Is Zimbabwe a normal country?

I noticed that the BBC couldn't resist taking a negative dig at Zimbabwe when reporting on the magnificent friendly between Zimbabwe and Brazil.

Concluding a piece on the game the BBC's Africa correspondent Andrew Harding wrote "It feels - at least today - like a refreshingly normal, happy country." This sentence suggests that Zimbabwe is normally not a normal country.

While we have our problems we are not the grotesquely abnormal monster that much of the ignorant Western media have convinced themselves we are.

The are many things about Zimbabwe which are much better than in most of the places that Andrew Harding would consider ‘normal’. For example, Zimbabwe has the highest literacy level in sub-Saharan Africa. Until a couple years back school enrolment of school going age children was also the highest. I am not sure about now but many parents are making tremendous effort to make sure their children get a good education.

Zimbabwe also has some of the best sanitation standards found in rural Africa. The Blair toilet we take for granted is a luxury in most countries. Here in South Africa the richest country in Africa, there is a big hullabaloo about toilets being installed for the first time in some parts of urban Cape Town.

The deep well with a hand-winch that we also take for granted in most of Zimbabwe is also a luxury for most in other parts of Africa. It provides clean ground-filtered water and is found at nearly all rural homesteads.

Most Zimbabweans enjoy housing standards well above those found in much of the region and the world. Most homesteads including rural homesteads have a solid burnt brick house with a cement floor, with many having at least two buildings (the traditional and culturally important kitchen hut, and a brick under asbestos 'bedroom').

Most of South Africa's blacks still live in substandard shacks (mukuku) with no sanitation at all. On the other hand, Zimbabweans can't imagine themselves living an entire lifetime in a chitangwena (a shack), but here in South Africa generations have lived and are still living in shacks.

If the same standards that were applied in Operation Murambatsvina (which was supposed to clear Zimbabwe of illegal and substandard structures) were to be applied in other parts of Africa, more than half of the populations would be left homeless. That estimate includes South Africa.

Many Zimbaweans actually have two homes, an urban home and a rural home (kumusha) a feature of our lives the we take very much for granted. However that feature is a very very effective social safety net. Zimbabweans can retreat to their rural homes when things are not going well in the urban setup. In the rural homes the Zimbabweans can live off the land growing what food they need. Relying on their own labour and effort, they even building their own houses using local materials.

This land-based self reliance is one of the important reasons why ownership and control of the land is such a big issue in Zimbabwe. The ability to grow commercial crops on land is a bonus. The real nity-gritty is the ability to grow one's own food.

The logic is simple. If someone grows food which you then have to buy it means you still have to find a job to get money to buy the food. If you can't find the job you go hungry even if there is plenty food. You will be forced to become a beggar. If you have your own piece of land big enough to feed yourself then you need a job only to improve your income flow and not as a basic means of survival. You will never become a beggar because with, access to land you have a chance to use your time to do something for yourself.

Outside of political violence we have extremely low crime rates. We have almost no problems with gangsterism. Contrasts that with supposedly normal countries like Jamaica where gangsters virtually run their own armies and polices forces. Contrast with countries like Mexico where gangsters routinely murder government officials. We don't have serious problems with hard drugs like cocaine and heroin.

Outside of political violence Zimbabwe also provides excellent protection and security for its citizens. It is difficult to imagine a crazed person driving around taking pot shots at people as recently happened in the United Kingdom.

Andrew Harding thinks Zimbabwe is not a normal country but he can walk around knowing that nobody would dare mug him in broad daylight in a crowded street. Such brazen muggings are a daily routine occurrence in places like Johannesburg.

Zimbabwe's politics have been nasty and atrocious for the past decade. As a result the western media have convinced the world, including some Zimbabweans, that they have the short end of the development stick. However a simple look at hard facts is enough to show that Zimbabweans enjoy much better lives than Afghanis, Iraqis, Jamaicans and the majority of black South Africans.

The truth is that based on the usual human development indicators, Zimbawe is more much more ‘normal’ than most of the countries which receive less negative coverage from the Western press.