by Emmanuel Murema
The most difficult people to convince that the situation in Zimbabwe is mutually hurting are neither the politicians nor the ordinary person in the streets, but the intellectuals. They are the ones who should lead and be the face of initiating platforms for engagement and re-engagement.
There is need for dialogue that’s why POLAD exists. There has been political disengagement between the opposition political parties and the ruling party. The engagement and re-engagement policy is not meant to be a foreign policy per se, but a domestic policy, which is aimed at creating avenues, corridors and platforms upon which political parties, civil societies and the church find each other.
Ranting, personified attacks and character assassinations on social media will never build, the Zimbabwe that we all want. What social media has done of late is to divide the nation by abetting polarization. Social media have seen people spending much of their time interpreting and reinterpreting the Zimbabwean situation and this has seen a growing schism between the political protagonists. It has largely become hard to listen to each other unless of course someone is agreeing with what you believe in.
Every well-meaning Zimbabwe should understand that there is need for engagement and or re-engagement if disengagements exist. Civil societies and political parties should join dialogue. Yes, negative peddlers would tell you that POLAD is not an even play field, but does it then translate to the fact that social media is a better platform. Readiness to engage will never be shown on social media platforms, but on actions towards engaging.
Dialogue which has come as a product of the engagement and re-engagement drive by the New Dispensation is meant to envision and respond to the ebb and glide of the social conflict by creating an infrastructure and a season for inventing worthwhile transformation that will reduce vehemence and rage, by augmenting justice which will come as a result of direct interaction and respond to real-life problems in human relationships.
Dialogue will help firstly to understand and craft solutions to our immediate problem. Secondly, it is a platform to exchange ideas, feelings, perceptions, misperceptions and misrepresentations that are glaringly visible through the deeper patterns of our relationships.
It requires no rocket scientist to understand that the energy that is deployed in the free Hopewell suggests something deeper at play than a merely free Hopewell movement. It’s the manifestation of well piled up issues that are finding expression in the free Hopewell movement. Dialogue will be a vehicle to make sense beyond hashtags and demonstrations, bishops’ letters, attacks and counter attacks. Dialogue will probe the deeper significance of what is happening economically, socially and culturally. Dialogue is the only avenue that will bridge the antagonism that has characterised our motherland, Zimbabwe.
Emmanuel Murema is a Peace Advocate.
Founder of the Great Zimbabwe Peace and Conflict Management Initiative._
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it._
WhatsApp : _0779269856_
Follow _Twitter @manexmurema_
