By Chigumbu Warikandwa
The end of the 20th century came with global hopes for a new world order. In Information Technology (IT), people fretted that computers would fail to understand the algorithims of the new century,which coincided with the arrival of the third millenium. The last quarter of the year 1999 was a busy lot, computer abilities were the next most talked about topic after the death of Joshua Nkomo who had died the winter of the same year. The computer industry coined the term Y2K. Whatever its meaning, it referred to computers with the ability to read beyond 31 December 1999. Some screamed that all the computers were to be obsolete come new year's day. People expected dumpyards of computers to flood by the hour.
Despite the anxieties presented by the end of the second millenium, people had renewed hopes. The ordinary man expected a rebirth of the self come 1 January 2000. Some prophets of doom did not lose the chance to spread falsehoods of the imminent end of the world. They even had biblical verses to back their claim. Some impressionables were forced into matyrdom for public sins hoping to arrive in heaven faster, but not before they were asked to bequeath their earthly possessions to the church.
Equally, the IT world cashed in on selling Y2K compliant gadgets.
People expected larger than life changes that came knocking and crashing their doors. Those with battered cars expected to wake up to sizzling bentleys and yet to be unveilled brands of vehicles. Some expected their spouses to regain long lost youthfulness. Enterprising conmem also capitalized on this human pettiness and looted them dry using a trick or two.
Life is not dramatic, neither is it spontaneous and abrupt like a volcano. Life processes are gradual, one process leading to another gradually smoothly and sometimes invisibly. Who ever saw his hair growing?
The same people who were alive in 1999 are here today, newer ones are also here, those born then bidding farewell to teenagehood. The same people expected a sudden change of fortunes on 1 January 2020 based on the promised end to austerity measures designed by the finance ministry. Austerity was designed to fix cumbersome macro economic variables that burdened the economy. Government spending was threatening economic performance and growth. This begged for a decisive reaction.
Austerity, not being an invention of Zimbabwe is a global bitter pill used to cure ailing economies. It has happened in Europe during the first decade of the third millenium. The world's author of democracy and gorvenment, Greece, was battered hard. It only emerged courtesy of a bailout from friendly countries and international lenders.
Zimbabwe is emerging from a period of frugal government spending. This diminished spending obviously affected people's comforts. This was not a deliberate plan to cause unnecessary pain. It was necessary pain.
This January, a number of families are sending children to school for the first time. Some are going to new boarding schools with higher fees. Some are building new homes. Families under these circumstances reduce their spending in order to save for the bigger commitments on their hands.
Saving for bigger family commitments is not being tight fisted on the part of the breadwinner. It is a combined family effort to build a future for its members. The suffering is a consequence of a sought common good. Any neighbor critisizing the breadwinner of this family will be misinformed of the family's goals. In the same vein, any such person who seeks to incite the dependants of such breadwinner into revolting against him will be an anarchist who has negative interest on the welfare of this family.
Austerity begins suddenly, but its completion does not birth a sudden change of fortunes. It is accompanied by gradual changes, changes that benefit the citizens as a whole.
Going back to the family, any such family that engages into austerity in an attempt to finish building a house will not suddenly move into the same finished house with bacon, ham and butter under their armpit. It would take them a gradual recovery into their old spending ways. The common good of earning a new home would by far outweigh the pains of the temporary austerity where resources were channelled towards the project.
So, while we bid farewell to austerity, we must not expect to welcome a middle income economy down the corridors on our way to the fridge. The journey to 2030 started in 2017; we are three years into the struggle. So far so good.
