Finding meaning in the gap between rich and poor

As we approach the 31st birthday of Zimbabwe, we are compelled to take stock of the distance travelled, successes and failures scored in reducing the inherited gap between rich and poor, and more significantly what could have been done differently in order to deliver the promise of independence in an efficient, inclusive, just and equitable manner.

It has often been argued that the post-colonial state did not create poverty, it merely inherited it.

Using this argument, a self-serving approach is then taken that poverty is a consequence of other peoples’ actions and choices forgetting that throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man and the developments, which permit this condition to be ameliorated, are the work of an extremely small minority, often despised and opposed by all right thinking people and more importantly frequently misunderstood, despised and ostracised.

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