"The Audacity of Hope"
By Zanele Mhlaba
President Barack Obama wrote a book titled, “The Audacity of Hope.” I have never read the book but I always loved the name. Hope is such an important thing to have. I am an optimist, some may even describe me as an idealist. I prefer to look at the world in a positive light, to see the good and believe that the bad can be changed. I find it much easier to operate from a positive and hopeful mindset than its opposite.
When I look at myself and other young people I’ve come across while in Zim, I see many who want to be positive change agents, who have big dreams and plans but I see just as many who have lost faith in everything — the system, our leaders, the country. Just given up any hope for a better future. Some of us feel let down. Cheated, even. We feel ignored. Then on top of that, we have [older] adults whose collective trauma, pre and post Independence, manifests itself in a very negative way. All they have endured is much more than we can fully conceptualize or appreciate. Like, one day they woke up to a country that they didn’t recognize. Closed down businesses, empty savings accounts, prices that changed by the time you got to the front of the queue, degrees/skills that sit on the sidelines waiting to be used. I do not blame them for being bitter or angry. I do not blame them for constantly reminding us that this life is about survival. That the currency of survival is not dreams of innovation and building things that may not immediately pay off; it is a pay check, at the end of this month. They temper our idealism and our “wild” dreams with that cold, hard, jaded reality.
My problem with that is how it has affected young people. Too many seem to have internalized that bitterness and jaded mentality. I’ve had conversations with young people here whose ultimate dream is to leave the country because they do not see anything here for them. They have been dismissive of any talk of building here or being able to play some type of role. It’s sad. I think we are too young to have given up. We need to be surrounded by things/people that inspire and encourage us to keep going. To be inspired means you are hopeful. To keep trying means you are hopeful and that, hope, is what ultimately pushes us forward into action. That hope allows us to be confident and bold in our thinking. Delve into our deepest dreams, think past what we see now, have a vision and work towards it even when people say how hard it is, how unqualified we are, how we have no experience, how it’s never been done before and that it will never work here. When you become hopeless, you become helpless. You stagnate. In everything we do, there is an element of hope involved. We hope that the time/conditions are right, that we are making the right decisions, that nothing major goes wrong. Many of us are so paralyzed by fear of failure or we’ve bought into the hopeless/helpless narrative. I hate those feelings because they never even allow us to try.
