Zimbabwe is not at war. No bombs fall from the sky, no militias roam the countryside, and no one wakes up to the sound of artillery. On the surface, we are a nation at peace. Yet beneath this calm exterior lies a gnawing restlessness—a people weighed down not by war, but by the daily grind of uncertainty.
Peace, as we are taught, is the absence of conflict. But in Zimbabwe, peace has come to mean silence—the silence in queues at banks, the silence of resignation at bus termini, and the silence of parents who cannot explain to their children why the future seems forever deferred. Ours is a peace measured not in harmony but in endurance.
The average Zimbabwean does not fear the barrel of a gun. They fear the notice of eviction for unpaid rent, the dreaded phone call from Zimloan, the school fees invoice they cannot meet, and the hospital bill that demands U.S. dollars in a country where the currency is a chameleon. They fear the widening gap between the dreams they once carried and the reality they now navigate.
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We are a nation outwardly calm but inwardly exhausted. Young people escape into betting houses, hustles, and the fantasy of “greener pastures.” Middle-aged professionals walk with diplomas that open no doors. The elderly sit on verandas, remembering a time when peace of mind was not a luxury but a given, regaling the young with tales of a time when the milkmanused to deliver milk.
This is what it means to be Zimbabwean in 2025: to live in a land without war but without the inner stillness that true peace brings. Our conversations are cautious, our laughter sometimes forced, and our hopes guarded. We carry on, because carrying on is what we do best.
The tragedy is not that Zimbabwe is broken—it is that Zimbabweans have become experts at living with the fracture. We do not demand peace of mind because we have been taught to be grateful for the absence of gunfire. But peace, real peace, must be more than this. It must be the freedom to dream without fear, to plan without doubt, and to live without perpetual anxiety.
Zimbabwe is at peace. But Zimbabweans, in truth, are not.
Simbarashe Namusi is a peace, leadership, and governance scholar as well as a media expert. He writes in his personal capacity.
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