The Origins Of Zimbabwe's Defeatist National Psyche

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful" - Lucius Annaeus Seneca.

“God has done his will.” Have more defeatist words ever been uttered?

In Part I of this thread, I gently suggested that the Zimbabwean national psyche is largely defeatist, and I also promised to explain to you why this is the case. The case I was building against Zimbabweans was that they do not interrogate cause and effect as much as they should. I have been confounded lately by the propensity, of otherwise sane Zimbabweans, to believe the most ridiculous speculations by their so-called prophets. I remember returning home from one of my long absences to be told by my grandparents that their “prophet” had said that, because of his prayers, the floods that inundated Mozambique were prevented from reaching us. Now, my grandparents come from a different era. So, I just told them that it may also just have been because Harare is so far from Maputo and the Indian Ocean that the floods did not reach us. 

The other generations beside our grandparents, however, cannot get away lightly considering that the country spent money it didn’t have to make sure we all got an education. What is education but the ability to interrogate cause and effect better? To be sure, the lessons and thought patterns inculcated in us by our grandparents have an impact upon us. Don’t forget I am not happy that Zimbabweans held national prayers for rain when the science is clear how El Nino works. Forget not, also, that sane and well educated people are subscribing to the aforementioned so-called prophets and their “judgement nights” whose predictions never come true. Remember, esteemed reader, the silly promises of “miracle money” and “anointed oils” and the large crowds they draw among Zimbabweans. The mind boggles! 

But why are we like this? Could childhood socialisation be such an all-powerful force that can counteract any classroom education? Surely the refusal to interrogate cause and effect must have its roots in what we were made to believe is the way the world works when we were pre-school age. If I were to reduce what we internalised as children to just one statement, it will have to be: “Mwari vaita kuda kwavo/God has done his will.” This was the ubiquitous statement in every household in every part of the country. What undergirds this statement is a belief in predetermination. It does not matter what positive actions you do to change your situation, if God does not will it, it will not happen. Has a more defeatist idea ever been propagated to a whole nation? 

Now, there is a whole philosophical debate here about manifest destiny, freewill etc which I have no space to go into. Instead, it is my observation that this ubiquitous statement – God has done his will – has made the Zimbabwean psyche very pliable: anyone who invokes God can make the most ludicrous proposal and a Zimbabwean will entertain that idea. “God has done his will” is a good statement to console the grieving, but as a foundation for action it lends a whole nation susceptible to defeatism.