Vision 2020 and a year like no other

Year 2020 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. It has turned out to be an anus horribilis. From apocalyptic fires to the global pandemic, 2020 – a year like no other will be remembered for generations. Like most people, I believed and expected that 2020 would in some way be a great year for everyone or at least the start of something great, and that I would ride smoothly into the new decade. But, unbeknown to us, strange things were to follow making their way into history books. The year began with face masks for various health related reasons. Smoke, destruction and massive bush fires left many Australian communities devastated, skies blackened and the air badly polluted. A virus called SARS-CoV-2 (Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) made its presence known in Australia on 25 January 2020 or thereabouts. The first case of the novel coronavirus was confirmed by Victorian Health Authorities as being a patient, a man from Wuhan who had flew to Melbourne from Guangdong on 19 January 2020. More than 28,000 Australians have been infected by Sar-CoV-2 virus better known as COVID19, and 908 of them have died. Australia has done very well by world standards in combating this pandemic. But if you lived through the second wave in Victoria, you would be entitled to think differently unless you are from Spring Street.

Apparently, the first case of this virus that has so far spread worldwide was identified in Wuhan, China in December 2019. On 11 February 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced “COVID-19” as the name of this new disease. This name was chosen because the virus is genetically related to the coronavirus responsible for the SARS outbreak of 2003 even though the two viruses are different. For those who follow developments in the healthcare sector, if we rewind to the start of 2020, it was on 10 January that WHO published its first comprehensive package of guidance documents for countries, covering topics related to the management of an outbreak of a new disease. Until now, we do not know whether the publication by WHO was by coincidence, reactionary or as planned because it was only a fortnight after both WHO and the rest of the scholarly and global health world had learned of cases of ‘pneumonia with unknown cause’ via a bulletin issued by the health authorities in Wuhan and ProMED.Besides the clear implications of COVID-19 shattering the world as we know it, 2020 has had occurrences that have caused some reflection everywhere. In Australia we had devastating bush fires, in USA, the Black Lives Matter movement took the world by storm and the solidarity was felt worldwide including here in Australia, in Africa and across Europe. In Australia the marches were in solidarity with the American Black Lives Matter demonstrations and to protect black deaths in custody and violence against Aboriginal people in Australia. In the end, the demonstrations revealed that if race was real, racism is very real. Racism exists, racism is a system, racism saps the strength of the whole society, and real action is needed to dismantle it. Despite Australia being one of the best countries in the world to live in, mainly due to its excellent quality of life index, racism is still rife. Australians are socialized to reduce racism to individual expressions of prejudice and overt acts of bigotry, yet racism in Australia is three-dimensional; structural, institutional, and individual.

Structural racism is the normalization and legitimization of white supremacy, enacted from the nation’s beginnings, by vast historical, governmental, cultural, economic, educational, institutional, and psychological forces, all working in concert to perpetuate racial inequality. These forces collude to create an absolute system of unequal power that privileges white skin and disadvantages black and brown skin, a system that persists undiminished in potency through time. Structural racism cannot easily be located in any particular practice or institution because it saturates and pervades all. Structural reinforces and support the effects of multiple institutions and cultural norms, past and present, continually producing new, and re-producing old forms of racism.

Institutional racism involves the ubiquitous practices and policies within schools, workplaces, Courts, financial establishments, housing, hospitals, the justice system, and other private and governmental institutions that, intentionally or not, produce outcomes that consistently advantage whites while disadvantaging blacks, Indigenous and people of colour (BIPOC). Examples are policies resulting in over prosecution, mass incarceration, police killings, and enduring disparities in life spans, health, and wealth. We all know that Indigenous Australians account for 28% of people in prison, life expectancy is 10 years less than that of the general population, and 437 Indigenous people have died in custody since 1991 yet Indigenous people make up just 3% of the total population. This injustice often remains invisible to the public, unless, of course, you are a member of the community experiencing it.

Some states like South Australia chose to allow the Black Lives Matter and the Aboriginal Lives Matter demonstration without debate while in New South Wales a court ruling was overturned allowing it to be an authorized public assembly only minutes before it began. New South Wales police commissioner was basing his argument against the demonstrations on health risks reasons despite the link being dismissed by Victorian authorities the week before. Of note though was the failure by the same police commissioner to acknowledge that racism poses its own risks to Australia’s First Nations people. Yes, and indeed the demonstrations could have been dangerous in community transmission of the virus, but research has also shown that racism can be as deadly as the coronavirus. Just a week earlier, a police constable from an institution the police commissioner oversee was placed on restricted duties after footage emerged on Facebook showing him tripping up a 16-year-old Indigenous boy during arrest and slamming the boy’s face-first on to pavement. Similar demonstrations were carried out in Victoria with a lot of bickering from certain federal ministers. Kudos to all those Australian lawyers who put in enormous amounts of pro bono work to ensure victory as well as to demonstrate that it’s a lawyer’s duty to fight for justice. It’s an understatement to say that year 2020 was a tough and challenging year for most people world over, a year like no other that will be remembered for generations. But, when reflecting even on the worst situation, we must always attempt to find something to learn from and continue to grow. Adversity is the greatest teacher, and there are so many lessons to learn. I will revisit this aspect in the last part of my reflection. But, before I conclude my reflection, I would like to extend my best wishes for a healthy and a prosperous 2021 to everyone. I hope that 2021 will be an annus mirabilis that will bring more positives, more certainty and more learning for everyone. Most of us take time and blessings for granted.

Vision 2020

For those who grew up in Africa or who were following developments in Africa, year 2020 was the year that was going to transform a lot of economies in Africa. I personally was born and bred in Africa, in Zimbabwe. Vision 2020 in Zimbabwe was originally launched by the government of the late Robert Mugabe, and it was a brilliant economic blueprint which came into effect on 29 March 2000. It sought to make Zimbabwe one of the biggest and ambitious economies in Africa that would be able to consolidate its leadership role in the Southern hemisphere and beyond and establish itself as a significant player in the global economic and political arena. For local Zimbabweans, vision 2020 was meant to transform the country into a united, strong, democratic, prosperous and egalitarian nation with a high quality of life for all Zimbabweans by the year 2020. That economic and social revival was to be spearheaded by good governance, political stability, sustainable macro-economic growth, regional and provisional management of human and natural resources. I am not privy to how far Zimbabwe has gone in achieving its dream and the promise it made to its people. I think it is fair to say that those promises have proven to be a pie in the sky because in terms of economic imperatives, Zimbabweans appear to be worse off than they were in 2000. I still recall in May 2011 during the Government of National Unity era, the former Zimbabwean deputy prime minister Professor Arthur Mutambara lamenting the government’s lack of seriousness in implementing its programmes. Mutambara confessed then that Zimbabwe’s “Vision 2020” was nowhere to be found and was probably gathering dust in someone’s office somewhere. No wonder after assuming office in November 2018, the current president Emmerson Mnangagwa launched Vision 2030 in 2018.

Finally, we have reached the end of 2020. It’s time to pull out those new year resolutions or any other bold statements and gauge how much closer we have come to realizing them for the year 2020. In 2020, irrespective of where you live, we all faced some degree of lock-down, isolation from loved ones, and been prevented from working, traveling and studying in ways we used to take for granted. Most of us take time for granted. Newtonian time, that is time that follows clocks in an orderly and stable sequence, one minute logically replacing the other through which our lives move. An alternative view proposed by Kant in the 18th century, which fits our current experience better is that ‘time is the form of internal sense’, a form of inner intuition. Kant made the case for this view in his book Critique of Pure Reason, a book you want to put in the spacecraft for when human beings destroy the planet, to tell the aliens; “See, we were not all idiots.”

Back at the start of the millennium for many people, companies, organizations and other corporations, the year 2020 emerged as an iconic date with a marketable touch. It became the perfect target date for the next strategic plan or personal transformation or any other form of economic blueprint or rejuvenation. For example, in Zimbabwe, Standard Chartered Bank launched the Seeing is Believing Project. The Seeing is Believing Project was implemented by Zimbabwe Council for the Blind in partnership with Standard Chartered Bank and Christian Blind Mission aiming to strengthen Zimbabwe’s Vision 2020 objectives in the north eastern part of the country. Global corporate giants like Coca-Cola outlined a six-part Vision 2020 that focused on People, Portfolio, Partners, Planet, Profit and Productivity (6 Ps) to ensure future success. Johnson & Johnson got in on the action in time, laying out “Citizenship & Sustainability 2020 Goals” that seek to build a new vision of health that leads to healthier people. The City of Harare like any other ambitious cities and towns world over outlined an ambitious development plan for the city in their Vision 2020, while the tourism arm of the Zimbabwean government pushed for six figure tourist arrivals from the traditional western markets coupled with a faster change that keeps pace with a rapidly shifting world in their 2020 growth strategy. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) launched the VISION 2020; the Right to Sight Initiative in 1999, to reduce and ultimately eliminate avoidable blindness by the year 2020.

Dubbed “Silencing the Guns by 2020” was the vision of the African Union (AU), and it was about ending all wars, civil conflicts, gender-based violence, violent conflicts and preventing genocide in the continent by 2020. By any standard or measure, the wooden spoon will go to the African Union because its efforts to ‘silence the guns’ has been singularly ineffective. Since the pledge was signed, conflict in Africa has increased and worsened. From worsening conflict raging in Ethiopia, Islamist insurgency in northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado which is growing in strength and viciousness. Peace and security continue to elude the African continent. Prominent conflicts by non-state actors include the Tuareg separatist and jihadist insurgencies in Mali, Boko Haram in Northern Nigeria, jihadist and militia insurgencies in Burkina Faso, al-Shabaab in Somalia, and the ethnic war in the Central African Republic. The most notable civil wars are those in Libya, South Sudan and the one waged by separatists in Cameroon. Most conflicts in Africa are generally centred on the Sahel region, Lake Chad area, Horn of Africa, and Great Lakes region. What worries Africans and the international community the most is that most of Africa’s conflicts are also increasingly characterized by violent extremism and some of them have been raging for decades.

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) launched its Vision 2020 initiative in 1993; the primary goal of the initiative being to reach sustainable food security for all by 2020. I am not sure whether this goal has been achieved because the current world is not yet free from poverty, hunger and malnutrition.

Year 2021

Finally, as we approach the end of 2020 – an annus horribilis like no other and a year that will be remembered for generations, it’s now that time of the year again to gauge how much closer we have come to realizing our year 2020 resolutions and map our way forward into 2021. There is, and there will always be a future. Equally so, if anything is certain, it is that change is certain. The world we are planning for today will not exist in this form tomorrow. No one can promise that all change is always positive, but we all know that everything positive happens as a result of change and change is inevitable. As Albert Einstein said, “we will have the future we deserve. Where there is no vision, the people will perish” Proverbs 29:18. A vision defines the future you want to create. A vision Provides a rallying call which motivates everyone. The purpose of your vision is to stretch your boundaries and comfort zones and enable you to have a sense of what could be. According to Zander and Zander in the Art of Possibility, a vision releases us from the weight and confusion of our own, release us from local problems and concerns thus allowing us to see the long clear line. A vision becomes a framework for possibility when it meets certain criteria:

• ·     Clearly articulates a possibility.
• ·     Fulfills a desire fundamental to humankind, a desire which resonates with others.
• ·     It is a line of possibility radiating outwards.

If you speak the vision it transforms you – the world becomes a universe of possibility and the barriers to the realization of the vision disappear. Personally, I will be expanding my moral imaginations and advance social equality through advocating for justice in all its forms. My primary engagement will be around bias and racism in our communities, workplaces and institutions with the goal of eradicating all forms of racialized inequities. It’s difficult to measure the quality of our job or the work we do, but I strongly believe that if you do your job well, you will bring joy to millions, a collective euphoria and catharsis. I am privileged to be doing the work I do, and to be working for a social change organization that is so committed towards building a just society. An organization with a culture whereby it wants its employees to bring their full selves to work, and an organization that has demonstrated that its values are not simply words trotted out, but rather something it lives with and by. I am someone who is less binary, more loving and compassionate in my ways of being present to one another and the Earth. Growing up well attuned to injustice, inequality and struggle, I learned the value of ally-ship at a very young age. I was shaped into the individual I am from those life experiences, and not simply by the country Zimbabwe, but by the people, the mentality and the toughness, and that never giving up attitude inherent in ubuntu. I will be standing up for and joining up with everyone who's struggling regardless of colour or race - whether it's immigrants, refugees, the rural poor, the youth, the LGBT community, low-income workers and women who are so often subject to their own discrimination, and not getting equal pay for equal work. As Fanny Lou Hamer once said, "nobody is free until everybody is free. I hope your 2020 resolutions did not gather dust somewhere as did Zimbabwe’s Vision 2020, and that your 2021 will not follow suit. A luta continua.