Zimbabwe at 46: Redefining Independence

By Tongai Phillip Mukarati

Zimbabwe marks 46 years of independence today – this whilst a war that has brought forth geopolitical issues to the fore is raging on in the Middle East.

The oil rich Iran – Israel – US assymetric war has had a ripple effect on commodity prices in Zimbabwe (among many other countries).

Zimbabwe has also suffered immeasurably from the fuel hikes and consequently has seen a price spike precipitating black market trade with neighbouring countries in fjel and other basic commodities.

The questions which then beg answers are these:- What, if anything, should we be celebrating, 46 years into ‘independence?’

What should Zimbabweans be calling independence in the contemporary sense?

Are there serious, identifiable, and tangible deliverables to put our fingers to, which we can positively lay claim to, to have benefitted the majority of Zimbabweans since 18 April 1980?

Where is the 1975 – 1980 – 1985 generation now? What conscious and willing progress (or regress) have they made personally and in their personal and collective contribution to Zimbabwe? As they move in tandem with Zimbabwe!?

Since 1980, it may be argued, the chief enemy of Zimbabwe has been poverty, and it would seem that the interventions that government has tried to implement in it’s mitigation have borne little fruit.

We have seen ESAP, ZIMPREST, ZIMASSET, Fast Tracj Land Redistribution Programme, the GNU, Command Agriculture, and the Transitional Stabilisation Programme with it’s austerity measures among many others. There seems to be a penchant for fancy acronyms and big swelling words which, on the scale of averages and in the courts of public opinion, really amount to a huge and loud nothing! The working Zimbabwean is worse off per capita now more than on 18 April 1980.

Admittedly, more black Zimbabweans own their land, which was the initial purpose for the war in any case, but conversely, without proper financial and technical capacity building, we are on a treadmill going nowhere fast.

Workers in the Public Service are perpetually crying foul, nurses, doctors and hospitals are despondent and understocked.

It has taken 46 years to start talking about the dualisation of the national highways which link us to other nations. The trabablas interchange (despite it’s marvelous outlook) is being hailed as if it is God’s gift to humanity in 2026, when neighbouring countries have had numerous of those well over three dacades before. Workers on Chinese run sites are being abused, maimed, dehumanized and killed, ‘while we stand aside and look.’

Honestly are we not shortchanging ourselves as a nation?

Is it not time to redefine independence when there are hot debates and endless disputation over the running and handling of elections since 1980? When there are serious legitimacy and intimidation issues raised around the just ended CAB3 public consultation process?

Whilst there has been an old snail’s pace progress in infrastructure, agriculture, service delivery and electrical power provision, as commendable as it may be, it pales into insignificance compared to the suffering Zimbabweans are enduring on a daily basis.

Those in the high echelons of power have taken it upon themselves to employ the boiling frog tactic to measure people’s quisence to their stimuli. Hence the tired and erroneous premise that ‘Zimbabweans are a resilient lot.
No!

Zimbabweans are a beaten down, disgruntled lot who have turned to apathy since they have been tuned into submission, and dissenting voices quietened.

One thing is clear though, for every straight thinking Zimbabwean who wants to see Zimbabwe lift herself out of this quagmire,….. the truth is that no incumbent government or ruling group will legislate itself out of power!

So cries for due process to be followed in the proposed CAB3 consultations, transformative legislation and electoral law reviews are mere utopian speculations. That road has been trod on before with the same shambolic results.

It is time to revisit our definition of Independence as Zimbabweans and see what is apt in the contemporary space. Otherwise we are pouring old wine into new wineskins, or new wine into old wineskins, either way there is going to be chaos.

Where goest thou Zimbabwe, at 46?

Quo Vardis Zimbabwe?

Tongai Phillip Mukarati
17 April 2026
Bindura.