The rural vs urban debate in Zimbabwe : An extension of the land question.

If one watches American movies, or even everyday news, hardly a day passes without hearing about homeless people. These are people without a roof over their head, who sleep in the streets and have got no other option. Most of them are not insane people either.

If you live in Zimbabwe, a person who sleeps in the street is either insane or a street kid. Most of the later would have run away from abusive homes.

Yet the USA is the richest country in the world, and Zimbabwe is one of the poorest. Why is that? Why  do Zimbabweans not end up living on the streets, homeless, despite the famed economic hardships in the country.

I believe a key part of the answer is a culture that is land based. We Zimbabweans believe in owning a piece of land somewhere (musha) which one can use for, at a minimum, subsistence living. Vanhu vane misha yavo.

If you have access to land you can always build a roof for yourself. You use your own time to mould your own bricks, cut your own grass, cut your own poles and build a hut. Thus the poorest you can ever be if you have land, is not be homeless sleeping on the streets but have a grass thatched hut over your head.

Yet recently we had the prime minister calling for people to be removed from the rural areas and be relocated to towns so they could look for jobs.

Prime Minister Tsvangirai does not understand the core problem around people being poor peasants. The people in so called communal areas (which were created as, and are still operating as, native reserves) are poor peasants because they do not have legally recognised ownership of the land they live on.

Their tenure on that land is not economically actionable. Apart from utilizing the land for living on and growing subsistence crops, they cannot use the land as an economic asset.

Let me put it this way, a man living on 6 hectares in Musana communal lands cannot go to a bank to get a loan for building say pig sties or a commercial chicken hatchery. Yet he has enough land to run those kind of operations.

On the other hand a man living in Kuwadzana on 250 square metres can go to any bank and get a loan using his house as collateral. But even if he gets the loan, where is he going to get the space to build a commercial hatchery and commercial pigsties.

What Tsvangirai is effectively saying is take a man who has six hectares, and therefore a chance of employing himself and probably one or two other people, and put him on 250 sqaure metres or in a lodger's room where he has absolutely no chance of employing anyone, but is one hundred percent dependent on being employed himself.

Don't forget that the man in Musana still has the option to compete for same job with the man in Kuwadzana, if he so chooses.

If they both find jobs, the man in Musana has got somewhere to invest his income. If both are working pensionable jobs, at retirement time, the man in Musana will have some cows plus a pension while the Kuwadzana man only has a pension.

The man in Musana can grow much of his own food, using his pension for other things. The man in Kuwadzana has to buy most of his food.

What people often mistake for poverty in rural areas is a lack of infrastructure. That lack of infrastructure is due to negligence by government. Colonial governments neglected the rural areas where blacks live because of racism. Today's government is failing to develop the rural areas mainly because of mismanagement and corruption. However some of it is due to the mentally colonised belief that rural areas should only be poor.

The cornerstone of land reform should have been to give people from the former native reserves, legal economically utilizable tenure on the land they live on.

Yes equitable re-distribution of land to de-racialise land ownership patterns is also important, but that on its own without reform of the tenure system is not sufficient to economically uplift people's lives.

Indeed white farms have been taken mostly to recreate the tenureless land occupation of the former native reserves. I do not know if the people implementing this type of land reform are at all aware that, in the first place, tenureless occupation was specifically designed to disempower the natives.

What is needed now is to give not only the people resettlement areas, but even those in the old native reserves, legal tenure on the land. Ipai vanhu kumamisha ma title deeds kuti vakwanisewo kutsvaga mari dzekuita maprojects anopihwa mari kuma bhanga pamisha yavo.

Of course there are risks, because if somebody mismanages a project they could loose their home. However there are many ways of mitigating or working around those risks. For example instead of getting a loan an the whole homestead, people could officially subdivide and get a loan on a portion. That way even if the project fails one will still have a roof over their head.

The prime minister was talking of  taking people off the land and putting them into towns where they could end up on the streets.

Can he not see that by taking a man from where he has a chance to utilize 6 hectares, to a place where he has to first look for lodgings and then maybe get a job, you are actually drastically narrowing his economic options not expanding them.

Instead of giving your citizen a loan on six hectares, you want to invite someone and give them loans, while you force your citizens to look for jobs from those you are giving loans. That is exactly what is going to happen, if people are pulled out of resettlement areas so that 'commercial' farmers can be brought back.

The countries that Tsvangirai is trying to emulate, the Western countries, have got homeless people. That is people who live on the streets with not even a roof over their head. Yet in Zimbabwe it is difficult to find anyone who sleeps in the open because they have absolutely no other choice.

People who own land in those countries are considered rich. The ranchers in the United States and the Lords in Britain are all classes whose esteemed status is historically rooted in tenured land ownership.

The biggest problem with Zimbabwe's economy right now is politicians using their position to take money that is meant to provide services for people, and spending it on luxury lifestyles for themselves, their families and their cronies.

Politicians are also using their influence to help people avoid paying monies that are due to the state. This sometimes goes to the extend of aiding and abating tax evasion. Recently I came across a man who claimed that he doesn't pay toll fees because he claims he is related to a well known Zanu-PF politician.

Rural areas are poor because money meant for infrastructure development is being misused. The key to uplifting lives in Zimbabwe lies in upgrading the infrastructure and tenure system in rural areas, not moving people to towns so they can look for jobs.

When I was nearly struck by lightning

When I was about 9 years old a granary was struck by lightning 10 metres from the kitchen hut where my family was sitting. The granary had a roof of iron sheeting, a steel window frame, and there was a metal wire tying a loose roof sheet to the wall, looping through the windowframe.

The building was unscathed save a large chunk of brickwork that had been gouged out just below the window frame. The wall below the gouging had been burnt dry by the heat of the lightning. It was as if no rain had touched that part of the building. As per traditional belief my grandfather duly consulted a n'anga.

The n'anga 'traced' the 'route' of the lightning from about 200 metres away, from close to the boundary fence of the homestead. He duly found two sets of 'lightning eggs' one just behind the granary and another under a mutukutu tree about a hundred metres in the direction where he claimed the lightning 'ran' from.

He claimed the lightning had been targeting people in the kitchen huts but through the power of our strong ancestors it had been diverted and instead it had crashed into the granary. According to the n'anga the gouging was from the crash and the dry wall was because the lightning was carrying fire which it intended to use to burn the people if it had caught them.

According to the n'anga, the lightning had been hiding along the boundary fence for a long time waiting for an opportune moment to strike. He said someone malicious towards the family had left it there. He didn't exactly pinpoint anyone, but the family discussions soon rounded upon a local villager who, reputation had it, had gone to Manicaland and came back with lightning.

"Akamboinda kuChipinge ka uya!" was considered proof that the man had powers to manufacture lightning.

Us youngsters we were not allowed to see such scary things as lightning eggs, but I did manage to be naughty enough to sneak a peek. The eggs were white, not brownish like chicken eggs, and were slightly smaller than chicken eggs. But I could see they were real eggs. They were definitely not scary and, at that tender age, I had serious hopes that they would be cooked for consumption.

I was very, very disappointed when the n'anga performed some rituals with them and then took them away, together with my grandfather, to throw them away without giving me a chance of eating them.

The n'anga latter claimed that some of the eggs had hatched, and the chicks of the lightning were hiding somewhere near the homestead. He warned that the chicks would come back to strike again. He hadn't had enough time to hunt for them, but he was prepared to come back and finish them off. To bring him back he hinted that he wanted several cows. He ominously warned that if he wasn't allowed to find the remaining lightning chicks soon, the family would be wiped out.

Of course the entire family was in awe of the n'anga's explanation. For weeks afterwards the discussion centred on whether the lightning, came running, galloping of flying. "Mheni inouya ichiita chamurambamhuru" was a common claim. Some claimed that since the n'anga said the lightning had travelled along or near the ground from the boundary fence, it must have run or galloped along the ground and left behind footprints only the n'anga had powers to see.

My grandfather, much to the chagrin of some family members, baulked at parting with so many cows, so the n'anga was never brought back. He was accused of wanting to have the family wiped out by lightning (munoda kutipedzesa nemheni Sekuru aJupi) just for the sake of keeping his cows. (Mombe idzodzo dzakakosha kudarika vanhu here?)

This happened several years before independence and to this day our homestead has never been struck by lightning again. I wonder where the chicks went.

With the understanding of electricity that I now have, of course it is easy to figure out what happened. The lightning discharge must have struck the metal roof of the granary. It travelled through the wire to the window frame. Below the windowframe there was no metal to travel through. Met with a higher coefficient of resistance it heated up the brick material causing sudden expansion, hence the gouging in the wall. It still managed to travel to earth through the wall but as it heated the wall causing the water to evaporate.

What is the fight in Syria really about?

What is the fight in Syria really about? Is it about freedom and democracy?

Bashar is not a democrat, far from it. Neither is Shaikh Khalifa, nor that other king whose country beheads underage girls. They are the chief sponsors of the fighting in Syria.

Of course these two would not be so emboldened without American blessings, or at the very least American indecisiveness. It looks like the Americans are playing Russian roulette with terrorism in Syria.

They were worried that the jihadist al-Nusra front was too pre-eminent in the Iraqi opposition. Now they are telling their client states to supply more weapons to the 'moderate' rebels. There are hoping to lure the people who had joined the jihadi side back to the moderate side.

The foolishness of this policy is patently obvious. The jihadi fighters could join the moderates get weapons and either simply walk back to the jihadi side with the weapons, or simply apply their jihadi policies on the ground with those weapons.

The same mistake that was made in Najibullah's Afghanistan and Somalia is about to be made again. Here is how. As the fight heats up and individual commanders on the ground struggle to stamp their authority, they will morph into warlords. As warlordism takes hold, loyalties are far much more likely to be cemented along clan lines.

Overall loyalty to a particular cause will then be determined by contingency and survivalist necessities of the moment. Once such a fluid state has been reached it will be years or even generations before any central body is able to stamp its authority again.

Also overall loyalty of a group is likely to be determined by the deep personal convictions of individuals in the groups involved. I do not know what the deep personal convictions of Syrian rebel leaders are. Neither should the Americans fool themselves into thinking they do. Did they know the deep personal convictions of Osama when they were sponsoring him against the Soviets.

To cite an even more recent example, did they know he deep personal convictions of Tamerlan Tsarnaev when they were mentoring him to an adult in the USA. In the case of Tamerlan, despite being warned by the Russians they couldn't pick it up that he was dangerous.

I don't blame the FBI for that failure, some people are simply good at bluffing especially if they know what those to be bluffed are looking for. It is as easy as putting on the make-up that you know a suitor wants to see.

To me the strategy to democratise Syria is very simple. Force an election even with Asad in power. He belongs to a minority, he is bound to loose. Even if he manages to retain a fingerhold, that grip would soon slip away in a few years after another round of elections.

The big advantage of such a strategy is that central authority would hold, containing many threats. The transition would be gradual allowing population groups to adjust. Of course external powers seeking to influence the outcome may not get the outcomes they are hoping for.

The Americans should also be wary of another risk, falling for the small brother syndrome. The small brother will start fights he can't possibly win knowing that big brother has got the brawn. American allies will take chances relying on American influence and power.

It happened in Libya. The French pushed for a fight. It was the Americans who provided the backbone for that fight. It was also them who took the hardest blows thrown back. They lost ambassador Stephens.

In Syria it is the Saudis and the Qatari who are pushing for a fight. They cannot provide the military solution by themselves but they are hopping to drag the Americans into fighting for their interests. Their reasons are essentially sectarian, they are Sunnis and Assad belongs to a Shiite sect.

The Russians, at this point, may have finally figured out that the demonisation of Syria has got nothing to do with human rights but might have everything to do with rolling back their influence. If they can't see that, they will never be able to see anything even if you give them glasses the size of Siberia.

Syria, has become nothing but a proxy battlefield. The main battle seems to be on Sunni vs Shia muslim lines. It has drawn in the regional powers of both sects. It has also drawn in the world powers with a resolutely pro-Assad Russia on the one side and the indecisive Americans on the other.

The raised fist is not just a Zanu-PF symbol

What does the raised fist mean? Chibhakera chinorevei?

If you follow Zimbabwe politics you would have come to believe that the raised right fist is the personal trademark of Robert Mugabe. Indeed he is informally referred to as 'kamudhara kechibhakera' (the old man of the fist) in some circles.

The misunderstanding on the use of the fist has grown so much that some now treat it like the official symbol of Zanu-PF the party.

The MDC factions, use the open palm as the official party symbol. As such most of their supporters have come to assume that the open palm as a direct result of opposition to Zanu-PF.

They have been subtly brainwashed into believing the the clenched fist is a Zanu-PF symbol. It is not.

Most of them are oblivious of the fact the open palm signifies opposition to much more than Zanu-PF.

Amandla! Ngawethu!
Nelson Mandela uses the clenched fist symbol during a speech.

Indeed in the subcontinent, world icon, Nelson Mandela used the raised fist symbol much more than Mugabe does. Jacob Zuma is so enthusiastic about it that he often raises both fists. Steve Bantu Biko was another prominent user of the raised fist.

As far afield as the United States of America people like the civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr used the raised fist.

It is no coincidence  that all these politicians who cut their teeth and made their names fighting colonialism, supremacist racial segregation and generally fighting for the rights of black people, use the raised fist as their symbol of choice. They use the raised fist in its context as the Black Power symbol.

It signifys the black man's demand for his rights. The raised fist is the symbol for black power, black empowerment (often characterised as indigenous empowerment in Africa) and black consciousness (which what Steve Biko died for).

Jacob Zuma enthusiastically raises two clenched fists

Probably the most iconic, and at the time most controversial, use of the raised fist, was the 1968 Mexico Olympics Black Power Salute. Winning American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos, with the support of white Australian Peter Norman, raised their fists in the black power salute. All these athletes were subsequently ostracised, and treated as villains, by their national Olympic committees.

Back in Zimbabwe, at the time the MDC was formed and the open palm was announced as their symbol I didn't put much thought into it. It was just another party symbol. However as time has passed I come to realise the subtly clever strategy, behind it.

MDC activists have almost completely forgotten that the official Zanu-PF symbol is the cockerel (jongwe) and an image of the Great Zimbabwe. They now treat the raised fist as if it is the official Zanu-PF symbol. Together with the demonisation of the party and its leader, Robert Mugabe in the international media, it has come to a point where they think to associate themselves with the raised fist is to associate themselves with 'evil'.

In short, black people have been turned against black empowerment, without them even realising that they are being turned against their own empowerment.

These days the argument often advanced is that black people are already empowered because they now have equal rights and political self-determination. Those advancing this argument are forgetting one crucial detail, power is not just exercised through politics, but through the control of wealth as well. It is not a coincedence that throughout history kings, emperors and chiefs often had more cattle, more gold, more wives, more land, more wealth than everyone else.

The 1968 Black Power Salute at the Olympics in Mexico

The rule of thumb is that those with wealth will take the political power, or those with political power will take the wealth. Political power and economic power are like two oxen. They need to be tethered to the same yoke. Blacks now mostly have political power, but they do not have the economic power to be completely self-determining. Thus black economic empowerment remains a necessity.

Moreover, economic power did not just fall into the hands of a particular racial group by some divine right, laziness of the black race or their lack of intelligence as it is often made out to be. For centuries plain physical aggression was used firstly to extract labour from the black man for free (slavery), and secondly to prevent the black man from enjoying fair and equal opportunity (racial segregation and oppression).

Wealth for many was created by centuries of a policy of exploiting the black man's strength. According some historians, the British industrial revolution of the 18th century was financed by profits from the slave trade. Some argue that the slave trade is the reason why Britain and its former colonies such as the USA, are the leading economies in the world today.

Indeed some of the world's biggest corporations today like JP Morgan Chase, America's second largest bank, were given a kick-start in their business by the slave trade. Companies that later formed JP Morgan Chase started business by accepting slaves as collateral to give loans to plantation owners. Blacks were treated as collateral the same way we do with livestock today.

Martin Luther King, Jr stressing what he stood for.

When laws abolishing slavery were passed in 1833, Britain paid out more than 20 million pounds (17 billion pounds in today's values) to about 47 thousand slave owners who lost their slaves. For those who invested this windfall wisely, the families are still rich today.

Not only did such benefits accrue from slavery and general exploitation of black people. When colonialism retreated, the former colonialists left behind laws that made sure that wealth and property, such as land, which they grabbed violently from the natives could not be taken back by the methods they used to acquire that property.

In other words the rule of law is now being used as a method of retaining property that was acquired under the racial supremacy and right of race doctrines. It is important to understand that the rule of law does not automatically equate to justice and equity. If it did then we would have no reason to complain against laws such as the Group Areas Act and the Land Apportionment Act of 1930.

It is policy which brings about justice and equity. If fair policies are pursued then the laws passed to implement those policies will also be fair. Unfair policies will lead to unfair laws.

The bottom line is that to undo centuries of black racial deprivation, carefully crafted policies of black empowerment need be followed. Laws to support these policies need enacted. Even with these empowerment laws in place it will take generations if not centuries to undo the disadvantages of centuries of oppression.

Kamudhara kechibhakera

These policies need to publicly advocated and politically marketed. Politically marketing policies needs the use of symbolisms. The symbolism of black empowerment is the raised fist.

To slow down or maybe even stop blacks from getting back property rights they lost in the supremacist era, what better idea could be there than to actually get some blacks to vehemently oppose the symbols of black empowerment.

Can anyone explain to me how the MDC now find themselves vehemently opposing the symbol of black empowerment? It is not even the symbol of their opponents. Could they have been carefully manipulated into the position, where they trivialise their own empowerment?

Could it be that their open palm symbol was subtly positioned to de-market the idea of black empowerment among the black masses?

For the ANC, Jesus might just come too soon

South African President, Jacob Zuma, once said the ANC is going to rule until Jesus comes.

Well, I am an atheist and Jesus' coming does not particularly concern me. However based on the above, I am convinced that Jesus is going to come within the next two decades.

It is unlikely that the ANC, four or five general elections from now, will be able to win election with a sufficient majority to dictate who the president of the country should be.

It is perhaps ironic that it is President Zuma's associations that have in recent years been leading to a decline in the faith that South Africans have in the ANC. COPE split away from the ANC as a result of the fallout from Zuma's fight with Mbeki for the presidency of the organisation.

The most recent expulsion of a high ranking official, that of Julius Malema, is linked by some to the President's fight to retain the ANC presidency he wrestled from Mbeki.

Unfortunately, another scandal that has just erupted, is linked to a family regularly described as close associates of President Jacob Zuma.

Already christened Guptagate, the saga involves a plane carrying some Indian government officials, and private citizens, that was allowed to land at a military airbase. The plane apparently was not subjected to normal customs procedures. Newspaper reports also claim that it was carrying five truckloads of gifts.

I am not sure what logic was used to allow this plane to land without being subjected to normal customs procedures but whatever that logic is, it has little, if any, relation to normal diplomatic conventions.

As far as I know, only an officially marked diplomatic pouch, sometimes accompanied by a diplomatic courier is not subject to search or seizure by customs officials. Also as far as I know a diplomatic pouch can only be send from a country to its embassy and vise versa. Note that the destination, an embassy, also has official diplomatic immunity. So a diplomatic bag is essentially an immune communication channel between two immune territories.

The goods on the Gupta plane were headed fro a private wedding venue which has absolutely no diplomatic immunity. In any case, there are no reports that they were marked by the Indian government as diplomatic pouch.

They should have been subject to normal customs procedures. If the Indian High Commision had a hand in organizing their importation it should have made sure they were clearly marked as a diplomatic bag and should have ferried these goods to its official premises. If it didn't it essentially aided and abated a smuggling operation.

Some countries allow goods intended for the personal use of diplomats or for charitable use to be exempt from duties. Although exempt from duties, such goods are subject to examination by customs officials - unlike the diplomatic pouch which is not.

Most countries require that such goods be re-exported when the user leaves the country, or be used only for charitable purposes for their useful life or for a set period of time.

If the user wishes to hand over the goods to a local resident, requisite duties and taxes such as VAT then need to be paid. As a result goods intended for duty exemption under diplomatic conventions are inventoried and valued in detail at the time they are imported.

Some goods such as cars may have notes attached to their registration papers clearly indicating that they can not be passed on to residents and other non-exempt entities. Some may have their serial numbers noted and kept in a register to aid later investigations if necessary.

Note that duty exempt goods are different from goods in the diplomatic pouch. The goods in the diplomatic pouch normally do not leave the diplomatically immune premises of the embassy.

It is important to note that goods not intended for personal or charitable use such as gifts, are normally required to have appropriate duties paid even if imported by a diplomatically duty exempt person or entity.

With goods intended for charity, normally the end use charitable organisation should be registered as such and applies for its own exemptions. You cannot donate a Breitling watch to the Ratanang Family Trust for Julius Malema's use and call it a charitable donation. Nor should anyone claiming to a be a diplomat be able to donate say a diamond encrusted, gold lined microwave oven to a Gupta maiden on her wedding.

I am not claiming that anything like that happened. However neither can anyone conclusively claim that it did not happen because, according to newspaper reports, SARS did not examine and inventory the goods carried on the Gupta plane.

As part of protocol, customs officers normally do not bother with trivial things such as examining the personal luggage of diplomats. However if the personal luggage is in the form of five truckloads, it is not a trivial quantity and will normally be examined and appropriate inventories made.

Some of these protocols are not based on any legally binding conventions but on the trust and good faith that diplomats are honest.

Needless to say the protocols and gentlemen's understandings have been abused. Last year 40kg of cocaine were found in an official diplomatic pouch sent from Ecuador to Italy. In the same year a shipment marked as a diplomatic pouch contained 16kg of cocaine. It was only discovered because the syndicate apparently failed to intercept it and it actually ended up in the mail room of the United Nations headquarters in New York.

During the Falklands war Argentina send limpet mines, by diplomatic bag, to their embassy in Spain intending to blow up British battle ships docked at Gibraltar. The plot was uncovered and once the limpet mines left the embassy they were seized by police because they were no longer on immune territory, nor in a diplomatic bag.

Some countries like Israel and Nigeria have used or attempted to use the diplomatic pouch to smuggle kidnapped people out of other countries.

In recent years, only the hard nosed Zimbabweans are known to have seized, opened and examined - without prior consent - the officially marked diplomatic pouch of the British embassy in Harare.

It appears to me that the behaviour of the Gupta family in this case is typical of kleptocracies where the politically well connected generally behave as if they are exempt from the law, and normal bureaucratic channels.

In a country with a very vibrant and vocal press like South Africa, kleptocratic behaviour is always a magnet for negative attention. The negative attention, like a plague will affect the host organisation, as much as it does those parasitically feeding on it.

If such negative attention continues for the ANC, Jesus might just come too soon for their liking.