56 7.3.1 Disharmony is Destructive and Disruptive Disharmony disrupts the mind, spirit and body so that society lapses into an abnormal state of being that affects the body-politick the same way an illness does. Society loses a sense of its values and integrity and drifts into a state of chaos. The strength of reconciliation is clearly seen and demonstrated when humanity forgives each other and live as brothers and sisters (Ps 133:1). 7.3.2 Harmony Promotes Prosperity The vision of the nation that we have portrayed in this document is not attainable without reconciliation. Both social well-being and economic prosperity presuppose harmony, tolerance of diversity and mutual acceptance. 7.4 RECONCILIATION AND RENEWAL. In his inaugural address on Independence day in 1980 the then Prime Minister Robert Gabriel Mugabe stunned the world by declaring reconciliation as the corner stone of his government’s policy in the new Zimbabwe. The events in Zimbabwe today show that reconciliation was not achieved. We were as a nation never taken through a process where the truth was told about the pain experienced during the years of the struggle for liberation and our oppression by the colonial regime. The nation needed to end the years of conflict in a formal way by the ritual of truth telling and forgiveness. Even in our African cultures conflict was never resolved by simply believing people will forget and everything will be back to normal. It involved some ritual ceremonies that would reconcile the warring families or factions through forgiveness. Equally important was for us to recognise from the beginning that as part of the process towards reconciliation, it was crucial for the nation to set in motion a process to address the socio-economic imbalances inherited from the past, which were a major source of the conflict. At Independence there were very high expectations for the renewal or restructuring of the socio-economic life of the nation. It could not be allowed to be business as usual. The people wanted to see change in their lives for the better and not to see the gap between rich and poor widening, with most of the wealth in the hands of the whites and a few black Zimbabweans. Reconciliation goes hand in hand with renewal of the socioeconomic and political structures. What we are saying here is that the movement towards reconciliation presupposes an equally important movement toward the creation of a just society. There can be no reconciliation without an effort to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor. A new social order has to be created. This even brings in the issue of