If bees can do it why can't we

Photo from www.fotolia.com

Yesterday after church I sat down with my daughter Emma in
the garden at the Cheryl Court apartments where I have been
staying for the past year. It’s a lovely garden with well kept roses
of all types and colors as well as many other beautiful flowers and
a lot of tall trees which provide very cool shades during hot summer
days like yesterday afternoon. So there I was sitting on the bench in
the garden admiring God’s great art when along came a number of
bees buzzing and en-route to collect nectar on the roses. As I
watched the honeybees a thought came to me about how our
country would become a developed nation if we worked together in
harmony like bees, each one of us doing our part excellently in
rebuilding the nation.

The honeybee has one of the most highly developed social structures
in the animal kingdom. At the heart of the hive, which may house as
many as 80 000 bees is the queen but these 80 000 bees don’t just
sit around watching their queen. Each bee has a specialized duty to
fulfill. The forager bees encounter the perils of the outside world to
collect food. The water collector bees bring in moisture to regulate
humidity in the hive. The plasterer bees make a kind of cement to
repair the hive. The fanner bees station themselves at the entrance
of the hive and fan the scent of the hive outward to signal the location
of the colony to lost or disoriented bees. The scout bees keep the hive
alerted to opportunities and dangers of the outside world. The variety
and specialization of the worker bees seem endless and they all work
towards one objective of maintaining the social soundness of their bee
kingdom.

So as I looked at the forager bees collecting nectar from the roses I
couldn’t help but wish we Zimbabweans could all work harmoniously
together, doing our different parts in rebuilding our nation. I imagined
a scenario where there are registered Bureau de Changes in the
country whose rates will be competitive with no black market rates
to talk of thus making it possible for foreign currency from our
Diaspora relatives and from tourists and cross border traders to
eventually find itself in the RBZ coffers. I then imagined industrialists
being able to get foreign currency to buy some raw materials and
working industriously to produce all the goods needed in the country.
I then imagined the wholesalers buying the goods from the producers
at reasonable prices and selling them to retailers after factoring in a
reasonable profit margin and the retailers selling the goods to
customers at get rich slowly prices that don’t cause inflation to keep
rising. The result being a sound economy in our country. I also
imagined all the workers in all the different industries in the country
doing their work excellently without corruption resulting in excellent
institutions and infrastructures in the country.

This is not an unreachable day dream. The Japanese are the
technological superpower that they are because of their ability to
work together like bees towards the development of their country.
The Chinese are hard workers who are always as busy as bees,
working diligently for the development of their country and as a result
they have become a powerhouse to reckon with. The Germans had a
high rate of inflation like ours long back but through innovation and a
development friendly attitude by the German citizens they managed
to rise up and rebuild their economy. There was a time when Ireland’s
economy had become so bad that it suffered a brain drain larger than
the one we are suffering now but through working like bees with a
mindset inclined towards sustainable development, Ireland now has
a very sound economy. Right next to our borders is Zambia whose
weak Kwacha currency we used to make jokes about but just visit the
country now and notice how much foreign currency is exchanged legally
in the many registered Bureau de Changes in the country and also
notice how strong the Kwacha has become as compared to the
Zimbabwean dollar. This is a result of all stakeholders in Zambia
working in harmony towards the same goal of the improvement of the
economy.

If all these other countries managed to do it, why can’t we. If bees can
do it why can’t we. The state of our economy is not because we failed
in Economics it is because most of the industry and business owners
in the country are greedy and not so patriotic such that they let
themselves be bought and used by the great control freak as a means
to a desired political end. No wonder the social contract failed to take
effect. If only we would all have the soundness of our economy at heart
and we would all do our part in rebuilding the nation, working like bees
to do so, in no time this economic meltdown will be history. We shouldn’t
kill our economy because of politics. Let us aim at leaving a legacy of a
healthy economy for our grandchildren and future generations unborn
to time, if not our children.