We are screwed!

One of the few silver linings of the recent economic, social and political apocalypse in Zimbabwe is the chance to clear the slate and start all over. Transitions of any kind can be painful exercises but they do offer the opportunity to avoid the pitfalls of the past.

For better or for worse, human beings have very short memories. We need short memories in order to cope with tragedy and adversity so that we can make the best of our short stays on this planet; we need long memories so that we do not fall prey to our recent short-comings or failures of judgment. Balancing these two competing interests is the bread and butter of everyday life.

Sadly, many of us do not do a good job of reconciling our long-term and short-term memories, which explains why many abused spouses often end up in a series of such abusive relationships.

Extrapolating this balancing act to the country level, one can say that Zimbabweans have a lot to learn from the national catastrophe of the past thirty years. Re-writing the constitution is one of many things that may contribute towards establishing a national memory bank. But it is by no means enough. Indeed, it is naive to think that a piece of paper could be the panacea to our democracy deficit. After all, one of the least talked about short-comings of the past few decades is how the Zimbabwe government ignored its own laws, including the constitution, to achieve many of its political victories, such as the forcible seizure of land.

I think that the constitution-building process can be useful in preserving both long and short term national memory by institutionalizing it. It can be shown that much of what transpired in recent years in Zimbabwe could have been avoided with stronger national institutions such as the police force and the judiciary. Once these supposedly independent bodies came under the control of the ruling party, Zimbabweans were (and still are) at the mercy of thugs operating out of Chibuku house.

One of the most obvious ways to strengthen national institutions is to limit the over-arching power of the executive over them. A starting point would be to make sure that parliament has a say over all appointments of a certain rank to the judiciary, the police, the army, the foreign service and the public service.

Such a confirmation process would limit the tendency of politicians to appoint their home-boys and relatives to the cabinet and the judiciary and could mark the beginning of true accountability in our national affairs which could result in enhanced confidence in some of the institutions at the core of our democracy.

I do not believe that the current deal-making approach adopted by the parties to the so-called inclusive government will result in stronger institutional memory banks. It smells like more of the same.

Never before in our short history has such a small number of vulnerable politicians owed so much to so many of their friends, clansmen and henchmen.

Once again, it appears that we are screwed!