Dear brothers and sisters,
Last, I saw our young children crossing rivers to make it to school.
Most of them did that on empty stomach.
I remember times I used to sing our national anthem with pride but today I can’t remember our national pledge.
I don’t know how much you will pay to drink clean water in the future. I don’t know how long foreigners will continue to enslave you and bully you economically before you are given your minimum wage.
Today, I am shy to mention the names of our fathers. I feel disturbed when I see their pictures or hear their words anywhere. They have failed. They have eaten all the food and saved the leftover in foreign lands.
Are you afraid?
I know your future is between a rock and hard place. That is because our fathers’ private aims trump public aspirations. They don’t love and respect their own people.
Today, our fathers have degraded us the youth through their choices and decisions. Now we are hungry for identity, meaning, and self-worth. My only prayer for us is that we should not lose hope. Because when hope remains and meaning is preserved, the possibility of shaping the future can be ignited.
Therefore, be strong enough to beat the demon of hopelessness, meaninglessness, and lovelessness.
Our fathers suffered many diseases of the soul; greed, status, and power. Their black suits which some of our heroes wore as a symbol of service and commitment to their nations, our fathers’ expensive tailored suits are more about their personal success and individual achievements.
There is no authentic anger in their voice.
No sense of urgency in their actions.
And they lack genuine humility.
By day, they wear masks seeking status, craving for acceptance and investing in their pockets. And when we drop their mask by night, we realized it is more about their personal interest than the good of our future. They were play-acting all these whiles. They see with their eyes and not through their eyes. They are deficient in good conscience.
I am not in any way asking you to demonize our fathers. You can’t afford to lose touch with the humanity of your foes. But it is imperative you pick a fight, you must struggle for a cause, and you must take a stand.
You must prioritize deep education against cheap schooling, you must cultivate intellectual humility and learn how to die.
Don’t allow our father’s spiritual hollowness and moral shallowness to assassinate your character. Question things and seek the truth even if you have to suffer. Be a charitable human to be able to hate sin and love the sinner. Our fathers don’t need punishment, they are already suffering from their spiritual blackout.
Now is your time to learn how to form attention towards substantive things rather than superficial things. Replace status, power, and greed with integrity, honesty, and decency.
Today, our fathers have succeeded in whipping us but we should not let them succeed in burying our values and beliefs. But that can be assured when we know that true humility is when our inner security is rooted in wise maturity.
Therefore, be true to yourself and your mission. Forgo excessive attention to seeking status and power. Love your country once again and unite a common road of hope in your structure, institutions, and behaviors.
Look beyond our fathers who only made echoes in their lifetime and develop a voice that won’t recycle your pains, structures, institutions, and old frameworks that impede our development. You won’t only live once, you can live twice, so live behind a good name. You are the future.
I am here to witness,
Tsifodze Ernest
