, near Mbokodho Abattoir.

I knew trouble was coming and surely trouble came – the power lines were vandalised. From just after Bokodho to just before the Figtree – the vandals made a party of the transmission wires.

Now, its ‘darkness’, using Zimbabwean english, for Figtree, Marula, Plumtree, Mangwe, Bulilima and Tsholotsho. Tuesday, 13 August, BOOM, lights out and it has been like that since then. It hit me hard once ZESA announced that the main board had caught fire. When are they going to find a replacement for whatever was destroyed? There is no foreign currency and I doubted if they have extra spares in store. At times, thats the way we have been programmed to think – Doubt everything unless the contrary is proved.

It was a given that after a power blackout, vandals would strike. And that the longer it takes to fix the problem the massive the vandalism would be.

When you get to experince how people in other countries live you realise that there is something wrong in this country. On a Sunday night, 18 August at around 2230 hours I woke up to a blinding feeling on my eyes -oh Power is back. Did the obvious things -press iron my uniform and shaving my beard. I only realised the following day at work that at the border we were now getting power from the Botswana grid – that SADC Power Pool agreement thing. Ever since there has not been a single second when the power has even tripped. Life is good hey.

We need water at the border, the border is a high volume human transit point. Water is pumped from Plumtree town using electrical power water pumps. There is no power at the water works – there is no water at the border. Its a ticking time bomb – there is a potential outbreak of diseases such as cholera.

ZESA technicians are busy working round the clock trying to fix the vandalised power line. Sometimes you pose and reflect to realise the extent of the foolish act of the vandals. Figtree, Marula, Plumtree, Mangwe, Bulilima and Tsholotsho are in the dark. It is my hope that the power lines in those areas are not being vandalised during this period when ZESA is trying to repair the vandalised stretch. Its a shame Zimbabwe has become a nation of vandals. Surprisingly, the laws against such criminal acts is there.

Are the laws deterrent enough? Yes. They are. But with the ‘Cambridge School of Economics shock therapy’ at play, where there is a fiscal surplus just for the show of it- no jobs, no industrial reviving taking place. People become vandals for survival. We become a nation of vandals.

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