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Isdore Guvamombe Reflections
BACK in the village in the land of milk honey and dust or Guruve – if you like – life’s pleasures often lie in the simplest things. There, elders with cotton tuft hair say, with simplicity, you derive humility, wisdom, and happiness.  Now, who wouldn’t want to be happy? This villager has read Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation six times and each time he read it, he was perplexed by the level of intellect, richness, and creativity in unearthing of the realistic road to the golden future of Zimbabwe.

Our Zimbabwe! Prosperity. Life. Vision . . . yes vision! This villager intends to read it for the seventh time.
The super intelligent among us would ask why read it seven times, poor villager? And, yet, in the village, by trying often, a monkey learns to leap from one tree branch to another. Is this not what our elders say in adding the necessary zing to our communication?

This villager needed to take Zim Asset to the village and discuss it with the elders and traditional leaders including the spirit mediums – Karitundundu, Svembere, Dumburechuma, Nyamapfeni, Chimhawu, Chidyamawuyu, Nyamasoka, Goredema, Chingowo, Gwenzi Chirambakudomwa and Nyatsimba Mutota, among others. Like or hate them, believe or never believe in them, the spirit mediums and the traditional chiefs are very influential in the village. One word from them can stop everything in the village or change the course of life. They are very clever and inquisitive. Even Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle picked its tempo with a huge buy-in by these traditional community leaders.

Each time this villager goes back to the village they have one or two questions about things they heard over the radio or through rumour. They call the cities the jungles of concrete structures.

This villager knew that on his next visit to the village, the elders would ask: “Tell us about this animal called Zim Asset? What colour is it? Is it not a predator that will kill us all?”

In the village, they do not hug a hyena to make peace! And, once they identify something as a predator, you would need a journey of a thousand miles and an array of relevant proverbs to convince them.

Zim Asset is so critical to the future of Zimbabwe. It is the future itself, though very complex for the ordinary Zimbabwean to understand. This villager took a copy of Zim Asset to the village and let a teacher read it out to the village elder at a social gathering, while awaiting traditional protocol proceedings.

Afterwards, the village soothsayer, the ageless autochthon of wisdom and knowledge, said Zim Asset was like the 40 days Moses spent on Mount Sinai. There, said the occult, Moses conversed with God and was told so many complicated things, yet in the end, Moses simplified his conversation with the Almighty, taking the message down the mountain to the people with 10 simple commandments understood by all and sundry. Even toddlers! Why not do the same with Zim Asset?

So, the full import of it is that Zim Asset is the future of Zimbabwe and that future should be simplified to the point of being understood by even primary school children. In its current format, Zim-Asset will not be understood at village or church level. It will not be understood by street vendors, it will not be understood by kombi drivers. It will not be understood by chiefs, headmen and kraal heads, yet they constitute the greatest part of our future by virtue of being the current generation, leading this nation into the future.

In its current format, Zim Asset needs to be unlocked and simplified into a few pages read in no more than an hour. Anything longer than an hour needs a dedicated people to read it. It needs real commitment.

It is fact and not fiction that the implementation matrix of Zim Asset will face serious challenges if there is no buy-in from ordinary citizens. Without this kind of buy-in, Zim Asset will be just another blueprint soon to be shelved and allowed to gather dust into the annals of history. As a nation we need to share the same vision and implement it. The vision must be simplified. It must be easily understood in all local languages.

This villager has read and understood most of the document and could easily recite many paragraphs and he can authoritatively tell you that Zimbabwe’s immediate happiness lies in the full implementation of ZIM Asset. It is so fascinating, idealistic and pregnant with vision and wisdom. With it our search for happiness could be over. But the path to eternal happiness lies in simplicity. So the Zanu-PF Government – the authority of the document – should take along all Zimbabweans to soak in the warmth of the sun that has risen with ZIM Asset, smell the flowers and let our sorrows melt away with these simple pleasures. The Zanu-PF Government should silence the monsters of worry with the soothing power of simplicity. Let Zim Asset be like Jesus’ simplest prayer . . . “Our Father Who Art in Heaven . . . ” Every child can easily recite that prayer. Zim Asset should be our daily bread.

Was it not Hans Hofmann who said the ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak?
Last week, this villager joined a team of journalists at a function in Harare and there came up the issue of ZIM Asset. It became categorically clear that most journalists in Zimbabwe had not gotten sight of the document. Those who got it, never got it from the Government but from some NGO that took it upon itself to distribute to some journalists it felt should have it. You needed to be known to that non-governmental organisation to receive a copy, according to those journalists.

Sent by e-mail, some of these journalists are free lancers who hardly have the capacity to download and print.
So if the messenger does not know the message, how does he or she spread it?
When the messenger has no message what does he or she spread other than silly rumour? The messenger!

The village soothsayer has this advice to the Zanu-PF Government: “Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read and you will win.”