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Bernard Bwoni Correspondent

WHAT is it about Zimbabweans and hashtags and fads? It has become the norm that on nearly a weekly basis or so there is a hashtag of some sort and the narrative is the same, helplessness and frailty.These are not hashtags that seek to benefit the country or the citizens, but rather to benefit the individuals who craft such self-seeking fads. What has perennial helplessness ever achieved? Nearly every single week there is a hashtag of #HowHelplessWeAre as a people and nation.

The truth is that these hashtags are in fact obstacles to meaningful progress and development. The problem with these hashtags is that they equip people with false hope and when they fade, as they do, they plunge the same people into that same dark dungeon of lethargy and despondency.

How come none of these activists who come up with these anti-progress hashtags are not coming up with productive and meaningful ways of improving people’s situations? The bottom line is that none of the leaders or founders of these hashtags is sincere and all are doing it to improve their own personal situations as evidenced by Mawarire’s US Green Card and selfie-loving Patson Dzamara’s jet-set lifestyle more recently.

These activists are tapping into the vulnerable and helpless part of the citizens of Zimbabwe for their own individual gains. That is an unquestionable fact.

The hashtag movement in Zimbabwe kicked off in earnest with the so-called #ThisFlag fronted by the now self-exiled and ditched Pastor Mawarire.

He said all the right things to tamper with that vulnerable part of the citizens’ psyche and presented himself as a champion of the citizens. The citizens of Zimbabwe embraced him and hung on to his every word, but as the end result of this hashtag showed, it was intended for Mawarire’s own benefit.

As soon as he was granted his Green Card, that was it, the hashtag just fizzled and nobody really cares anymore. It was time for the next fad. There has been others like #Tajamuka, #ThisGown and the list is endless.

The hashtags have excited and raised the expectations of the citizens of Zimbabwe but, as expected, they just ended disappearing into the wilderness. Personal gratification and nothing else beyond that. This is what this hashtag movement is all about.

The hashtags have been coming thick and fast and to the point of irritating. One moment it is about the national flag and the next it is about graduates and then it is about #Tajamuka and so on. It is pointless and mostly self-seeking.

These people claiming to have been robbed by President Mugabe are in fact tweeting and hash-tagging from trendy smart phones and most likely munching on chicken pieces as they tweet about having been robbed of food.

These hash tags are mostly driven by Diaspora activists and some have acquired their stays in their countries of domicile by false claims of persecution by President Mugabe.

Now we are confronted with another hashtag, #HowTheyRobbedUs and as always, they have avoided the real robberies that have shaped the African continent over the years.

When as Africans we start a #HowTheyRobbedUs and deliberately forget to mention the incorporation of the Royal Africa Company into the House of Lords in 1671, TransAtlantic Slave Database which has clear figures of well over 12,5 million slaves shipped from the continent between 1525-1866 (nearly the continent’s entire population at that time), forget to mention the resource plunder throughout the centuries (in today’s monetary terms in excess of trillions of US dollars), forget to mention the scramble and partition of the continent, forget to mention the British South Africa Company, deliberately forget to mention Rhodes and his henchmen, deliberately forget to mention the displacement of a majority and accumulation by an invading minority and segregation and apartheid, then we have a serious problem.

When you have the same victims running a #HowTheyRobbedUs and one of their idea of being robbed is sanctions-induced hardships, then you know this continent is beyond doomed. How does any right thinking African start #HowTheyRobbedUs without even beginning to scratch the surface of what it means to be robbed? Without even questioning basics?

Apparently this hashtag, #HowTheyRobbedUs is looking at the period over the past 15 years and funny enough that coincides with the imposition of the economic sanctions against Zimbabwe.

That is a period of economic robbery against Zimbabwe through financial loss and the suffering people of Zimbabwe have endured.

It is a shame that those hashtagging about being robbed are conveniently hesitant to call a spade a spade and tell the world of how the economic sanctions have robbed Zimbabwe in more ways than one.

It is exactly 15 years ago that the draconian economic sanctions against the country were imposed and what is being hashtagged as #HowTheyRobbedUs is just the outcomes or end result of these economic sanctions.

That is exactly what economic sanctions do; they bring about significant economic ruin and untold suffering to the people of Zimbabwe.

The same people hashtagging how they were robbed are the same ones who supported the MDC-T and Tsvangirai when they advocated and campaigned for economic sanctions against Zimbabwe.

Today we have the likes of Patson Dzamara writing petitions to the World Bank and IMF. Some are petitioning the World Bank and IMF to withhold any lines of credit to Zimbabwe and what do you expect?

The hashtags have created a new breed of Zimbabweans whose only focus is whingeing and whining instead of coming up with remedies for our current solutions. There is no single hashtag about development.

There is no single hashtag about progress. There is no single hashtag to showcase Zimbabwe from these perennial whingers! There is no single hashtag to present the beautiful Zimbabwe we know. There is this unhealthy perversion among Zimbabweans to make Zimbabwe’s economic crisis as the only crisis in Africa.

The world over, most countries are going through their own crises and you do not have their citizens whingeing and whining at every given opportunity. Zimbabwe is being dragged by these activists to become a nation of crybabies.

The bottom line is that life is hard everywhere you go in this world. Those in the Diaspora who tweet on the Tube doing back-to-back shifts do not have it easy. We can’t be hoodwinked into becoming a nation of hashtagging whingers by these activists who are self-seeking.