Crisis as an Opportunity
Political societies do not seem to be capable of making the decisions that are necessary to put their governments or countries onto a self sustaining path to prosperity and stability. It took the Second World War to put Germany and Japan on the road to becoming democratic and progressive societies. In China it took decades of shambolic, "red revolution" and Marxist ideology to persuade its leadership that they needed a new way.
In all three cases the results have been dramatic and have produced societies that have grown rapidly in economic terms, established a stable form of political consensus and give their people a much higher quality of life overall. We could argue that the conflicts and crisis in Europe in the first half of the 20th Century created the European Union and that this remarkable alliance of many countries is delivering a generally higher quality of life to Europeans within the framework of stable political and economic systems.
The unending decline in Zimbabwe following the transition of power from the Rhodesian to the Zimbabwean government in 1980 is the product of 35 years of poor governance, bad policy, corrupt administration and self seeking power. Despite their atrocious record in government and the operation of a "democracy" with elections every 5 years, the oligarchy that holds power here remains in control with no signs that it is about to relinquish power any time soon.
It was only the crash in 2008 associated with 250 million percent inflation and the complete wipe out of all savings and the near total collapse of economic activity that brought about the conditions where the regional super power, South Africa finally stepped into the ring and demanded change. The GNU from 2009 to 2013 was the result and brought about a brief respite for the people of this country.
Regional leaders failed to follow through with the initiative and to insist that the Zimbabwe government make the changes required to establish a functioning democracy. The partners in the GNU spent all their time trying to outwit each other and Zanu PF simply concentrated its efforts in making sure that once the GNU was dissolved, it would be able to take back absolute power.