ZIMBABWE is going through a difficult time. The country’s social fabric is tearing at its seams. Economically, the country is in doldrums and politically the democratic space is shrinking. Stir The Pot :Stir The Pot However, there is a missing voice from the country’s intellectuals, they are shying away from leading discussions on what has to be done now. This is a topic that has its pitfalls for a writer like me, but after carefully considering events in Zimbabwe compared to our neighbour South Africa, it has become an important subject to discuss. The Collins Dictionary defines a public intellectual as “an intellectual, often a noted specialist in a particular field, who has become well-known to the general public for a willingness to comment on current affairs”. Commenting on current affairs is not an easy thing especially in Zimbabwe where the democratic space is shrinking. Many intellectuals have taken the easy route of keeping their opinions to themselves or only share with a limited number of friends. In many instances, some intellectuals only speak off the record — they do not want to be associated with their opinions publicly. At a political level, Zimbabwe is sort of a pariah State — the black sheep in a community of nations for one reason or another. The government, over the last two years after coming into power via a coup, has been trying to re-engage the West. However, discussions on the issue have been dominated by government officials and none of the intellectuals around has chosen to speak on the question. The same has been happening in economics. Zimbabwe has been reeling from sanctions, corruption and bad management. Yet, our intellectuals have chosen the silence is golden route. Could it be that they are worried about their safety in a politically polarised country or they are bidding their time to hobnob with politicians at an appropriate time? Each year, our local universities have been churning out doctorate degrees and a great number of academics carry with pride the prefix doctor to their names. Surprisingly, the quality and diversity of public discussion has not changed in the past decade. We have the same panels on public discussions, the same people quoted in our media and the same faces writing opinions and editorials for the mainstream media or on their blogs. As a contrast, let me point to South Africa. The mainstream media like This Day, Sunday Times, Mail & Guardian and Daily Maverick have opinion and editorial pages filled with local public intellectuals. Some have even gone to the extent of commissioning some as columnists. This has enriched discussions and debates in South Africa. Yes, it has its problems like race relations, an economy for the few and not the many, corruption and abuse of cadre deployment by the ruling African National Congress, however their public intellectuals do not shy away from discussing these issues. Alan Lightman of Michigan Institute of Technology in a paper titled The Role of the Public Intellectual said: “Such a person must be careful, he must be aware