By Takura Zhangazha*
This may be a very sensitive subject matter so please read-on with caution. Based on your own individual experience(s).
It is sensitive because it is a conversation we rarely now have in contemporary Zimbabwe.
Almost as though we refuse to remember that the Covid19 in 2019 pandemic ever historically occurred. In our lifetimes.
Or that lives, many lives, were lost. And families were affected. From the immediate to the extended.
Inclusive of our health, education and working environments.
We no longer talk about it formally in relation to the state and its expected roles. Or how global pharmaceutical companies reacted to the same said pandemic. Including limiting supplies of vaccines or in other instances gatekeeping knowledge on equitable global solutions.
Or even within our own families and the ostracisation that came with coughs , flues, sneezes and requirements for oxygen which was almost like gold at that time.
It was a very painful national period. We lost many relatives, friends and work colleagues at that time.
And we will never forget the very real pain we went through. Nationally or personally.
But the Covid19 pandemic occurred. We could not control it 100%. Nor could we foresee its full impact on society.
What we could not do is walk away as if it never occurred.
Tragically and regretably, it did.
In its occurrence it changed who we thought we were and now who we are.
Both societally and within the the ambit of medicinal and epidemiological science.
This being a reality we still refuse to embrace until it hits us from China, the United States of America (USA) or the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
As popularly argued as sources of major biological epidemics or pandemics globally. Via Hollywood and social media as it is expanding to create awkward global hegemonic contestations.
What we, in Zimbabwe, have not nationally discussed is the aftermath of what the pandemic of Covid19 meant to all of us.
Politically, economically and socially. Or in some instances in relation to mental health challenges at an individual or collective workplace level.
Covid19 changed as is generally now given our ways of working, formally. More so if you were in a white collar job. It also changed how the work on the 'ground' differed from work 'online'.
While at the same time, in its aftermath, pushing us toward a cheapening of both physical and online (internet based) labour.
With the latter being more preferable.
What we, as Zimbabweans have not come to terms with, officially and unofficially is the fact of the aftermath of Covid19.
And this is not about healing from loss of lives. It is beyond that.
Instead it is about the gaps that have ignored the fact of our national being.
Indeed we lost lives but we did not learn from that experience.
We did not react with a necessary urgency to our health services for the people. We claimed that China was key in our recovery yet we still hear stories from the mainstream media of a delipidated health system.
We still have children that are disadvantaged in the national education system as was the case during the pandemic
And we still yet have war veterans that cannot tell the difference of our before and after the pandemic.
In the long and short of any argument we have not reflected enough on what the Covid19 pandemic has meant to our country.
And what lessons we should draw from it. Whether you are rich or poor.
Or in a rural or an urban-peri-urban area as your primary source of livelihood.
What I know is that we need to sit down as a country to assess what Covid19 meant. And where want to go.
From the shutdowns we had to encounter and in part evade In order to shop or visit the local bar.
Through to the re-opening of our commercial society and assumptions of a return to normalcy as backed by national government.
After the re-opening of society after Covid19 we half thought we were going to have better health services, education, public transport and access to water.
This has not turned out to be true.
We have a greater concerted attempt at privatising the state, state resources as if Covid19 never happened.
It's almost like wiping out an historical epoch.
But as we say, sing, "tungamirai tondosangana ikoko".
The people will recover.
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity.
No comments:
Post a Comment