My wife’s cousin Jonathan, who’s a bright and talented sort, has an interesting post up on his blog riffing on a Zimbabwean proverb to the effect that “a coward has no scars.” Now, if you want a riff on the proverb itself, I’d suggest you look to his blog for that; as will be no surprise to anyone who’s followed this blog a while, my reaction to it was rather different. Given the news from Zimbabwe—if you were to write a novel about the Mugabe regime, you might call it Tyranny in the Time of Cholera, as that bloody autarch clearly would rather see his whole country die than let go of even one of the reins of power—my thoughts immediately went there.There are a lot of Zimbabweans who aren’t cowards, and they have the scars to prove it; and there were many, during the last presidential “election,” who were scarred badly enough for their opposition that they opted for what you might call a little tactical cowardice—they backed down long enough to live to fight another day. That even included Morgan Tsvangirai, the chief opposition leader, who bought himself a little time and a little breathing room by pulling out of the “runoff” before diving back in later. (So far, he’s holding steady and refusing to let Mugabe make a farce out of the power-sharing agreement; as a result, some folks are blaming him for the country’s woes, but I hope he keeps it up.) They’re proof, I guess, that sometimes the line between bravery and foolhardiness, and that which divides cowardice from prudence, can be awfully fine; and for that matter, that everyone has a limit, and everyone can be broken.There are a lot of Zimbabweans who are badly scarred, simply because they want to live free under a just government that exists to serve its people rather than to leech off them. I continue to pray that that day will come, and soon.
Great post, Rob! Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Looking back at my post, it seems insensitive at best; though the truth is that it’s simply a little ignorant.
The sorts of scars I had in mind were the type we tend to pick up here in America – from things like falling off a bike. I pray for our brothers and sisters in Zimbabwe that they will soon return to days when their worst scars are of that sort.
I wouldn’t call your post insensitive, or even ignorant, really. We all have our own contexts, which are no less valid for the fact that others have different ones which are in many cases worse; the fact that that proverb echoes one way in the nightmare of present-day Zimbabwe doesn’t change the fact that it speaks differently in other contexts, nor does it make those other applications inappropriate or invalid. After all, that proverb doubtless comes from a very different time in the history of the Shona and Matabele peoples, and no doubt has been used through the happy times as well as the hard ones. (It was an amazingly short time ago that Zimbabwe was one of the success stories of Africa; as long as the people were happy to keep voting for Mugabe, he ruled fairly well.) As such, I think your use of the proverb was honoring to the wisdom it expressed; the fact that I reacted differently is in no way a criticism, express or implied.
That said, I appreciate your prayers; I have some friends over there that I’m praying for, and worried about.
Thanks for your insight Rob.
You’re welcome.