A Pakistani doctor was used in a fake immunization scheme. He is now in jail - alive. He is lucky.
A Ghanaian doctor was not so lucky. He is dead. He was shot in Pakistan. I victim of the mistrust of aid workers that is caused by reported CIA activities.
Pakistan has now expelled the entire foreign staff of an aid agency. It claims the agency was used as cover by the CIA. They could right, they could be wrong. We will never know. The CIA does not exactly wear its heart on the sleeve.
CIA operatives are well protected. The Firm is even prepared to pay blood money where operatives do commit crimes. They recently paid such money for an operative who murdered two people in Pakistan.
Operatives are also highly trained to deal with the dangerous situations they may encounter or create for themselves. The same cannot be said for aid workers. In most cases they are armed with nothing but their do-gooder hearts.
Unfortunately us mere humans, cannot see what is inside the heart. Simple goodness of the heart, is no defence when faced with highly suspicious and hostile populations who may have been victims of deceit, or know about such deceit being done elsewhere.
The sad thing is that the leader of the world's largest organisation involved in aid, Ban Ki Moon is totally silent about the dangers created for his workers by activities of particularly the CIA. He seems to come alive only when targeting regimes also targeted by the parent body of the CIA, the US government, and their allies. It is very unlikely he is a CIA operative, but by his actions he is reducing himself to a little more than a CIA plant in the UN.
In the years when I was a UN employee, it was supreme taboo for anyone to target UN workers of any sort. However now they seem to have become open season for anyone with a grievance and a gun or a bomb. There have been several very high profile bombings buildings and killings of UN staff.
Surely even a grotto salamander, without eyes, can see the link between aid workers increasingly becoming unsuspecting victims of aggrieved parties and the tendency of particularly Western intelligence agencies to plant operatives among aid workers.
The neutrality of the UN vis-a-vis geopolitical rivalries, has been seriously compromised in the eyes of many. It has become a little more than a Western foreign ministry. This perception of compromised neutrality, is affecting the safety of the hundreds of thousands of good people who dedicate their lives to helping others through UN work in dangerous places.
As such one would expect the UN to safeguard it's neutrality and integrity with all its might. Not so, especially under Ban Ki Moon. The UN has been increasingly flowing along with Western propaganda, increasingly parroting Western positions against a few targeted regimes while ignoring similar transgressions by non-targeted regimes.
For example, Bahrain has been allowed to literally get away with murder in supressing Arab Spring uprisings. In Syria, the one family dictatorship of the Al Assad family has been targeted with ferocious sponsorship of an armed insurgency. Bahrain is also a one family dictatorship. So are Saudi Arabia and Jordan, but those families are considered allies by the West. So they are given the free reign to oppress their people, with the UN faithfully trotting along with that position.
Yes it can be argued that the world is faced with increasingly vicious and much more dangerous aggrieved insurgent movements. In fact it is true. However when the UN is contrasted with an organisation like the ICRC, it is as clearly visible as the bottom of a baboon facing away from you, that the UN has unnecessarily given away some of its neutrality capital.
I believe that governments that have abused UN trust by planting their operatives among the staff should be held to account. Unfortunately such organisations as the CIA belong to the world's most powerful governments that are acting with unbridled impunity in pursuit of their narrow, ill thought-out and plain unwise agendas.
The mistaken perception that technological advancement equals all-knowing wisdom, sees many in the world allowing these organisations to act as they wish. However a logical analysis of their actions reveals that they are just as ignorant and prone to misjudgement as any other human. Their misjudgement should not be allowed to cost lives with impunity.
Countries like the USA have had great visionary leaders who have undoubtedly played a leading role in shaping the world into what it is today. However that great vision has not rubbed off onto later generations.
Most western leaders of today like Blair and Bush, are little more than petty crooks trying to use the great past history of their countries to leave a legacy but failing with horrible consequences for the peoples that are experimented upon such as the Iraqis and Afghans.
Thursday, 6 September 2012
Why are we sleeping in Zimbabwe
The company I work for designs and manufactures turnkey electronic systems to customer specifications. Among the systems we make are queue management systems.
Recently a job landed on my desk. The salesperson let me know it was a queue management system for the consulate of my home country, Zimbabwe. The job required customization because of specific site conditions and non-standard components that needed to be incorporated into the system.
As the software engineer it was my responsibility to modify the system to customer requirements. In situations when it appears to me that the salesperson is not quite sure what the customer wants, I prefer to get it from the horses mouth.
I looked up the contact details of the Zimbabwe consulate on their website, believing that if I could get through to the reception I would soon be put in touch with the right people. One of the numbers advertised on the Zimbabwe Consulate website, appeared to be faulty. The other number was ringing and never getting answered.
For four straight days I tried calling either number about four or five times a day at different times. I never got through. I finally decided to contact the Zimbabwe embassy in Pretoria thinking maybe something was wrong.
Luckily with the embassy my call was answered at the second attempt. I told the lady on the other side that I was trying to get hold of the consulate, I needed some information for a job my company was doing for them. She gave me a number that was not listed on the consulate web site.
Again that number rang and rang and rang and rang and was never answered. I tried for a full day, no answer.
In the beginning I was full of so much zeal and energy proud that I was doing a job for my country. I was going to do my best. Now I am badly deflated. Ndaponja sebhasikoro ravaMugoni.
Seriously speaking how do we hope to attract tourists when we exhibit this level of simple lack of care, diligence and commitment to one's duties. How can a consulate responsible for issuing visas to tourists, never answer their phones? Alternatively how can they afford to have wrong numbers listed of the world's biggest market place, the Internet, for so long. That is if that is what the problem is.
I know the consulate staff a probably under tremendous pressure. With the very large number of Zimbabweans now living in South Africa, the consulate is bound to be overloaded with work. But to me that's not an excuse for never answering the phone in two weeks of trying.
The problem of congestion is one that can be easily addressed with good planning from the responsible authorities. I believed getting a queue management system is part of such a plan. That is why to this day I am so eager to have this job done and done properly. This is a system that is definitely going to serve me one day.
However as the English say, you can only take a horse to the water. For it to drink, it's another story.
Recently a job landed on my desk. The salesperson let me know it was a queue management system for the consulate of my home country, Zimbabwe. The job required customization because of specific site conditions and non-standard components that needed to be incorporated into the system.
As the software engineer it was my responsibility to modify the system to customer requirements. In situations when it appears to me that the salesperson is not quite sure what the customer wants, I prefer to get it from the horses mouth.
I looked up the contact details of the Zimbabwe consulate on their website, believing that if I could get through to the reception I would soon be put in touch with the right people. One of the numbers advertised on the Zimbabwe Consulate website, appeared to be faulty. The other number was ringing and never getting answered.
For four straight days I tried calling either number about four or five times a day at different times. I never got through. I finally decided to contact the Zimbabwe embassy in Pretoria thinking maybe something was wrong.
Luckily with the embassy my call was answered at the second attempt. I told the lady on the other side that I was trying to get hold of the consulate, I needed some information for a job my company was doing for them. She gave me a number that was not listed on the consulate web site.
Again that number rang and rang and rang and rang and was never answered. I tried for a full day, no answer.
In the beginning I was full of so much zeal and energy proud that I was doing a job for my country. I was going to do my best. Now I am badly deflated. Ndaponja sebhasikoro ravaMugoni.
Seriously speaking how do we hope to attract tourists when we exhibit this level of simple lack of care, diligence and commitment to one's duties. How can a consulate responsible for issuing visas to tourists, never answer their phones? Alternatively how can they afford to have wrong numbers listed of the world's biggest market place, the Internet, for so long. That is if that is what the problem is.
I know the consulate staff a probably under tremendous pressure. With the very large number of Zimbabweans now living in South Africa, the consulate is bound to be overloaded with work. But to me that's not an excuse for never answering the phone in two weeks of trying.
The problem of congestion is one that can be easily addressed with good planning from the responsible authorities. I believed getting a queue management system is part of such a plan. That is why to this day I am so eager to have this job done and done properly. This is a system that is definitely going to serve me one day.
However as the English say, you can only take a horse to the water. For it to drink, it's another story.
Tuesday, 4 September 2012
China is bound to run into problems in Africa
Chinese companies are bound to run into serious problems in Africa sooner rather than later.
The way they operate is unconscionable. In most cases, safety standards are non-existent. Wages are a pittance. The management have no human relations skills whatsoever and are often accused of practicing karate on workers. That is if the speak English at all let alone the local language of the area where they will be operating.
They don't socialize with locals much. In contrast Europeans were rapacious in their appetite for local black women (although they liked to pretend they were not and claim it was black men who wanted white women). Africa's large mixed race community, of whom over 95% have white men as ancestors, is testimony to that.
Individual Chinese businesses do not invest in local infrastructure. Where investiment happens it is from the Chinise government, but that is not a substitute for the company being seen to be caring by the community within which it is operating. In fact Chinese businesses are notorious for evading taxes, and their owners are infamous for carrying cash around to evade being monitored through the banking system.
The Chinese are relying on lining the pockets of politicians to smooth their stay in Africa. That won't help them for long. Without the option of straight forward oppression and colonization that Europeans used, they won't last for long in Africa. They have to develop good community relations if they want to last. They should not be taken for a ride by politicians who only want to line their pockets while misleading both the Chinese and the community.
It is said that working conditions in China itself are not any better. Indeed this has been highlighted by some very high profile cases such as recent suicides at factories supplying world computer giant Apple. Chinese workers have little rights and apparently are not even allowed to form trade unions.
That can only mean that Chinese managers who are not accustomed to managing unionized workers are going to have problems in Africa. Workers in Africa have a long history of fighting for their rights, not just in the workplace but also against general racial oppression. They generally follow the Western unionization model. Chinese managers who do not have experience with the Western unionization model are bound to run into problems when dealing with collective labour action.
Indeed a recent incident in Zambia ended with tragic consequences for a Chinese manager who was killed when workers pushed a mine trolley at him.
It has been reported in some media that Chinese crime syndicates are now also finding their way to Africa and getting involved in such illicit activities as prostitution. Many African cultures exhibit strong communal loathing for crime with vigilante action sometimes being a result.
With their business practices already perceived negatively, the Chinese should not add crime to that negative perception.
They should be keenly aware that the main reason why they enjoy good fortunes in Africa now, is that they are seen as being better than the exploitative Western domination, that was the hallmark of colonialism. If they start being equated with Western colonizers, their star will very quickly crash to the ground.
Given that they don't have a strong neo-colonial presence in Africa as the West does, their exit will be much faster.
The way they operate is unconscionable. In most cases, safety standards are non-existent. Wages are a pittance. The management have no human relations skills whatsoever and are often accused of practicing karate on workers. That is if the speak English at all let alone the local language of the area where they will be operating.
They don't socialize with locals much. In contrast Europeans were rapacious in their appetite for local black women (although they liked to pretend they were not and claim it was black men who wanted white women). Africa's large mixed race community, of whom over 95% have white men as ancestors, is testimony to that.
Individual Chinese businesses do not invest in local infrastructure. Where investiment happens it is from the Chinise government, but that is not a substitute for the company being seen to be caring by the community within which it is operating. In fact Chinese businesses are notorious for evading taxes, and their owners are infamous for carrying cash around to evade being monitored through the banking system.
The Chinese are relying on lining the pockets of politicians to smooth their stay in Africa. That won't help them for long. Without the option of straight forward oppression and colonization that Europeans used, they won't last for long in Africa. They have to develop good community relations if they want to last. They should not be taken for a ride by politicians who only want to line their pockets while misleading both the Chinese and the community.
It is said that working conditions in China itself are not any better. Indeed this has been highlighted by some very high profile cases such as recent suicides at factories supplying world computer giant Apple. Chinese workers have little rights and apparently are not even allowed to form trade unions.
That can only mean that Chinese managers who are not accustomed to managing unionized workers are going to have problems in Africa. Workers in Africa have a long history of fighting for their rights, not just in the workplace but also against general racial oppression. They generally follow the Western unionization model. Chinese managers who do not have experience with the Western unionization model are bound to run into problems when dealing with collective labour action.
Indeed a recent incident in Zambia ended with tragic consequences for a Chinese manager who was killed when workers pushed a mine trolley at him.
It has been reported in some media that Chinese crime syndicates are now also finding their way to Africa and getting involved in such illicit activities as prostitution. Many African cultures exhibit strong communal loathing for crime with vigilante action sometimes being a result.
With their business practices already perceived negatively, the Chinese should not add crime to that negative perception.
They should be keenly aware that the main reason why they enjoy good fortunes in Africa now, is that they are seen as being better than the exploitative Western domination, that was the hallmark of colonialism. If they start being equated with Western colonizers, their star will very quickly crash to the ground.
Given that they don't have a strong neo-colonial presence in Africa as the West does, their exit will be much faster.
Sunday, 26 August 2012
The Arab Spring is becoming a Middle East nightmare.
The Arab Spring is becoming a Middle East nightmare. Signs are that things are degenerating into a region-wide sectarian pogrom mainly pitting Shiite against Sunni Muslims.
The West, out of unbelievably stupid short-sightedness, having been cheerleading Sunni states led by Turkey, who have been sponsoring a violent uprising in the majority Sunni but Shia led Syria. If the Shia states of the region start sponsoring violence in Sunni led countries with substantial Shia populations, the Middle East will become a hell on earth.
The seems to be no good reason for the West's petulant disposition towards that main Shiite run states, Iran and Syria. In the case of Iran it seems the USA cannot let the bygone of its embassy's invasion in 1979 be a real bygone. Syria is seems is paying the price for not having signed an agreement with Israel.
American military power is absolutely useless in controlling close fought sectarian wars where outsiders find it impossible to know who belongs to which sect without being expressly told. They would be fooling themselves if they imagine that they can influence happenings in the middle east to a predictable outcome. Right now they are having problems figuring out who is Taliban, and who is not with deadly results for their personnel.
The situation has become like a forest fire. It is easy to start but knowing which way it is gonna blow is impossible. The wind might change direction any time.
The West do not seem to have learnt anything from the Libyan crisis which spilled over as far afield as Mali. Their notion of what the Libyans and other people in the region wanted has proved to be false. Instead of evolving into a stable democracy the whole thing has become a chaotic mess of tribal and clan rivalries.
The best approach would be to de-escalate the situation in the middle east as much as possible. The Western approach of cheerleading violence in some hot spots while hopping others will remain stable is simply playing Russian roulette with an entire subcontinent.
It would be fallacy to believe that the West can achieve a predictable outcome in the region. For one they do not seem to understand the power of culture. They naively believe that every people in the world want to have a Western style democracy.
I personally believe that if freedom is given a chance most systems will evolve to near the Western model of democracy. However that model is not Jack's beanstalk that can be planted and reach sky-high overnight.
Throwing dishonesty into the cauldron, as the West did in Iraq and Libya, only serves to make things much more difficult. It does not yield the quick results that the West seem to have been hoping for.
Also when hyenas become the champions of a goat's freedom you can only suspect that they want it to wander into the forest. It is difficult to imagine the West with their history of colonialism, racism and oppression becoming true champions of freedom.
It also makes the long term situation even more unpredictable. Right now nobody dares foretell whether Iraq or Libya will be stable democracies in ten years time, or will be in a sectarian mess.
I took the United States four centuries to build the democracy they have. I do not know why they persistently believe it will take other countries four months.
The West, out of unbelievably stupid short-sightedness, having been cheerleading Sunni states led by Turkey, who have been sponsoring a violent uprising in the majority Sunni but Shia led Syria. If the Shia states of the region start sponsoring violence in Sunni led countries with substantial Shia populations, the Middle East will become a hell on earth.
The seems to be no good reason for the West's petulant disposition towards that main Shiite run states, Iran and Syria. In the case of Iran it seems the USA cannot let the bygone of its embassy's invasion in 1979 be a real bygone. Syria is seems is paying the price for not having signed an agreement with Israel.
American military power is absolutely useless in controlling close fought sectarian wars where outsiders find it impossible to know who belongs to which sect without being expressly told. They would be fooling themselves if they imagine that they can influence happenings in the middle east to a predictable outcome. Right now they are having problems figuring out who is Taliban, and who is not with deadly results for their personnel.
The situation has become like a forest fire. It is easy to start but knowing which way it is gonna blow is impossible. The wind might change direction any time.
The West do not seem to have learnt anything from the Libyan crisis which spilled over as far afield as Mali. Their notion of what the Libyans and other people in the region wanted has proved to be false. Instead of evolving into a stable democracy the whole thing has become a chaotic mess of tribal and clan rivalries.
The best approach would be to de-escalate the situation in the middle east as much as possible. The Western approach of cheerleading violence in some hot spots while hopping others will remain stable is simply playing Russian roulette with an entire subcontinent.
It would be fallacy to believe that the West can achieve a predictable outcome in the region. For one they do not seem to understand the power of culture. They naively believe that every people in the world want to have a Western style democracy.
I personally believe that if freedom is given a chance most systems will evolve to near the Western model of democracy. However that model is not Jack's beanstalk that can be planted and reach sky-high overnight.
Throwing dishonesty into the cauldron, as the West did in Iraq and Libya, only serves to make things much more difficult. It does not yield the quick results that the West seem to have been hoping for.
Also when hyenas become the champions of a goat's freedom you can only suspect that they want it to wander into the forest. It is difficult to imagine the West with their history of colonialism, racism and oppression becoming true champions of freedom.
It also makes the long term situation even more unpredictable. Right now nobody dares foretell whether Iraq or Libya will be stable democracies in ten years time, or will be in a sectarian mess.
I took the United States four centuries to build the democracy they have. I do not know why they persistently believe it will take other countries four months.
Saturday, 25 August 2012
Biti does not understand his culture
Recently Minister of Finance was reported to have ranted and raved about 'maZezuru ekwaZvimba'.
This is a subject that I have touched on so often. There is nobody who calls themselves an ethnic Shona in Zimbabwe. Anybody who does that does not know their identity. Moreover anybody who needs to go through socially and culturally significant ceremonies such as marriage or burial, will need to know their identity because that is when the nitygrities of a person's identity will be dissected.
There is also no such thing as an ethnic Zezuru, ethnic Karanga, ethnic Korekore, ethnic Ndau, ethnic Manyika in Zimbabwe. Those are language dialects only. When it comes to ethnicity we the people called Shona today have got our clan identities, that cut across dialects, geographic regions and even tribes.
I often watch with fascination while people go into frothy mouthed polemics about Munangagwa's Karanga faction, Mujuru's Zezuru faction and all the other so called ethnic based factions within Zanu-PF.
As long as the argument does not take into consideration the Mnangagwa is a Madyira and that his culture teaches him to consider all the Madyira and Gumbo people his relatives, then that argument is worthless. Whether they speak Zezuru, Korekore, Manyika, Ndau, Karanga or even Ndebele, Shona culture says Madyira and Gumbo people are all Mnangagwa's relatives.
Even Paul Matavire sang about it in one of his songs where he asks an unfaithful wife, 'Ini muyera Moyo, ndakazoita ukama nevayera Gumbo riini?' In the song Matavire was accusing his 'wife' of singing praise poetry for the Gumbo clan to 'his' child while he is of the Moyo clan, thereby implying the wife had been unfaithful.
I am a muBarwe of the Makombe (Nguruve) totem. In terms of my culture any Ngulube from Bulawayo, is a closer relative to me than James Chikonamombe born and bred a stone's throw away from me in Manyene communal areas near Chivhu.
If I die today any gathering of Shona people will, without any qualms whatsoever walk up to a Ngulube who may not even speak Shona, and ask him 'please can you show us where to bury your relative'. But they will never ever, not even if the sun rises from the west, walk up to Chikonan'ombe (a muyera Mhara) and ask him to show them where to bury me (a muyera Nguruve).
If they can't find a Ngulube they would still dig a grave and bury me, but afterwards they would say 'takangomurasawo nekuti tanga tashaya hama yake' (we just threw him away because we couldn't find his relative). In other words I would never be considered properly buried unless someone of my totem, no matter what language they speak, presided over the proceedings.
Chikonan'ombe mutorwa kwandiri, haana ukama neni (he is not my relative) but a Ngulube/Makombe/Humba from anywhere in the region is considered to share the same ancestors as me, and by Shona custom is a close relative (ihama yangu) come rain or come sunshine.
In terms of classical Shona culture, even before you propose to a woman, you are supposed to ask for their totem. "Nhai asikana mutupo wenyu chii?" (Young lady, what is your totem?) is considered a standard indication of the intention to propose love in Shona culture. The reason being you must eliminate the possibility of the woman being 'your sister' (of the same totem as you) before proposing love.
Conjugal relations with a woman of the same totem as you is considered incest and if it ever unknowingly happens then it should be followed by ceremonies of kuchenura (cleansing) or chekaukama (breaking the relationship).
The subject of Shona totems is not a simple one, because within the totems you can also get sub-clans. The Moyo sibongo can either be Moyo yeVaRozvi (Moyondizvo) or Moyo yeVaNjanja (Sinyoro). You get the same thing for other totem groups such as Mhofu (Museyamwa, Mufakose, Vhuramavi, Masarirambi, etc) or Soko (Murehwa, Vhudzijena, etc). However even those subgroups are considered related, though Shona culture allows them to inter-marry.
Any person who rants and raves about a mere language dialect and geographic region (like Tendai Biti recently did about maZezuru ekwaZvimba) is considered a fool by the typical wise Shona elders. He is the kind of people who would be asked to go and skin the goat at a village court.
Biti's attack is like attacking 'people speaking East Midlands English from Nottingham', something which any normal Briton will treat as hogwash. He can go ask at the British Embassy if he doubts that there are dialects in English similar to Shona dialects.
He doesn't even realise that himself having been born and bred in Harare at the centre of the Zezuru speaking areas, he is definitely a muZezuru wekuHarare. So him going about attacking maZezuru is a clever as cutting off the branch he is sitting on high up in a tree.
I am at a loss as to why people like Biti like to take foreigners' misunderstanding of their culture, and treat that as the gospel truth while ignoring the realities that they live everyday. One of the possible explanations is mental colonization.
Or maybe sleeping with the eyes wide open like a hare.
This is a subject that I have touched on so often. There is nobody who calls themselves an ethnic Shona in Zimbabwe. Anybody who does that does not know their identity. Moreover anybody who needs to go through socially and culturally significant ceremonies such as marriage or burial, will need to know their identity because that is when the nitygrities of a person's identity will be dissected.
There is also no such thing as an ethnic Zezuru, ethnic Karanga, ethnic Korekore, ethnic Ndau, ethnic Manyika in Zimbabwe. Those are language dialects only. When it comes to ethnicity we the people called Shona today have got our clan identities, that cut across dialects, geographic regions and even tribes.
I often watch with fascination while people go into frothy mouthed polemics about Munangagwa's Karanga faction, Mujuru's Zezuru faction and all the other so called ethnic based factions within Zanu-PF.
As long as the argument does not take into consideration the Mnangagwa is a Madyira and that his culture teaches him to consider all the Madyira and Gumbo people his relatives, then that argument is worthless. Whether they speak Zezuru, Korekore, Manyika, Ndau, Karanga or even Ndebele, Shona culture says Madyira and Gumbo people are all Mnangagwa's relatives.
Even Paul Matavire sang about it in one of his songs where he asks an unfaithful wife, 'Ini muyera Moyo, ndakazoita ukama nevayera Gumbo riini?' In the song Matavire was accusing his 'wife' of singing praise poetry for the Gumbo clan to 'his' child while he is of the Moyo clan, thereby implying the wife had been unfaithful.
I am a muBarwe of the Makombe (Nguruve) totem. In terms of my culture any Ngulube from Bulawayo, is a closer relative to me than James Chikonamombe born and bred a stone's throw away from me in Manyene communal areas near Chivhu.
If I die today any gathering of Shona people will, without any qualms whatsoever walk up to a Ngulube who may not even speak Shona, and ask him 'please can you show us where to bury your relative'. But they will never ever, not even if the sun rises from the west, walk up to Chikonan'ombe (a muyera Mhara) and ask him to show them where to bury me (a muyera Nguruve).
If they can't find a Ngulube they would still dig a grave and bury me, but afterwards they would say 'takangomurasawo nekuti tanga tashaya hama yake' (we just threw him away because we couldn't find his relative). In other words I would never be considered properly buried unless someone of my totem, no matter what language they speak, presided over the proceedings.
Chikonan'ombe mutorwa kwandiri, haana ukama neni (he is not my relative) but a Ngulube/Makombe/Humba from anywhere in the region is considered to share the same ancestors as me, and by Shona custom is a close relative (ihama yangu) come rain or come sunshine.
In terms of classical Shona culture, even before you propose to a woman, you are supposed to ask for their totem. "Nhai asikana mutupo wenyu chii?" (Young lady, what is your totem?) is considered a standard indication of the intention to propose love in Shona culture. The reason being you must eliminate the possibility of the woman being 'your sister' (of the same totem as you) before proposing love.
Conjugal relations with a woman of the same totem as you is considered incest and if it ever unknowingly happens then it should be followed by ceremonies of kuchenura (cleansing) or chekaukama (breaking the relationship).
The subject of Shona totems is not a simple one, because within the totems you can also get sub-clans. The Moyo sibongo can either be Moyo yeVaRozvi (Moyondizvo) or Moyo yeVaNjanja (Sinyoro). You get the same thing for other totem groups such as Mhofu (Museyamwa, Mufakose, Vhuramavi, Masarirambi, etc) or Soko (Murehwa, Vhudzijena, etc). However even those subgroups are considered related, though Shona culture allows them to inter-marry.
Any person who rants and raves about a mere language dialect and geographic region (like Tendai Biti recently did about maZezuru ekwaZvimba) is considered a fool by the typical wise Shona elders. He is the kind of people who would be asked to go and skin the goat at a village court.
Biti's attack is like attacking 'people speaking East Midlands English from Nottingham', something which any normal Briton will treat as hogwash. He can go ask at the British Embassy if he doubts that there are dialects in English similar to Shona dialects.
He doesn't even realise that himself having been born and bred in Harare at the centre of the Zezuru speaking areas, he is definitely a muZezuru wekuHarare. So him going about attacking maZezuru is a clever as cutting off the branch he is sitting on high up in a tree.
I am at a loss as to why people like Biti like to take foreigners' misunderstanding of their culture, and treat that as the gospel truth while ignoring the realities that they live everyday. One of the possible explanations is mental colonization.
Or maybe sleeping with the eyes wide open like a hare.
Wednesday, 22 August 2012
There will be no new constitution in Zimbabwe
I seriously do not think a new constitution will see the light of day before the next elections in Zimbabwe. The current constitution making process is unhealthily dominated by the politics of survival. The process is being led by political parties each of whom see it as a tool either for their survival or rise to domination.
As such the process can never be said to be people centred. It is politics centred.
It was always going to be a mission to draft a reasonable constitution in an atmosphere of furnace-like political rivalry. It is slowly becoming clear that it is a mission impossible.
A constitution that gives the MDC any perceived advantages will be objected to by Zanu-PF. A constitution that gives Zanu-PF any perceived advantages will be objected to by the MDC. In my personal view the chances of these two parties perfectly agreeing on a constitution are next to zero.
I also think it is not a good idea to try and force constitutional changes in the current atmosphere of fierce political rivalry. Like the Lancaster House constitution which was rammed through primarily to end a war, the result will be deformed and imperfect.
Besides a constitution alone is not sufficient to make Zimbabwe right. The leadership and politicians need to have the right people centred spirit. Our politicians of today, have mostly a money centred approach. They have difficulty seeing anything beyond their pockets. They are in it to make their fortunes.
Great empires like the Munhumutapa Empire and the Roman Empire did not have constitutions yet they lasted for centuries. As long as the leadership approach is people centred, a state can prosper. If the leadership is selfish, oppressive and exploitative, even if you have a constitution written in gold letters on platinum foil it won't mean a thing.
The people at the forefront of the constitution making process today are focused on their political fortunes, not on the people's needs.
As such the process can never be said to be people centred. It is politics centred.
It was always going to be a mission to draft a reasonable constitution in an atmosphere of furnace-like political rivalry. It is slowly becoming clear that it is a mission impossible.
A constitution that gives the MDC any perceived advantages will be objected to by Zanu-PF. A constitution that gives Zanu-PF any perceived advantages will be objected to by the MDC. In my personal view the chances of these two parties perfectly agreeing on a constitution are next to zero.
I also think it is not a good idea to try and force constitutional changes in the current atmosphere of fierce political rivalry. Like the Lancaster House constitution which was rammed through primarily to end a war, the result will be deformed and imperfect.
Besides a constitution alone is not sufficient to make Zimbabwe right. The leadership and politicians need to have the right people centred spirit. Our politicians of today, have mostly a money centred approach. They have difficulty seeing anything beyond their pockets. They are in it to make their fortunes.
Great empires like the Munhumutapa Empire and the Roman Empire did not have constitutions yet they lasted for centuries. As long as the leadership approach is people centred, a state can prosper. If the leadership is selfish, oppressive and exploitative, even if you have a constitution written in gold letters on platinum foil it won't mean a thing.
The people at the forefront of the constitution making process today are focused on their political fortunes, not on the people's needs.
Marikana : The perfect recipe a for disaster
There are a number of ingredients that made the Marikana shooting possible. Viewed in isolation they seem insignificant but put them together, it become clear that South Africa is building, not a tinderbox, but a trainload of dynamite.
1. A culture of violence
South Africa has a reputation of being one of the most violent countries in the world, being superseded only by countries where uncontrollable drug cartels rule the roost such as Mexico. Even the most minor disputes can lead to fights with very dangerous weapons with guns, knives and broken bottles being favourites.
Of late violent protests have become the order of the day. Police often tag along powerless to stop or control the protestors who will be smashing things as they go along.
People are often allowed to carry very dangerous weapons such as spears, pangas and even guns in very volatile situations. Usually this is allowed in the name of tradition. There is nothing wrong with carrying traditional weapons provided there is no threat of them being used to commit crimes.
The protesters often act with impunity with the full knowledge that the police rarely, if at all, follow up on acts of wanton violence during protests.
The right to protest is virtually equated to a right to be violent. Violence be-gets violence and eventually the state will get tough.
2. Uncaring management
The white dominated middle and top management of mines continue to see nothing wrong with black workers having standards of living worse than that of their pet dogs.
Pictures of a majestic mine infrastructure rising out of the earth, but surrounded by squalid shacks clearly suggests there is something seriously wrong with the mentality of the people running the mine. How can one drive through the squalor regularly and fail to notice there is something seriously amiss with the contrast in fortunes.
If anyone thought South Africa's problems were over with the advent of democracy in 1994 they better think again. While the perception of inequality persists, the main problem of apartheid (foisted inequality) remains. In South Africa today inequality is not a perception but a reality.
The people and communities who benefited hugely from past racist policies are in a huge rush to absolve themselves of any responsibility and dump it on the young democratic system. However the genes of apartheid are still very much evident in the inequity that bedevils South Africa. Some honest soul searching and intelligent contribution towards equalising society in South Africa is needed from everyone.
The rising black middle class are so happy at being co-opted into the system that they quickly forget about their poverty stricken colleagues. Most of them don't have a vision beyond extravagant lifestyles of fast cars, flashy clothes and women without a second thought for where they came from.
They do not give back or contribute to the communities that nurtured them.
3. Militant unionism
Militancy often demands impossible results now. It is often devoid of strategy and long term vision. I remember during the hey days of militant student unionism at the University of Zimbabwe everything that was demanded was demanded 'as of yesterday'.
In the end what is achieved by such militancy is for the whole thing to look unreasonable and foolish. In this case a more than 300% increase in salaries was demanded. Made against a backdrop of depressed platinum prices on the world market and some mines even going under and ceasing operations, such a demand is obviously unreasonable.
It exposes a worrying lack of vision and strategic depth in the leadership of the unions. Typically unions with such short-sighted militancy rarely achieve long term improvements in the fortunes of their members.
Unions need to realise that they are no longer fighting the system but are now part of the system. As such militant tactics will get little results. What is needed now is careful in-depth research coupled with articulate presentation of viewpoints. Know your facts, and know how to present them.
4. Semi literate, or illiterate workers
One would not like to blame the educational condition of the workers themselves, but certain things won't make sense unless that is also taken into account. For example the decision to charge heavily armed police with mainly pangas can never be explained by bravery.
It is extremely difficult to apply the word 'clever' to this scenario. If the workers had been better educated and better able to reason logically, I do not think they would have embarked on such a mission of such jaw-dropping dumbness.
5. Poorly trained and hesitant police
One policeman was shooting from behind the front line of standing officers. The officer closest to his line of fire was screaming 'Cease fire! Cease fire!' while doing his best to melt into the side of a squad car against which he was leaning. The shooter loosed a few more bursts of automatic fire, before loudly grunting 'Shoot you!' directed at the miners many of whom were now lifeless heaps on the ground.
It was pure luck that the police did not shoot each other in the back.
Clearly worried about being equated to the apartheid police force, the SAPS were hesitent to take decisive action to diffuse the situation early and when they did they chose the wrong moment and the wrong tactics. It would have been less bloody to raid the hostels at night, arrest the leaders and confiscate weapons room by room.
It seems they are beholden to politicians who are afraid of being seen to treat the people the same way the apartheid oppressors did.
There was also a clear lack of intelligence operations in the whole mining strike saga. With 10 people already killed, intelligence operatives should have taken a lead role in identifying the most militant and making sure they were prevented from escalating the situation - as eventually happened.
6. Opportunistic politicians
Hardly had the dust settled and the blood dried, when a stream of opportunistic politicians started trekking to Marikana. One of them was Julius Malema who just couldn't pass up the opportunity to throw a few barbs at his arch-nemesis, Jacob Zuma.
Rather than examining the facts leading too the disaster it seems there were attempts to outrace even the blade runner Oscar Pistorius in the rush to score political points. Blame was heaped on rival politicians. Yet the miners' own role in stoking up tensions by murdering colleagues, security guards and even police officers was as exposed as the bottom of a baboon, in the whole saga.
Politicians are clearly fretting at the political cost of being seen to side with abelungu (white oppressors). They are having a tough time trying to juggle the pragmatic direction needed to keep the country stable and prosperous, and the populist sentiments that appeal to the majority of the voters.
For a country that is not even a generation away from the heinous oppression of apartheid perpetrated by whites on blacks, the black majority are obviously still smarting from their suffering and the populist approach of blaming past oppression can very easily gain traction - and votes.
That is why politicians have been falling over themselves to be seen to be sympathetic to the workers to the extend of ignoring glaring issues with the miners themselves such as the senseless murder of 10 people. Ever since the 34 miners were shot the 10 people they killed have hardly ever been mentioned. Sometimes not even as an afterthought.
The populist politics kickstarted by Malema culminated with Zuma kneeling before people some of whom may be murderers who should be arrested for killing their colleagues, security guards and police officers. The only thing absent from the political rhetoric is any meaningful condemnation of the murders that took place before the police action.
The sad irony is there no chance that the murders were legal, yet the police action could entirely be justified given the circumstances.
It is difficult to see how the current attention being feted on the miners cannot be seen to be rewarding them for the violence in which they senselessly murdered their colleagues.
7. Season everything with a bit of sangoma mystique
Throughout the week the media had reported that a man (or men) who appeared to be a sangoma (witch doctor) dressed in all white seemed to be performing rituals for the miners. One report claimed that the sangoma performed rituals over a group of stark naked men.
At the moment of the shooting itself, a large group of strikers was tiptoeing towards the police from a behind a sparse scrub of bushes that can scarcely provide cover for one man, let alone such a large group. The story I heard from a friend who comes from close to Marikana is that the sangoma had told the men that they would be invisible to the police!
They, armed with pangas, spears, kerries, a relic shotgun and a couple of pistols stolen from murdered police officers, expected to tiptoe, in broad daylight, up to a squad of police officers armed to the teeth with automatic rifles and overpower them.
Reports that appeared in the press later claimed that a well known n'anga from the Eastern Cape had charged R1000 per person to give them magic portions that would make them invincible. But, as with all sangoma prescriptions, there was a catch - no one was supposed to look back ever.
It is difficult to see how anyone can believe such hogwash from a sangoma. But then such is the power of faith. In some parts of the world people are prepared to blow themselves up in the belief that they will get tens of virgins once they die.
1. A culture of violence
South Africa has a reputation of being one of the most violent countries in the world, being superseded only by countries where uncontrollable drug cartels rule the roost such as Mexico. Even the most minor disputes can lead to fights with very dangerous weapons with guns, knives and broken bottles being favourites.
Of late violent protests have become the order of the day. Police often tag along powerless to stop or control the protestors who will be smashing things as they go along.
People are often allowed to carry very dangerous weapons such as spears, pangas and even guns in very volatile situations. Usually this is allowed in the name of tradition. There is nothing wrong with carrying traditional weapons provided there is no threat of them being used to commit crimes.
The protesters often act with impunity with the full knowledge that the police rarely, if at all, follow up on acts of wanton violence during protests.
The right to protest is virtually equated to a right to be violent. Violence be-gets violence and eventually the state will get tough.
2. Uncaring management
The white dominated middle and top management of mines continue to see nothing wrong with black workers having standards of living worse than that of their pet dogs.
Pictures of a majestic mine infrastructure rising out of the earth, but surrounded by squalid shacks clearly suggests there is something seriously wrong with the mentality of the people running the mine. How can one drive through the squalor regularly and fail to notice there is something seriously amiss with the contrast in fortunes.
If anyone thought South Africa's problems were over with the advent of democracy in 1994 they better think again. While the perception of inequality persists, the main problem of apartheid (foisted inequality) remains. In South Africa today inequality is not a perception but a reality.
The people and communities who benefited hugely from past racist policies are in a huge rush to absolve themselves of any responsibility and dump it on the young democratic system. However the genes of apartheid are still very much evident in the inequity that bedevils South Africa. Some honest soul searching and intelligent contribution towards equalising society in South Africa is needed from everyone.
The rising black middle class are so happy at being co-opted into the system that they quickly forget about their poverty stricken colleagues. Most of them don't have a vision beyond extravagant lifestyles of fast cars, flashy clothes and women without a second thought for where they came from.
They do not give back or contribute to the communities that nurtured them.
3. Militant unionism
Militancy often demands impossible results now. It is often devoid of strategy and long term vision. I remember during the hey days of militant student unionism at the University of Zimbabwe everything that was demanded was demanded 'as of yesterday'.
In the end what is achieved by such militancy is for the whole thing to look unreasonable and foolish. In this case a more than 300% increase in salaries was demanded. Made against a backdrop of depressed platinum prices on the world market and some mines even going under and ceasing operations, such a demand is obviously unreasonable.
It exposes a worrying lack of vision and strategic depth in the leadership of the unions. Typically unions with such short-sighted militancy rarely achieve long term improvements in the fortunes of their members.
Unions need to realise that they are no longer fighting the system but are now part of the system. As such militant tactics will get little results. What is needed now is careful in-depth research coupled with articulate presentation of viewpoints. Know your facts, and know how to present them.
4. Semi literate, or illiterate workers
One would not like to blame the educational condition of the workers themselves, but certain things won't make sense unless that is also taken into account. For example the decision to charge heavily armed police with mainly pangas can never be explained by bravery.
It is extremely difficult to apply the word 'clever' to this scenario. If the workers had been better educated and better able to reason logically, I do not think they would have embarked on such a mission of such jaw-dropping dumbness.
5. Poorly trained and hesitant police
One policeman was shooting from behind the front line of standing officers. The officer closest to his line of fire was screaming 'Cease fire! Cease fire!' while doing his best to melt into the side of a squad car against which he was leaning. The shooter loosed a few more bursts of automatic fire, before loudly grunting 'Shoot you!' directed at the miners many of whom were now lifeless heaps on the ground.
It was pure luck that the police did not shoot each other in the back.
Clearly worried about being equated to the apartheid police force, the SAPS were hesitent to take decisive action to diffuse the situation early and when they did they chose the wrong moment and the wrong tactics. It would have been less bloody to raid the hostels at night, arrest the leaders and confiscate weapons room by room.
It seems they are beholden to politicians who are afraid of being seen to treat the people the same way the apartheid oppressors did.
There was also a clear lack of intelligence operations in the whole mining strike saga. With 10 people already killed, intelligence operatives should have taken a lead role in identifying the most militant and making sure they were prevented from escalating the situation - as eventually happened.
6. Opportunistic politicians
Hardly had the dust settled and the blood dried, when a stream of opportunistic politicians started trekking to Marikana. One of them was Julius Malema who just couldn't pass up the opportunity to throw a few barbs at his arch-nemesis, Jacob Zuma.
Rather than examining the facts leading too the disaster it seems there were attempts to outrace even the blade runner Oscar Pistorius in the rush to score political points. Blame was heaped on rival politicians. Yet the miners' own role in stoking up tensions by murdering colleagues, security guards and even police officers was as exposed as the bottom of a baboon, in the whole saga.
Politicians are clearly fretting at the political cost of being seen to side with abelungu (white oppressors). They are having a tough time trying to juggle the pragmatic direction needed to keep the country stable and prosperous, and the populist sentiments that appeal to the majority of the voters.
For a country that is not even a generation away from the heinous oppression of apartheid perpetrated by whites on blacks, the black majority are obviously still smarting from their suffering and the populist approach of blaming past oppression can very easily gain traction - and votes.
That is why politicians have been falling over themselves to be seen to be sympathetic to the workers to the extend of ignoring glaring issues with the miners themselves such as the senseless murder of 10 people. Ever since the 34 miners were shot the 10 people they killed have hardly ever been mentioned. Sometimes not even as an afterthought.
The populist politics kickstarted by Malema culminated with Zuma kneeling before people some of whom may be murderers who should be arrested for killing their colleagues, security guards and police officers. The only thing absent from the political rhetoric is any meaningful condemnation of the murders that took place before the police action.
The sad irony is there no chance that the murders were legal, yet the police action could entirely be justified given the circumstances.
It is difficult to see how the current attention being feted on the miners cannot be seen to be rewarding them for the violence in which they senselessly murdered their colleagues.
7. Season everything with a bit of sangoma mystique
Throughout the week the media had reported that a man (or men) who appeared to be a sangoma (witch doctor) dressed in all white seemed to be performing rituals for the miners. One report claimed that the sangoma performed rituals over a group of stark naked men.
At the moment of the shooting itself, a large group of strikers was tiptoeing towards the police from a behind a sparse scrub of bushes that can scarcely provide cover for one man, let alone such a large group. The story I heard from a friend who comes from close to Marikana is that the sangoma had told the men that they would be invisible to the police!
They, armed with pangas, spears, kerries, a relic shotgun and a couple of pistols stolen from murdered police officers, expected to tiptoe, in broad daylight, up to a squad of police officers armed to the teeth with automatic rifles and overpower them.
Reports that appeared in the press later claimed that a well known n'anga from the Eastern Cape had charged R1000 per person to give them magic portions that would make them invincible. But, as with all sangoma prescriptions, there was a catch - no one was supposed to look back ever.
It is difficult to see how anyone can believe such hogwash from a sangoma. But then such is the power of faith. In some parts of the world people are prepared to blow themselves up in the belief that they will get tens of virgins once they die.
Friday, 3 August 2012
Kofi Annan abandons Mission Impossible
Kofi Annan recently announced his resignation as UN and Arab League envoy to Syria. His mission seemed promising in the beginning but ultimately achieved no success at all.
Where Kofi Annan got it wrong right in the beginning was focusing on making demands upon Bashar while he should have been focusing on demanding that those arming the rebels stop in order to de-escalate the situation.
In fact he passed on demands that were never aimed at ending the conflict but where aimed at creating breathing room for the rebels to regroup and launch stronger assaults against the government. We can see the growing rebel strength in Syria. It is sad to say but it appears Kofi Annan was used. His resignation may arise from the fact that he realises that he is merely being used.
It is not up to Bashar to withdraw the CIA agents busy directing the rebels. It is not up to Assad to stop the sophisticated communications equipment Barak Obama is busy sending to them. It is not up to him to stop Sunni governments from bankrolling the rebels. Yet all these important factors were never tackled in Annan's original plan.
In short it is not up to Assad to end the violence. All he can do is fight on as best as he can. He is in a little bit better position than Gadhafi in that he has direct Russian help. So the fight can drag on quite a bit and the Syrians are sure gonna suffer. I would call it Cold War version 2.
The rest of us in the world are completely powerless to stop the American and Western sponsorship of the violence. We are not even a position to counter their propaganda. According to them everything is Assad's fault. Even a baby still suckling at their mother's breast will know that sponsoring and propping up a second centre of power will worsen a conflict. So it cannot be that those who a sponsoring a second centre of power have absolutely clean hands in the conflict.
Yes Russia is also arming Bashar, but that is an existing centre of power. America and the West are expressly engaged in efforts to create a second centre of power. There are encouraging as much as they can, while maintaining a measure seeming concern for the ordinary people, conflict between their centre of power and the existing centre of power.
Our brother Obama does not have the vision, courage or wisdom to stop the misuse of American power to destabilise the world, and create hotspots all over the globe, with the only real beneficiary being the American defence industry. For example in Iraq it is Iraqis who died in their thousands but it is Blackwater now Xe who made huge profits.
People who think and claim they know everything but upon closer examination prove to know nothing, a busy engaged in efforts that lead to nothing but death and suffering for thousands of people.
The last time we witnessed an American led proxy war against a government in the Middle East we got the Taliban led Afghanistan as a result. There is not reason to believe that Syria is not headed in the same direction.
People also seem to be forgetting that while it is easy to get weapons into the hands of ragtag loosely trained and unaccountable rebels, it is difficult to take them back no matter who wins the conflict. Does Libya ring a bell?
Now that Kofi Annan has abandoned a mission that was always meant to be impossible, the rivals can lay into each other with greater ferocity. When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. The grass, has no choice on where the elephants pick their fight. It is unfortunate that the Syrian people have to be the grass beneath the feet of duelling elephants.
Tuesday, 31 July 2012
Syrian Violence: How can it end.
The West want Bashar to end violence in Syria. Yet they know very well that Bashar can not stop them from arming the rebels to continue the violence!! It is like accusing a fireman of failing to put out a fire while pouring petrol on it.
There is no way people who are arming one side of the conflict can be said to want an end to the violence. If the West want the violence in Syria to end, then my foot is growing on my forehead. It can simply not be true.
One possible explanation is that the West is trying to distabilise Syria as much as they can in order to leave her weak and less of a challenge to Israel. Other than that there is completely no logic to their actions. Syria is not a major oil producer, like Libya or Iraq, where having a weak government can make it easier to loot the oil.
Where violence has not been fanned by outside sponsorship, like Jordan and Egypt, the governments have largely been able to maintain order. Even Bahrain was able to restore order despite spirited protests by an oppressed majority. Where governments have lost control, it is because of Western sponsorship of the violence. It is a classical tool and imperialism and colonialism - divide and rule.
The countries that have faced serious instability, Libya and Syria have only done so because of outside sponsorship of the violence. These are also the countries were the ordinary populations have suffered the most from the effects of violence. Therefore it would be farfetched to think that those sponsoring the violence care about the ordinary people of those countries. They don't.
Perhaps the worst hypocrisy is when Western governments accuse Russia of arming the government while they themselves are busy arming the rebels or encouraging those arming the rebels. As the 25 year civil war in Angola showed, pouring arms into either side of a conflict only prolongs the conflict, multiplies the number of deaths and inflames the social and ethnic divisions that would be the primary cause of the conflict.
Just looking at the Arab spring, the largest number of civilian deaths have been suffered in those countries where the West sponsored rebels. Given the large number of think tanks and analysts advising Western governments, it is difficult to imagine that they are not aware of this fact. It is more likely they just don't care. Rather they care more about achieving their political ends.
They ignore the human suffering that is a by-product of their tactics.
The violence in Syria can be significantly reduced today, if the West decide to end their proxy sponsorship of the violence through Sunni governments and Turkey.
There is no way people who are arming one side of the conflict can be said to want an end to the violence. If the West want the violence in Syria to end, then my foot is growing on my forehead. It can simply not be true.
One possible explanation is that the West is trying to distabilise Syria as much as they can in order to leave her weak and less of a challenge to Israel. Other than that there is completely no logic to their actions. Syria is not a major oil producer, like Libya or Iraq, where having a weak government can make it easier to loot the oil.
Where violence has not been fanned by outside sponsorship, like Jordan and Egypt, the governments have largely been able to maintain order. Even Bahrain was able to restore order despite spirited protests by an oppressed majority. Where governments have lost control, it is because of Western sponsorship of the violence. It is a classical tool and imperialism and colonialism - divide and rule.
The countries that have faced serious instability, Libya and Syria have only done so because of outside sponsorship of the violence. These are also the countries were the ordinary populations have suffered the most from the effects of violence. Therefore it would be farfetched to think that those sponsoring the violence care about the ordinary people of those countries. They don't.
Perhaps the worst hypocrisy is when Western governments accuse Russia of arming the government while they themselves are busy arming the rebels or encouraging those arming the rebels. As the 25 year civil war in Angola showed, pouring arms into either side of a conflict only prolongs the conflict, multiplies the number of deaths and inflames the social and ethnic divisions that would be the primary cause of the conflict.
Just looking at the Arab spring, the largest number of civilian deaths have been suffered in those countries where the West sponsored rebels. Given the large number of think tanks and analysts advising Western governments, it is difficult to imagine that they are not aware of this fact. It is more likely they just don't care. Rather they care more about achieving their political ends.
They ignore the human suffering that is a by-product of their tactics.
The violence in Syria can be significantly reduced today, if the West decide to end their proxy sponsorship of the violence through Sunni governments and Turkey.
Sunday, 29 July 2012
Kirsty Coventry not the only white person in Zimbabwe sport
It is astounding when some people choose to wear their ignorance on the sleeve like a badge of honour.
Yesterday some obscure never-heard-off journalist named Mark O'Toole penned an article in which he claimed our beloved Kirsty Coventry was the only unifying force in Zimbabwe. He of the Toole never bothers to make it clear why he considers Kirsty a unifying force.
I could only imagine that somewhere in the recesses of his mind, Mark had this racist idea that there was some huge divide between blacks and whites of which Kirsty was the last tendon holding things together.
That is the point where Mr O'Toole's parade of ignorance begins. He obviously has little or no knowledge of Zimbabwe's recent sporting landscape. Otherwise he would have known that Zimbabwe's current national cricket team is captained by a well loved white lad name Brendan Taylor.He might also have known that the same team has long list of white players Charles Coventry, Malcolm Waller, Craig Ervine, Sean Williams, Greg Lamb, Keegan Meth, Kyle Jarvis, Ed Rainsford, Ray Price and Graeme Cremer.
I wonder what these lads will think upon learning that they are busy tearing Zimbabwe apart and Kirsty Coventry is the only one holding things together.
Mark also mentions some of Zimbabwe's recent cricketers who fell out with the authorities after bringing political activism to the sport. I would suggest that he go and ask Peter Norman, Tommie Smith and John Carlos what happens when you make a political statement, at a sporting event, that the authorities of the day don't agree with.
Note that I am not passing judgement on Henry Olonga and Andy Flower. All I am saying is that it happens, and only time will tell on which side of history a particular act will fall. I am sure Mark O'Toole knows what judgement the passage of time has bestowed on the three participants from the 1968 Olympics in Mexico. I not saying time will pass the same judgement on the two Zimbambwe cricketers. Sometimes time does not even bother to pass a judgement, only letting things pass into the realm of the forgotten.
I am also not sure why he of the Toole, does not mention other white sports persons who were fetted by the Zimbabwe in recent years. The tennis playing Black siblings - Byron, Wayne and Cara - come to mind.
Yes I will agree that Kirsty brings some very positive news for herself and for her country, Zimbabwe. It seems Mark made a very concious effort to be negative about Zimbabwe even when the situation that presented itself was positive.
Such an overly negative drive by some journalists, is part of the problem in Zimbabwe.
Yesterday some obscure never-heard-off journalist named Mark O'Toole penned an article in which he claimed our beloved Kirsty Coventry was the only unifying force in Zimbabwe. He of the Toole never bothers to make it clear why he considers Kirsty a unifying force.
I could only imagine that somewhere in the recesses of his mind, Mark had this racist idea that there was some huge divide between blacks and whites of which Kirsty was the last tendon holding things together.
That is the point where Mr O'Toole's parade of ignorance begins. He obviously has little or no knowledge of Zimbabwe's recent sporting landscape. Otherwise he would have known that Zimbabwe's current national cricket team is captained by a well loved white lad name Brendan Taylor.He might also have known that the same team has long list of white players Charles Coventry, Malcolm Waller, Craig Ervine, Sean Williams, Greg Lamb, Keegan Meth, Kyle Jarvis, Ed Rainsford, Ray Price and Graeme Cremer.
I wonder what these lads will think upon learning that they are busy tearing Zimbabwe apart and Kirsty Coventry is the only one holding things together.
Mark also mentions some of Zimbabwe's recent cricketers who fell out with the authorities after bringing political activism to the sport. I would suggest that he go and ask Peter Norman, Tommie Smith and John Carlos what happens when you make a political statement, at a sporting event, that the authorities of the day don't agree with.
Note that I am not passing judgement on Henry Olonga and Andy Flower. All I am saying is that it happens, and only time will tell on which side of history a particular act will fall. I am sure Mark O'Toole knows what judgement the passage of time has bestowed on the three participants from the 1968 Olympics in Mexico. I not saying time will pass the same judgement on the two Zimbambwe cricketers. Sometimes time does not even bother to pass a judgement, only letting things pass into the realm of the forgotten.
I am also not sure why he of the Toole, does not mention other white sports persons who were fetted by the Zimbabwe in recent years. The tennis playing Black siblings - Byron, Wayne and Cara - come to mind.
Yes I will agree that Kirsty brings some very positive news for herself and for her country, Zimbabwe. It seems Mark made a very concious effort to be negative about Zimbabwe even when the situation that presented itself was positive.
Such an overly negative drive by some journalists, is part of the problem in Zimbabwe.
Friday, 20 July 2012
Foreign travel cost outstrips service delivery
Recently I posted, on this blog, my reasons why I believe that the EU should extend travel sanctions to ALL of Zimbabwe's politicians.
According to Zimbabwe's finance minister, the travel bill far outstrips service delivery bills from health and education ministries. Now that we have it from the horse's mouth I hope people will understand how serious the problem is.
This amount is enough to give each of Zimbabwe's 235 000 civil servants a salary raise of $50 a month for 12 months. Alternatively the money is enough to invest about $3 million in each of Zimbabwe's districts, improving roads, schools, health services and fighting crime (the scourge of stock-theft has nearly wiped out some rural livelihoods)
Remember this is only the cost of travel. There are other numerous unnecessary cost imposed on us by our bloated executive, filled by people with the 'let me eat with my friends' mentality.
Zimbabwe is not a poor country. However us ordinary people can only benefit from her wealth, if it is utilized responsibly by those we elect into power.
Using $157 million for lackadaisical sojourns to foreign lands is the furthest thing for responsible use of our abundant resources.
|
=========================
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/news-8539-Foreign+travel+bill+tops+US$157+million/news.aspx
| Foreign travel bill tops US$157 million | ||||||||
Biti revealed the cost of the government's globe-trotting as he presented a mid-term fiscal review to Parliament that downgraded growth prospects for the economy and included spending cuts of up to 10 per cent as well as a jump in tax rates. He said a major factor in the government’s budget going off the rails was the cost of foreign travel with officials spending more than $157 million on international trips since 2009. "Another elephant in the living room is foreign travel. This is an area where we have to take action,” he said and admitted that the benefits of the foreign trips did not match their cost. Biti said spending on foreign travel outstripped the non-wage budget allocations for essential ministries like health and education. "Expenditures on foreign travel remain disproportionate to expenditures on more essential services such as health, education, social protection, infrastructure development and support to agriculture,” he said. Over the six months between January and June this year, the government used US$20 million on foreign travel while spending on education and health not related to salaries for state workers was just over US$5 million and about US$13 million respectively. “While it is necessary that Zimbabwe is represented at regional and international events, essential services will have to take priority, while foreign trips will need to be further managed downwards,” Biti said. “I, therefore, re-emphasise the importance of containing the foreign travel expenditures within allocations in line with measures announced in the 2012 National Budget, which include managing foreign trips, limiting the size of delegations and adhering to Treasury per diem rates. “(However I would like to) acknowledge the support from the Principals and further count on their assistance in this area. Measures are also being considered towards containment of costs of airfares, including forward purchase of air tickets.” |
Thursday, 19 July 2012
No Mr Hain, not your kind of sanctions
Just a week ago I was busy calling for EU travel sanctions to be extended to all of Zimbabwe's ministers. My reasoning was simple, try to curb government expenditure on travels in order to save more money for services.
Barely a week later a British minister is calling for more sanctions but not of the kind I envisaged. Peter Hain wants to place international companies that do business with Zimbabwe under sanctions. The last thing we Zimbabwean people need is for such threats to investors to be bandied about with such abandon.
These sanctions have the express aim of hindering Zimbabwe's economic activities on the global market and have absolutely no value except to throw as much spanners as the British can into the works of Zimbabwe's economy.
It seems the British aim is to curb Zimbabwe's growing independence of their neo-colonial economic establishment. When British companies were busy looting Zimbabwe, they were facilitating their being listed on such international bourses as the London Stock Exchange.
Of course we know very, very well about the kith and kin factor in British mentality when comes to our rights as Zimbabweans. We witnessed it during Ian Smith's unilateral declaration of independence (UDI). It seems that kith and kin factor is still at play today - if any companies are going to benefit from looting Zimbabwe let it be British kith and kin, that seems to be their thinking.
Why hasn't Peter Hain proposed sanctions on Barclays Bank and Standard Chartered Bank which are the two biggest banks propping up the Zanu-PF run Zimbabwean economy. What about other Western linked companies such as Anglo American, Zimplats, Rio Tinto, Murowa Diamonds, etc which are major players in the Zimbabwe economy. They do pay taxes and royalties some of which find their way to the defense forces don't they? Unless of course Peter Hain has been secretly advising them to evade Zimbabwean taxes.
Even a bat, with all its blindness, can see that the sanctions being proposed by him have got absolutely nothing to do with upholding the rights of Zimbabweans. Rather they are more about putting as many obstacles as possible in the path of challengers to Western domination of the Zimbabwean economy.
Of course they know they cannot stop the process of economic de-colonisation but they obviously want to go out kicking and screaming as much as they can.
The wisdom that, for the long term, it would be better to cooperate and help mitigate against the oppression of the past is lost to them.
My opinion has got nothing to do with taking sides in Zimbabwe politics. All our politicians are crooks, cheats and embezzlers as far as I am concerned. They are going into politics not to provide services to us and uphold our rights, but rather to get rich as quickly as they can.
Our politicians by themselves, have done a lot of damage to Zimbabwe as it is. But then you do not burn down your entire village because you don't like the headman. Where will you and your on family live if the village is gone.
I will never agree to measures that destroy Zimbabwe, while purporting to be targeting Mugabe. You do not burn down the granary to get rid of the rats. We do not want to rebuild Zimbabwe from scratch after Mugabe is gone. We want to have a country fully functioning, including having a strong defense force.
We do not want a Libya scenario. With NATO help, the Libyans destroyed law and order because they didn't like Gadhafi. Aren't they being run by lawless militias now?
Barely a week later a British minister is calling for more sanctions but not of the kind I envisaged. Peter Hain wants to place international companies that do business with Zimbabwe under sanctions. The last thing we Zimbabwean people need is for such threats to investors to be bandied about with such abandon.
These sanctions have the express aim of hindering Zimbabwe's economic activities on the global market and have absolutely no value except to throw as much spanners as the British can into the works of Zimbabwe's economy.
It seems the British aim is to curb Zimbabwe's growing independence of their neo-colonial economic establishment. When British companies were busy looting Zimbabwe, they were facilitating their being listed on such international bourses as the London Stock Exchange.
Of course we know very, very well about the kith and kin factor in British mentality when comes to our rights as Zimbabweans. We witnessed it during Ian Smith's unilateral declaration of independence (UDI). It seems that kith and kin factor is still at play today - if any companies are going to benefit from looting Zimbabwe let it be British kith and kin, that seems to be their thinking.
Why hasn't Peter Hain proposed sanctions on Barclays Bank and Standard Chartered Bank which are the two biggest banks propping up the Zanu-PF run Zimbabwean economy. What about other Western linked companies such as Anglo American, Zimplats, Rio Tinto, Murowa Diamonds, etc which are major players in the Zimbabwe economy. They do pay taxes and royalties some of which find their way to the defense forces don't they? Unless of course Peter Hain has been secretly advising them to evade Zimbabwean taxes.
Even a bat, with all its blindness, can see that the sanctions being proposed by him have got absolutely nothing to do with upholding the rights of Zimbabweans. Rather they are more about putting as many obstacles as possible in the path of challengers to Western domination of the Zimbabwean economy.
Of course they know they cannot stop the process of economic de-colonisation but they obviously want to go out kicking and screaming as much as they can.
The wisdom that, for the long term, it would be better to cooperate and help mitigate against the oppression of the past is lost to them.
My opinion has got nothing to do with taking sides in Zimbabwe politics. All our politicians are crooks, cheats and embezzlers as far as I am concerned. They are going into politics not to provide services to us and uphold our rights, but rather to get rich as quickly as they can.
Our politicians by themselves, have done a lot of damage to Zimbabwe as it is. But then you do not burn down your entire village because you don't like the headman. Where will you and your on family live if the village is gone.
I will never agree to measures that destroy Zimbabwe, while purporting to be targeting Mugabe. You do not burn down the granary to get rid of the rats. We do not want to rebuild Zimbabwe from scratch after Mugabe is gone. We want to have a country fully functioning, including having a strong defense force.
We do not want a Libya scenario. With NATO help, the Libyans destroyed law and order because they didn't like Gadhafi. Aren't they being run by lawless militias now?
Wednesday, 18 July 2012
The tribal undertones to the Malema saga
South Africa is made up of two major ethnic groups.
Sotho, Tswana and Pedi (also referred to as Northern Sotho) are closely related tribes of South Africa with the languages being mutually intelligible, almost like Shona dialects.
The Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi and Ndebele are the Nguni based languages also mutually intellible.
The Sotho mainly occupy the Free State province, the Tswana are in the North West (bordering Botswana) and the Pedi are in Limpopo centred around Polokwane.
The Xhosa are Eastern Cape, the Zulu in kwaZulu-Natal (as if that needs an explanation), the Swazi and Ndebele in Mpumalanga.
The Venda and Shangaani (Tsonga) are relatively small groups who many South Africans associate with Zimbabweans and Mozambicans anyway. They are unlikely to have much of a decisive impact on the South African political landscape.
Julius Malema a Pedi is backing Kgalema Motlante said to be a Tswana with roots in the North West, born in Alexandra and brought up in Johannesburg, for President. He is also loudly backing Fikile Mbalula from the Free State (Sotho) for post of secretary general.
On the other side current Secretary General is Gwede Mantashe a Xhosa allied to Jacob Zuma a Zulu.
In short the ANC leadership battle is largely split along Sotho-Nguni lines. The ANC top six are reportedly split in half themselves.
From talking to my fellow workers here I gather that there is little love lost for Zulu's as they are perceived to have been used by the dying apartheid regime in the early 90s (the so called Third Force) to butcher their fellow blacks in a bid to weaken the ANC.
Until the election of Zuma, Zulus almost always backed their tribal based Inkatha Freedom Party. Whites backed their own tribal party the Democratic Alliance. The ANC was for everyone else. It looks like the ANC took a conscious decision to bring in Jacob Zuma to try attract Zulus. They succeeded, kwaZulu-Natal is now the ANC biggest province. It remains to be seen whether the trend will extend beyond Zuma's tenure.
Until the ANC made the decision to appoint Zuma, many people thought that no Zulu would lead SA because of the 1990s Third Force killings. While the appointment of Zuma (SA Presidents are appointed by a majority in Parliament not directly elected) seems to have brought in the Zulus from the cold, it seems they are drifting together with the Xhosas and other Nguni speaking tribes.
The first two Presidents of South Africa, Mandela and Mbeki were Xhosas. Particularly during Mbeki's later years, there were already muffled grumbles about Xhosas 'taking all the power for themselves'. Apparently the push for Motlante is driven by the feeling that it is now time for a non-Nguni after 20 years of Nguni leadership.
It looks like the ANC is headed to be split along ethnic lines over the Malema issue. The ANC structures in Limpopo and Mpumalanga have signaled that they are backing the Malema camp. He addressed an ANC Women's League meeting in Polokwane where he was referred to as 'our son' who 'will remain with us throughout' indicating that Malema is going nowhere.
To me it looks like Zuma's personal battle for survival might just exacerbate the tribal fault lines in South African society.
It may not have been wise for Zuma to pull out all the stops in his battle to silence Malema, even though he is doing it to try and ensure a second term for himself, not for tribal reasons. He also does not seem to have statesman like magnanimity and stoicism. His mocking of Malema, and by extension his backers, by quiping "it's cold outside the ANC" is a case in point.
A man who has fallen once is the one who throws the hardest punch because he doesn't want to fall again. Zuma himself is an example of how a man throws very hard punches once he gets up from a fall. Look how he felled Mbeki.
There is also a disturbing tendency which sees those who express opposition to Zuma being descended upon by government agencies. The Limpopo government headed by a key Malema ally was taken to task by the finance ministry for practices that seem to be also common in other provinces. Malema himself is now being investigated by the tax revenue services as well as an elite police unit. To me it rings bells of Mugabe opponents being investigated by the various arms of government including the CIO.
Famed for the prowess of his loins, Zuma's marriage practices may also not be good for unifying South Africa. All his wives and the women who he is publicly known to have bedded are Zulus. How could it be possible that for a man who has spend much of his time in Gauteng where Tswana and Sotho communities are numerous, has never laid his eye on a woman from another ethnicity whom he could have fancied?
For centuries the marriage practices of leaders have been known to unify or divide communities. In African culture it was quite common to exchange brides to cement ties between kingdoms or communities. Zuma seems to be taking brides from one community only.
The era of Zuma ambitions could prove to be the most damaging for the ANC. The way he challenged for leadership against Mbeki has already seen a split in the ANC. COPE was formed precisely because Zuma/Mbeki power struggle.
The way Mbeki was recalled was widely seen to have been a deliberate humiliation. The ANC was saved from loosing support in the Xhosa heartland, Eastern Cape only by Mandela's cool head. He came out in support of the ANC which was treated as a signal by Xhosas to remain with the ANC.
Now Zuma's battle to for a second term has pitted him against a popular and very loud-mouthed youngster who many see as a proxy for a powerful faction within the ANC. The ANC are extremely lucky that the power struggle that happened in COPE, after they split away, may have dampened the appetite for another split. But they should never assume that a second split won't happen.
What there can be no doubt about is that the fate of the ANC will mirror the fate of South Africa. By dint of the fact that the ANC represents the vast majority of South Africans, it's fortunes or misfortunes will rub off onto to the country in a big way. The fact that the ANC seems headed for trouble means that South Africa is headed for trouble.
There is no chance that the DA will grow from being a largely white tribal party in time to take over from the ANC, that is if the DA will grow at all. Never mind their efforts to woo black voters by elevating a rather buxom young lady whose only notable attribute is a near-perfect English accent.
She is a member of what in Zimbabwe would be derisively referred to as the 'nose brigade', people who speak with a nasal twang in attempts to imitate European accents. South Africans are even more derisive of black people who merely mostly speak English (as I have personally discovered on many occasions) let alone with a European accent. It is considered being a show-off and pompous.
The ANC is a cross roads where they need a very skilled navigator. I don't think many people realize the significance of Mangaung as the cross roads where the ANC's, and South Africa's, future is going to be made or broken.
It is a conference where not only factions of the ANC are pitted against each other, but one where revenge and tolerance will also be fighting their own unannounced battle. If revenge wins, then the ANC and South Africa are headed for trouble.
Sotho, Tswana and Pedi (also referred to as Northern Sotho) are closely related tribes of South Africa with the languages being mutually intelligible, almost like Shona dialects.
The Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi and Ndebele are the Nguni based languages also mutually intellible.
The Sotho mainly occupy the Free State province, the Tswana are in the North West (bordering Botswana) and the Pedi are in Limpopo centred around Polokwane.
The Xhosa are Eastern Cape, the Zulu in kwaZulu-Natal (as if that needs an explanation), the Swazi and Ndebele in Mpumalanga.
The Venda and Shangaani (Tsonga) are relatively small groups who many South Africans associate with Zimbabweans and Mozambicans anyway. They are unlikely to have much of a decisive impact on the South African political landscape.
Julius Malema a Pedi is backing Kgalema Motlante said to be a Tswana with roots in the North West, born in Alexandra and brought up in Johannesburg, for President. He is also loudly backing Fikile Mbalula from the Free State (Sotho) for post of secretary general.
On the other side current Secretary General is Gwede Mantashe a Xhosa allied to Jacob Zuma a Zulu.
In short the ANC leadership battle is largely split along Sotho-Nguni lines. The ANC top six are reportedly split in half themselves.
From talking to my fellow workers here I gather that there is little love lost for Zulu's as they are perceived to have been used by the dying apartheid regime in the early 90s (the so called Third Force) to butcher their fellow blacks in a bid to weaken the ANC.
Until the election of Zuma, Zulus almost always backed their tribal based Inkatha Freedom Party. Whites backed their own tribal party the Democratic Alliance. The ANC was for everyone else. It looks like the ANC took a conscious decision to bring in Jacob Zuma to try attract Zulus. They succeeded, kwaZulu-Natal is now the ANC biggest province. It remains to be seen whether the trend will extend beyond Zuma's tenure.
Until the ANC made the decision to appoint Zuma, many people thought that no Zulu would lead SA because of the 1990s Third Force killings. While the appointment of Zuma (SA Presidents are appointed by a majority in Parliament not directly elected) seems to have brought in the Zulus from the cold, it seems they are drifting together with the Xhosas and other Nguni speaking tribes.
The first two Presidents of South Africa, Mandela and Mbeki were Xhosas. Particularly during Mbeki's later years, there were already muffled grumbles about Xhosas 'taking all the power for themselves'. Apparently the push for Motlante is driven by the feeling that it is now time for a non-Nguni after 20 years of Nguni leadership.
It looks like the ANC is headed to be split along ethnic lines over the Malema issue. The ANC structures in Limpopo and Mpumalanga have signaled that they are backing the Malema camp. He addressed an ANC Women's League meeting in Polokwane where he was referred to as 'our son' who 'will remain with us throughout' indicating that Malema is going nowhere.
To me it looks like Zuma's personal battle for survival might just exacerbate the tribal fault lines in South African society.
It may not have been wise for Zuma to pull out all the stops in his battle to silence Malema, even though he is doing it to try and ensure a second term for himself, not for tribal reasons. He also does not seem to have statesman like magnanimity and stoicism. His mocking of Malema, and by extension his backers, by quiping "it's cold outside the ANC" is a case in point.
A man who has fallen once is the one who throws the hardest punch because he doesn't want to fall again. Zuma himself is an example of how a man throws very hard punches once he gets up from a fall. Look how he felled Mbeki.
There is also a disturbing tendency which sees those who express opposition to Zuma being descended upon by government agencies. The Limpopo government headed by a key Malema ally was taken to task by the finance ministry for practices that seem to be also common in other provinces. Malema himself is now being investigated by the tax revenue services as well as an elite police unit. To me it rings bells of Mugabe opponents being investigated by the various arms of government including the CIO.
Famed for the prowess of his loins, Zuma's marriage practices may also not be good for unifying South Africa. All his wives and the women who he is publicly known to have bedded are Zulus. How could it be possible that for a man who has spend much of his time in Gauteng where Tswana and Sotho communities are numerous, has never laid his eye on a woman from another ethnicity whom he could have fancied?
For centuries the marriage practices of leaders have been known to unify or divide communities. In African culture it was quite common to exchange brides to cement ties between kingdoms or communities. Zuma seems to be taking brides from one community only.
The era of Zuma ambitions could prove to be the most damaging for the ANC. The way he challenged for leadership against Mbeki has already seen a split in the ANC. COPE was formed precisely because Zuma/Mbeki power struggle.
The way Mbeki was recalled was widely seen to have been a deliberate humiliation. The ANC was saved from loosing support in the Xhosa heartland, Eastern Cape only by Mandela's cool head. He came out in support of the ANC which was treated as a signal by Xhosas to remain with the ANC.
Now Zuma's battle to for a second term has pitted him against a popular and very loud-mouthed youngster who many see as a proxy for a powerful faction within the ANC. The ANC are extremely lucky that the power struggle that happened in COPE, after they split away, may have dampened the appetite for another split. But they should never assume that a second split won't happen.
What there can be no doubt about is that the fate of the ANC will mirror the fate of South Africa. By dint of the fact that the ANC represents the vast majority of South Africans, it's fortunes or misfortunes will rub off onto to the country in a big way. The fact that the ANC seems headed for trouble means that South Africa is headed for trouble.
There is no chance that the DA will grow from being a largely white tribal party in time to take over from the ANC, that is if the DA will grow at all. Never mind their efforts to woo black voters by elevating a rather buxom young lady whose only notable attribute is a near-perfect English accent.
She is a member of what in Zimbabwe would be derisively referred to as the 'nose brigade', people who speak with a nasal twang in attempts to imitate European accents. South Africans are even more derisive of black people who merely mostly speak English (as I have personally discovered on many occasions) let alone with a European accent. It is considered being a show-off and pompous.
The ANC is a cross roads where they need a very skilled navigator. I don't think many people realize the significance of Mangaung as the cross roads where the ANC's, and South Africa's, future is going to be made or broken.
It is a conference where not only factions of the ANC are pitted against each other, but one where revenge and tolerance will also be fighting their own unannounced battle. If revenge wins, then the ANC and South Africa are headed for trouble.
Saturday, 14 July 2012
The EU should extend travel sanctions on Zimbabwe politicians
Ever since their inception I have been against the so called targeted sanctions against Zanu-PF officials. I have made my reasons clear why I think they are far from targeted. For example they have achieved the almost total eradication of aid to Zimbabwe except for token aid meant to maintain the façade that they are targeted.
When it was announced that the EU was reviewing them with the possibility that they would be completely removed, should therefore have been good news to me.
Then it suddenly occured to me that all of the 70+ public funds leeches that I have been complaining about ever-since the day their agreement to share seats on the gravy train was announced are going to be free to travel to Europe (including the famed Ingirendi) using money that is meant to provide services for me and other ordinary Zimbabweans.
You can be guaranteed that they will take along with them huge entourages encompassing wives, relatives (vazukuru unlimited), casual forgotten liaisons (Loreta Nyathi style), casual intimate girlfriends (Jonathan Kadzura style), instantly divorced wives and all other sorts of hangers on (leeches leeched upon leeches). Kitchen cabinets, bedroom cabinets, war cabinets and even chiverevere naye kumatanga (kraal) cabinets will all have opportunities to catch a free ride once in a while.
All that travel is going to by financed (by hook and crook if necessary) from public coffers meant to provide services to us poor Zimbabweans who have been reduced to taking each other to clinics in wheelbarrows. What does that mean to us. The cake is not growing bigger. So it obviously means less services to us.
No the EU must not lift any more travel sanctions. It must extend them to all politicians including the MDC ones in order to help us minimize the misuse of public money. And this time they better make them really targeted.
When it was announced that the EU was reviewing them with the possibility that they would be completely removed, should therefore have been good news to me.
Then it suddenly occured to me that all of the 70+ public funds leeches that I have been complaining about ever-since the day their agreement to share seats on the gravy train was announced are going to be free to travel to Europe (including the famed Ingirendi) using money that is meant to provide services for me and other ordinary Zimbabweans.
You can be guaranteed that they will take along with them huge entourages encompassing wives, relatives (vazukuru unlimited), casual forgotten liaisons (Loreta Nyathi style), casual intimate girlfriends (Jonathan Kadzura style), instantly divorced wives and all other sorts of hangers on (leeches leeched upon leeches). Kitchen cabinets, bedroom cabinets, war cabinets and even chiverevere naye kumatanga (kraal) cabinets will all have opportunities to catch a free ride once in a while.
All that travel is going to by financed (by hook and crook if necessary) from public coffers meant to provide services to us poor Zimbabweans who have been reduced to taking each other to clinics in wheelbarrows. What does that mean to us. The cake is not growing bigger. So it obviously means less services to us.
No the EU must not lift any more travel sanctions. It must extend them to all politicians including the MDC ones in order to help us minimize the misuse of public money. And this time they better make them really targeted.
Thursday, 14 June 2012
Food security in Zimbabwe: The White Farmer Factor?
Most of what Eddie Cross says in response to my earlier blog article, is in agreement with my own analysis. He confirms that even when white commercial farmers were in full unhindered operation there were seasons when Zimbabwe had to import food. He also confirms that there is a large variation in seasonal rainfall (40% is the figure he gives) which influences food security at household level.
My original post was focused on household food security. Eddie expands the picture to include commercial agriculture. Again I do not deny that farm invasions were a significant blow to commercial agriculture.
Eddie is right that living standards were low in communal areas. But it is patently false to claim that those of farmworkers were higher. Peasants had secure (though not legally recognized) tenure on their land. They could accumulate property, mainly cattle and farming implements, which could serve as a savings base or pension.
On the other hand, farm workers had scant job security. Eddie touts a figure of 2 million farm workers but forgets to mention that most of them were seasonal workers who only had jobs during the rainy season and moved to the communal lands during the dry season. Those who nominally lived on the farms had little job security and hopped from farm to farm, because of frequent firings, with barely the clothes on their backs. When they grew too old to work most had nowhere to go except the communal lands. Most became the poorest members of the communal communities becuase they would not have been able to accumulate property while working on farms.
I fully agree with the point that removing 30% of production will lead to serious shortages. However the reason why I tend to emphasize other factors is to counter the unspoken racist insinuation that blacks can't feed themselves and need whites to feed them.
I have never disputed that the decline in commercial agriculture contributed to overall decline in agricultural output, but I strenuously object to attempts to pass it off as the sole reason for 'starvation' in Zimbabwe.
I grew up in rural Zimbabwe and all my life I know rural communities are not fed by commercially grown maize. They either grow their own maize or, in times of drought, imported maize. That is why rotary hammer mills (zvigayo) for grinding maize into flour are ubiquitous in Zimbabwe's rural areas.
The removal of white farmers was always going to negatively affect the macro-economy of the country, but it would have improved the micro-economy of the peasant farmers significantly if it had not been accompanied by price controls and trade restrictions. Given that 70% of Zimbabwe's population live in the rural areas this would have significantly improved lives.
Poor economic policies and trade restrictions also significantly affected sectors of the economy which had nothing to do with farming such as mining and services.
Other factors also contribute to the increasing frequency of food shortages in Zimbabwe. The growing population has put a tremendous strain on the ability of communal lands people to continue being self sustaining on the same little land that was allocated to native reserves almost a century ago. The land for native reserves was barely sufficient then, and there is absolutely no chance it will be sufficient now.
To give an anecdotal example, Chiraramiro village, where my mother comes from, originally had six families, Chiraramiro (the Headman), Vambe, Nyamanza, Matambo, Musasiwa and Muketa families. Chiraramiro and Vambe had more than five sons each, including the famous Hahuhunhanzvi (You will never lick this beer). Muketa had three. So by the time of my mothers generation the families had increased to more than 16.
In my generation, each of these 16 families have had three sons on average. The same land that was barely sufficient for six families is now expected to support nearly 50 families. Needless to say there is absolutely no chance all these 50 families being self sustaining without jobs elsewhere. Urbanisation has led many members of the families into towns, where the situation is not much better. Jobs were scant even before the economic collapse.
Some say the economy collapsed because white farmers were chased away. I say the economy collapsed mainly because politicians are stealing or otherwise misusing the money. A ravenous kleptocracy is chewing up more than its fair share of resources.
That climate change is also playing havoc with food security is also increasingly becoming apparent. Of late the rains start in late November sometimes December. Yet the rains used to start around September and October.
As some may know the name gukurahundi (the rains that wash away the chaf) refers to rains that fell around August, soon after people finished processing their harvests. Now that name remains in use only because it was the nickname given to the Fifth Brigade, the army division accused of committing atrocities in Matebeleland provinces in the mid-1980s. Otherwise rains in August a virtually unheard of nowadays.
Yes the removal of white farmers did affect Zimbabwean agricultural, but it would be folly to ignore the numerous other factors also at play. It is also folly to think that the land question can be solved by simply restoring the colonial status quo which is what most white farmers seem to be hoping for.
The major sticking point at the moment seems to be who is responsible for compensating evicted farmers, with Mugabe saying it is the responsibility of the British, and the British saying they are not liable for the sins of their forefathers. At least this is what Claire Short said in a letter to the Zimbabwe government.
Food Production in Zimbabwe - By Eddie Cross, MP
The following is a direct response to my earlier blog post Absence of white farmers not the reason for Zimbabwe's food shortages. Eddie Cross is an MP for Bulawayo South constituency in the Zimbabwe parliament representing the MDC (Tsvangirai faction). He would have been serving in ministerial capacity in the Zimbabwe government, but was denied the opportunity for ethnic and tribal reasons.
==================================
Dear Jupiter
I read your note on the link between food production and the destruction of white owned farms and thought that it needed a response. As you might know I was Chief Economist at the Agricultural Marketing Authority up to Independence and have been involved in agriculture here all my life.
You concentrate on maize production, as this is the primary staple that is understandable. Communal farmers (70 per cent of the population until the recent collapse of the economy and the rural economy) always aimed to produce their own food. Generally over time this meant that 60 per cent of national maize production came from the Communal areas. Because of the nature of subsistence agriculture, low tech, low inputs, yields were always low and the areas cultivated huge – some 2 million hectares were cultivated annually. If we had good rains this produced a surplus and shortages when rains were poor.
Zimbabwe has a 40 per cent mean variation in rainfall (the US is 5 per cent). This means that we get huge variations in rainfall from year to year. 1983, 1992 were exceptionally bad years and only massive imports saved the country from starvation. The other crops where communal farmers dominated were sorghum, millet, ground nuts and beans. Perhaps we could add sweet potatoes and air dried tobacco. Living standards were low =- perhaps a third of the standard of living on commercial farms – it is interesting to note that population density on commercial farms was nearly as great as on communal farms, commercial farmers supported a population of about 2 million people in 1997 on about 8 million hectares of land. Communal areas population was about 4 million on 16 million hectares, the difference being that the majority of the communal land were in regions 3, 4 and 5 – arid and semi arid areas. 70 per cent of region 1 land is communal but that is restricted to the Eastern Highlands.
What made the Commercial farmers (4800 white and 1200 black) so important (70 per cent of gross agricultural output) was the productivity and technologically advanced nature of their operations. They irrigated 270 000 hectares of land – most of it as supplementary irrigation in dry years, they produced about 600 000 tonnes of maize a year (we need 1,8 million tonnes a year – 1,2 million tonnes for human consumption and 600 000 tonnes for industry and stockfeed. But in a dry year they could irrigate much of the crop and guarantee some output. Commercial farmers produced virtually all the wheat (400 000 tonnes), all the barley (40 000 tonnes) and 95 per cent of the tobacco (250 000 tonnes a year) and 90 per cent of all soybeans (120 000 tonnes). Then they produced all the tea – 90 per cent of the coffee, all the milk (260 000 tonnes) and all the fruit (citrus and pome – about 75 000 tonnes a year). In the meat industry they produced about 60 per cent of the poultry, 70 per cent of the beef and 85 per cent of the pig meat – altogether about 350 000 tonnes a year.
When you put this all together, Commercial farmers generated about 70 per cent of gross agricultural output, half of all exports and a third of employment and 60 per cent of the raw materials getting to local industry. They supported over 2 million people directly on farms at a standard that was significantly better than in the communal areas where absolute poverty existed.
Since the farm invasions, commercial agricultural output has declined 70 per cent and is still declining. In the communal sector, and this is fascinating, the decline has been slightly higher at 73 per cent. I estimate that out of the 10 000 title deeded farms that were forcibly taken from their owners, 7000 are today vacant, with no people living there, no farm activity of any kind. Hardest hit has been the cattle industry where commercial stocks of 2,7 million head have been reduced to about 700 000 head. You cannot run cattle when there is no law, no security and no fences.
This year we will import just about everything – two thirds of our milk, a third of our sugar (we used to produce 600 000 tonnes a year with half for export), vegetables, 1,2 million tonnes of maize – maybe more than last year as the crop is smaller, all our wheat, half our barley and two thirds of our soybeans. Much of it from Zambia (where ex Zimbabwean farmers have made a huge impact) and Malawi where very successful peasant agricultural systems are delivering large surpluses – but funded by donors.
What should be of concern to all is that three years after the formation of the GNU, the only sector that shows no recovery, but is still in decline, is agriculture.
Eddie
Wednesday, 13 June 2012
Absence of white farmers not the reason for Zimbabwe's food shortages
Zimbabwe's food production ability was not destroyed by taking white farms. Commercial farmers were only responsible for producing 30% of Zimbabwe's staple, maize. 70% was produced by communal farmers (villages working on small plots averaging about 6 hectares).
What destroyed Zimbabwe's agricultural productivity was the idiosyncratic economic policies of the Mugabe government. The first was price control. The government decreed the price of agricultural commodities. The second was market restriction. The government decreed that only the government owned Grain Marketing Board could buy maize. In conjunction with this decree they banned the transportation of maize to anywhere other than GMB depots. Thus producing the staple simply became unprofitable and communal farmers simply resorted to producing just enough to feed their families.
The production of maize is very much dependent on annual rainfall patterns. Years with good rains would see bumper harvest enabling the government to put some into reserve stockpiles. Price controls meant that there were several years without reserves being replenished hence the government lost its ability to supplement grain supplies in drought years. Also at play was the monetary mismanagement which wiped out foreign currency reserves. The government was unable to import maize on its own.
The fact that white farmers were chased of their farms was merely a coincidence. In fact this was not even the first time that Zimbabwe had had to import maize for food. In the 1982/83 season there was a serious drought and the government imported yellow maize which was derisively referred to as 'Kenya' by locals. The consistency and taste of sadza (ugali) made from yellow maize is not that same as that from white maize. I do not know for what reason yellow sadza came to be referred to as Kenya.
The food aid that was distributed during that drought came to be commonly referred to as 'chibage chaVaMugabe' (Mugabe's maize). In the subsequent years Zanu-PF became so popular that at one point they won 117 out of the 120 seats in parliament. This is one of the reasons why donors and Western governments are now making a huge effort not to have food aid being associated closely with the government. The fact that this leads to unnecessary waste and duplication of resources, is ignored.
There was another drought around 1991/92 and the government again had to import maize, this time mainly from SA and Zambia. During both these major food shortages white commercial farmers were in full unhindered operation, yet that did not prevent the weather from playing havoc on food supplies.
As we speak last year (2010/2011 season) the rains were relatively good and we didn't hear anything about food shortages in Zimbabwe. This year the rains have not been so good but some regions of the country have reasonable harvest. Food shortages will hopefully not be serious.
Weather, not the race of farmers, is the chief influence upon food security in Zimbabwe. I grew up among Zimbabwean villagers and the chief worry in terms of food security has always been 'are the rains going to be good this year?' (Mukati nhaka mvura inonaya zvakanaka?)
Of late seasons of low rainfall have become more frequent, and rains are persistently coming late. Thus the other possible reason for Zimbabwe's growing food insecurity is climate change, not the absence of a particular race of farmers.
Monday, 9 April 2012
Lindiwe Zulu: Mediator or now party to the dispute?
I would like to ask, who is in charge of Zimbabwe, the Government of Zimbabwe or Lindiwe Zulu? If it is the former then I would like to further ask what business that later has deciding when or when not elections would be held in Zimbabwe.
Secondly who are the parties to the dispute in Zimbabwe. Are Jacob Zuma or Lindiwe Zulu in any way parties to the dispute. If that is the case can they please explain to us how that come about and why they are mediators at the same time. As far as I am concerned announcements of what can or cannot happen should be coming from Robert Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai, Welshman Ncube (or is it Arthur Mutambara?).
It is entirely up to the three parties to the dispute to modify agreements they made in the past. What is not normal is for the mediator to try and stand in the way of any such modifications to past agreements. What is not normal is for the mediator to try and feed negotiating positions to some of the parties or adopt the positions of some of the parties and impose them on others. It is not up to Lindiwe Zulu to dictate to the parties. It is not up to Lindiwe Zulu decide when elections can or cannot be held in Zimbabwe.
As far as I am aware both Morgan Tsvangirai and Robert Mugabe have hinted that the elections can be held without all the conditions of the GPA being met or even a new constitution, especially if the 5-year election cycle is about to pass. That cycle is less than a year away so Lindiwe Zulu had better stop grand-standing about things she knows little about. While it is expected for parties to a dispute to grandstand it is completely unusually for a so called mediator to become the chief grandstander.
Despite what the Lindiwe Zulus like to fabricate and believe, Zimbabwe has dilligently, without fail, held multi-party parliamentary elections every five years since her 1980 independence which makes her the leading democracy in Africa. Presidential elections have been held every 6 years since the post was created. So far nothing has ever made Zimbabwe miss her democratic heartbeat, and I am sure nothing, not even Lindiwe Zulu, is going delay elections beyond March 2013.
The overwhelming popularity of Zanu-PF should not be percieved as lack of democracy in much the same way the overwhelming popularity of the ANC in South Africa for the past 20 years does not signal a lack of democracy in South Africa.
It is the involvement of the Lindiwe Zulus which is about to make Zimbabwe miss her democratic heartbeat.
We should avoid a situation where an otherwise stabilised situation is inflamed again by poor or non-existant mediation skills. The only way that can be achieved is to remove the poor mediators.
Secondly who are the parties to the dispute in Zimbabwe. Are Jacob Zuma or Lindiwe Zulu in any way parties to the dispute. If that is the case can they please explain to us how that come about and why they are mediators at the same time. As far as I am concerned announcements of what can or cannot happen should be coming from Robert Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai, Welshman Ncube (or is it Arthur Mutambara?).
It is entirely up to the three parties to the dispute to modify agreements they made in the past. What is not normal is for the mediator to try and stand in the way of any such modifications to past agreements. What is not normal is for the mediator to try and feed negotiating positions to some of the parties or adopt the positions of some of the parties and impose them on others. It is not up to Lindiwe Zulu to dictate to the parties. It is not up to Lindiwe Zulu decide when elections can or cannot be held in Zimbabwe.
As far as I am aware both Morgan Tsvangirai and Robert Mugabe have hinted that the elections can be held without all the conditions of the GPA being met or even a new constitution, especially if the 5-year election cycle is about to pass. That cycle is less than a year away so Lindiwe Zulu had better stop grand-standing about things she knows little about. While it is expected for parties to a dispute to grandstand it is completely unusually for a so called mediator to become the chief grandstander.
Despite what the Lindiwe Zulus like to fabricate and believe, Zimbabwe has dilligently, without fail, held multi-party parliamentary elections every five years since her 1980 independence which makes her the leading democracy in Africa. Presidential elections have been held every 6 years since the post was created. So far nothing has ever made Zimbabwe miss her democratic heartbeat, and I am sure nothing, not even Lindiwe Zulu, is going delay elections beyond March 2013.
The overwhelming popularity of Zanu-PF should not be percieved as lack of democracy in much the same way the overwhelming popularity of the ANC in South Africa for the past 20 years does not signal a lack of democracy in South Africa.
It is the involvement of the Lindiwe Zulus which is about to make Zimbabwe miss her democratic heartbeat.
We should avoid a situation where an otherwise stabilised situation is inflamed again by poor or non-existant mediation skills. The only way that can be achieved is to remove the poor mediators.
Friday, 23 March 2012
Time for the African Union to take the lead in Libya
Now that NATO's mess-up is self evident in Libya it is time for the African Union to step in and clean up. Libya has been transformed from being a major African player to a total wreck in the space of six short months, thanks to an overzealous and ultimately ungrateful Sarkozy (how can he turn on someone who gave him campaign funds).
It is up to the African Union to organise troops from say Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Morrocco to go and shore up the the NTC in Libya, the same way the AU has stabilised Somalia. The only way the NTC can bring the mushrooming militias in Libya under controls is have a large amount of carrots as well as a big stick.
Militias should be disarmed through a well financed voluntary civil reintegration program. Those who surrender their guns should be given money and training for skills useful to society. At the same time the NTC needs to start seriously building up a military shored by fellow African troops like what is happening in Somalia.
Given the NATO and Western media encouraged perception that black Africans were Gadhafi's chief backers, it would not be advisable to send troops from countries like South Africa, Zimbabwe, Uganda or Nigeria. Therefore the AU would have no choice but to rely on countries like Egypt which are also battling with their own internal problems.
Already it looks like the NATO exacerbated crisis in Libya is going to spread to other countries in the region with Mali already divided and in deep civil conflict inflamed by the easy availability of weapons from Gadhafi's armouries. If a negotiated transition had been allowed in Libya, those arms would have remained in secure hands and none of them would have found their way into the hands of rebel groups in the region.
Due to what is at best NATO naivete, at worst a callous attack on African stability, the reality is that the AU is now left to deal with the fallout of bad decisions by others - NATO. The AU have their own faults, but you do not pour hot oil a man because he is diseased. NATO poured hot oil on Africa in destabilising Libya one of the chief backers of the African Union. Now it looks like the hot oil has splashed onto Libya's neighbours with Mali being the first to show evidence of serious burns.
If the African Union does not act now to try and contain the situation, the Arab Spring could soon be followed by a Sahel Winter. It is no use looking to Europe for a solution. Europe is only good a creating Africa's problems not solving them. They created African poverty through colonialism not it seems they are bent on creating African instability.
It is up to the African Union to organise troops from say Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Morrocco to go and shore up the the NTC in Libya, the same way the AU has stabilised Somalia. The only way the NTC can bring the mushrooming militias in Libya under controls is have a large amount of carrots as well as a big stick.
Militias should be disarmed through a well financed voluntary civil reintegration program. Those who surrender their guns should be given money and training for skills useful to society. At the same time the NTC needs to start seriously building up a military shored by fellow African troops like what is happening in Somalia.
Given the NATO and Western media encouraged perception that black Africans were Gadhafi's chief backers, it would not be advisable to send troops from countries like South Africa, Zimbabwe, Uganda or Nigeria. Therefore the AU would have no choice but to rely on countries like Egypt which are also battling with their own internal problems.
Already it looks like the NATO exacerbated crisis in Libya is going to spread to other countries in the region with Mali already divided and in deep civil conflict inflamed by the easy availability of weapons from Gadhafi's armouries. If a negotiated transition had been allowed in Libya, those arms would have remained in secure hands and none of them would have found their way into the hands of rebel groups in the region.
Due to what is at best NATO naivete, at worst a callous attack on African stability, the reality is that the AU is now left to deal with the fallout of bad decisions by others - NATO. The AU have their own faults, but you do not pour hot oil a man because he is diseased. NATO poured hot oil on Africa in destabilising Libya one of the chief backers of the African Union. Now it looks like the hot oil has splashed onto Libya's neighbours with Mali being the first to show evidence of serious burns.
If the African Union does not act now to try and contain the situation, the Arab Spring could soon be followed by a Sahel Winter. It is no use looking to Europe for a solution. Europe is only good a creating Africa's problems not solving them. They created African poverty through colonialism not it seems they are bent on creating African instability.
Monday, 19 March 2012
The military should be treated as a single unit
In my last blog post, I concluded with the remark "Without willingness on the part of Zanu-PF members especially those in the military, there is very little chance that a stable and peaceful transition will be possible"
A fellow Zimbabwe responded to that particular comment about the military as follows.
It those divisions within the military which make it most dangerous. Take a look at the Arab spring. Where the military has remained united such as in Egypt and Tunisia the country has remained stable. Where the military got divided and suffered 'defections', such as Libya and Syria, the countries are faced with serious instability.
What we know in Zimbabwe is that large sections of the military are definitely pro-Zanu-PF, with many of them being described as hardliners. While there has been a constant stream of rumours about this or that general being sympathetic to the MDC, or being 'moderate' there is no real evidence of who will throw in their lot against Zanu-PF once the chips are down.
In any case, the pro-Zanu-PF faction is likely to have the greater numbers and is likely to dominate any proceedings barring outside intervention. Even if outsiders intervene, do not forget that most of the pro-Zanu-PF are hardened guerilla war veterans. Zimbabwean terrain is also more suited for guerilla warfare than say the Libyan desert and it will take years to subdue them, if it is at all possible. They can easily be to Zimbabwe what the Taliban has been to Afghanistan.
As far as I am concerned a bean count of which soldiers are pro-Zanu-PF and which are anti-Zanu-PF is practically useless, or even which soldiers belong to which faction of Zanu-PF is practically useless. The more important think is to prevent them getting at each other's throats. In fact I consider the intra-faction fault-lines within Zanu-PF to be far much more dangerous to Zimbabwe's stability.
Once the Zanu-PF intra-faction fight starts even the MDC will be a little more than a toddler watching its parents fighting - utterly helpless to stop the fight but very much liable to be caught in the crossfire.
The retired officers are only important in as much as they can act as intermediaries with the serving officers. It is the serving officers in charge of brigades and platoons who give orders directly to the rank and file of the soldiers who matter most. It is fallacy to think that the retired officers command so much respect that they will be able to immediately take over command of platoons.
Even to imagine that they will have stronger bonds with politicians than they have with the men they once commanded and then handed the baton to, is also fallacy. Yes they may make noises sympathetic to certain politicians every now and then, but when the chips are down it may well be a different story. The man who says, 'Mudhara I covered you during that fire-fight at that mountain' will certainly be more likely to sway the retired generals in his favour. I am not saying it is a given, I am just considering the balance of probabilities.
In short any strategy by the opposition that is centred around corralling a few generals from the rest of the herd, is at best unpredictable in outcome. What is almost certain is that it could lead to dangerous instability. It would be better for them to try and not make a distinction between the generals and just treat the military as a unit. Even the individual soldiers are as important as the generals and their contribution and sacrifice for the country should never ever be trash-talked.
I know that the generals themselves have not been particularly tight-lipped and have said things that are meant to rile to the opposition. What is required is for the opposition to show maturity and avoid tit-for-tat verbal exchanges that will further pollute the atmosphere.
The most important thing is not to divide the military. They should be treated as a unit, not as a patchwork of hardliners and moderates. The best chance of keeping the country stable lies in keeping the military united.
A fellow Zimbabwe responded to that particular comment about the military as follows.
James Chikonamombe - One point on the military though: this is not a monolithic military, but rather, a deeply divided military split into antagonistic factions. I'm reliably informed that on the one hand, you have certain members of the top military brass who actually consider themselves to be Presidential material, and yet, on the other hand, certain members of the same military top brass are vehemently against these same military "manouvres".
It those divisions within the military which make it most dangerous. Take a look at the Arab spring. Where the military has remained united such as in Egypt and Tunisia the country has remained stable. Where the military got divided and suffered 'defections', such as Libya and Syria, the countries are faced with serious instability.
What we know in Zimbabwe is that large sections of the military are definitely pro-Zanu-PF, with many of them being described as hardliners. While there has been a constant stream of rumours about this or that general being sympathetic to the MDC, or being 'moderate' there is no real evidence of who will throw in their lot against Zanu-PF once the chips are down.
In any case, the pro-Zanu-PF faction is likely to have the greater numbers and is likely to dominate any proceedings barring outside intervention. Even if outsiders intervene, do not forget that most of the pro-Zanu-PF are hardened guerilla war veterans. Zimbabwean terrain is also more suited for guerilla warfare than say the Libyan desert and it will take years to subdue them, if it is at all possible. They can easily be to Zimbabwe what the Taliban has been to Afghanistan.
As far as I am concerned a bean count of which soldiers are pro-Zanu-PF and which are anti-Zanu-PF is practically useless, or even which soldiers belong to which faction of Zanu-PF is practically useless. The more important think is to prevent them getting at each other's throats. In fact I consider the intra-faction fault-lines within Zanu-PF to be far much more dangerous to Zimbabwe's stability.
Once the Zanu-PF intra-faction fight starts even the MDC will be a little more than a toddler watching its parents fighting - utterly helpless to stop the fight but very much liable to be caught in the crossfire.
James Chikonamombe - Zimbabwe's military, like militaries elsewhere, is a virtual "state within a state". But, we should not put too much stock in the active serving officers; the ones we read about in the papers every day. Conversely, there are retired officers who carry much clout, and it is these officers that the opposition should be embracing. If any democratic change has to take place, then Zanu's "old guard" should be embraced by the opposition. They are actually very progressive, and keen to see Zimbabwe move forward -- believe it or not! -- and should be part and parcel of any post-ZPF scenario.
The retired officers are only important in as much as they can act as intermediaries with the serving officers. It is the serving officers in charge of brigades and platoons who give orders directly to the rank and file of the soldiers who matter most. It is fallacy to think that the retired officers command so much respect that they will be able to immediately take over command of platoons.
Even to imagine that they will have stronger bonds with politicians than they have with the men they once commanded and then handed the baton to, is also fallacy. Yes they may make noises sympathetic to certain politicians every now and then, but when the chips are down it may well be a different story. The man who says, 'Mudhara I covered you during that fire-fight at that mountain' will certainly be more likely to sway the retired generals in his favour. I am not saying it is a given, I am just considering the balance of probabilities.
In short any strategy by the opposition that is centred around corralling a few generals from the rest of the herd, is at best unpredictable in outcome. What is almost certain is that it could lead to dangerous instability. It would be better for them to try and not make a distinction between the generals and just treat the military as a unit. Even the individual soldiers are as important as the generals and their contribution and sacrifice for the country should never ever be trash-talked.
I know that the generals themselves have not been particularly tight-lipped and have said things that are meant to rile to the opposition. What is required is for the opposition to show maturity and avoid tit-for-tat verbal exchanges that will further pollute the atmosphere.
The most important thing is not to divide the military. They should be treated as a unit, not as a patchwork of hardliners and moderates. The best chance of keeping the country stable lies in keeping the military united.
Friday, 16 March 2012
Off lines in the sand - political confrontation in Zimbabwe
Back in the days when fun was fun, donkeys still had horns, rivers were still flowing uphill, the hammer had not yet struck the ground, and I was a cow herdboy in the dusty plains of Manyene, we had a way of starting fights between two people.
We would seek a sandy patch and make four mounts about the size of breasts. We would take two antagonists and to each point out two mounds, "These are your mother's breasts. If anybody kicks them you must fight back."
In Shona culture and, I believe in most other African cultures, insulting one's mother is considered particularly objectionable. You can hurl all kinds of epithets against the individual and be met with unflinching stoicism but the moment you mention their mother all hell would break loose.
In order to show that they were not a coward somebody had to kick the mother's breasts of the rival. If your mother's breasts were kicked, you had to fight for your honour.
That was kid's play, activities meant to pass time while watching scrawny cattle swishing tails and virtually licking the soil in attempts to find bits of grass in the barren overcrowded 'native reserves'. Many bloody noses, swollen eyes and grudges for maybe days would result, but it was all soon forgotten as other rivals emerged and waned with time.
When we used to play our game, we had little but stubborn guys would kick the mother's breasts of older and bigger guys, or who always fought loosing battles when their 'mother's breasts' were kicked by older guys.
In those heady days when I was herding cows, the fights over 'mother's breasts' were instigated by those of us who enjoyed the spectacle of others pointlessly hammering each other. Some of us would run long distances to go fetch sand if there was no sand at the particular spot we wanted the fight to take place. We would gladly take off our shirts and use them as improvised sacks to ferry the sand for the 'breasts'.
In Zimbabwean politics, it seems we are headed for a round of games in the sand. Recently Eddie Cross told us that the MDC have drawn a line in the sand, (Why didn't he make them mounds in the sand and call them breasts. Sounds more interesting). Apparently they are daring Zanu-PF to kick the MDC's 'mother's breasts'. They are promising to visit untold woe on Zanu-PF if it doesn't respect their 'mother's breasts' or line in the sand.
The stage is being set for a no surrender contest. The language of confrontation is already being spun. In the days of my herding cows, there were always little guys who would kick the 'mother's breasts' of much bigger guys in the hope that a elder brother or cousin would join the fight on their side.
The MDC are in the position of these little guys. They are choosing confrontational language when they know very well that there is nothing they can do if Zanu-PF decides to call their bluff, except hope that outsiders will intervene on their behalf.
In the current arrangement, Zanu-PF have the capacity to do whatever they like. They are keeping the MDC as their sheepskin - the covering that gives them legitimacy. There is little chance of the MDC drawing any line in the sand that Zanu-PF are not capable of obliterating in a flash.
Therefore I do not think for the MDC to be making ultimatums is the appropriate strategy for them. They need to be seriously thinking about how to achieve a willing giver willing taker transition in Zimbabwe. Without willingness on the part of Zanu-PF members especially those in the military, there is very little chance that a stable and peaceful transition will be possible.
There MDC's attempts to force a humiliating capitulation out of Zanu-PF haven't worked in the past and are unlikely to work in the near future. Claims by Eddie Cross that the MDC have 'drawn a line in the sand' and will 'dictate the outcome' while not totally luaghable amount to a little more than bravado.
Any strategy which is hinged around the MDC facing down Zanu-PF is unlikely to yield the results that the MDC wants.
Jupiter Punungwe
proud of my Strong Rural Background (I was born, bred and will die a farmer)
Thursday, 8 March 2012
A New Constitution Does Not Mean Much in Zimbabwe
Recently there has been a lot of controversy, even drawing in our neighbour South Africa, over whether elections should be held before or after a new constitution is in place.
The constitution is not the key problem. The key problem is changing the political mentality of entitlement. As long as the politicians feel that they are entitled to luxury at the taxpayer's expense we are always going to have problems.
You can take any wonderful recipe, as long as you prepare it with rotten ingridients it won't taste nice. No matter what constitution you have, as long as your politicians are corrupt and dishonest, the country will suffer and decline. At the moment, the entire Zimbabwean political fabric is rotten.
Specimens of honest, diligent and truthful politicians on the Zimbabwean landscape have virtually suffered the same fate as the quagga. Extinct. Zimbabwe could take the Bible and use it as a constitution word for word but with the amount of dishonesty we have, there would still be massive problems.
The current saga with the Constituency Development Funds is a reminder of just how deep our problems are. Several politicians were caught investing in their businesses with money meant for development. Others simply blew it without explanation.
The newspapers are full of stories MPs who are on the run, but not a single one about those who used the money properly. This does not bode well for the rest. We do not know whether they have been investigated and cleared or they are still to be investigated.
So far I have had assurance from only one MP, Eddie Cross that they have been investigated and cleared.
I am also worried that if the process threatens to become too politically costly to the major parties, it will be quietly smothered. While Zanu-PF and the MDC fight each other tooth and nail on most fronts, the tendency has been to quietly cooperate where 'eating' for both is involved.
So far no real big names have been fingered on either side of the political divide. I would be surprised if all the ministers are clean.
That Zimbabwe has some of the best educated politicians in the world does not seem to help. How many governments can boast several professors in cabinet? However, a degree does not amount to common sense. Common sense does not amount to education. In life you need both. It seems most of our politicians have the one or the other but never both. Quite a substantial number have neither common sense nor education.
A new constitution will not instill honesty, education or common sense in our politicians. A vulture with a beak muzzle is still a vulture. At some point it will find a way to get rid of the beak muzzle and start tearing at the flesh again. Dishonest politicians with a good constitution are still dishonest politicians. They will be busy looking for the loopholes to exploit before the ink dries.
Most of those clamouring for a new constitution are themselves not being honest. They merely want to use it as another tool in their arsenal for removing Robert Mugabe. This motive has nothing to do with the long term fortunes of ordinary Zimbabweans, but everything to do with the short term objective of removing Mugabe as a stumbling block to neo-colonialist agendas.
Mugabe's continued tenure is in itself also a problem. It encourages personality culture, is a stumbling block to renewal of ideas, and ensures the recycling of the same political deadwood we have had for three decades.
Mugabe's extended tenure is the foundation upon which the culture of crony protection is built - a foundation which the MDC seems intent to reinforce rather than demolish. Both sides of Zimbabwe's political divide want a new constitution only in as much as it serves their narrow agendas.
The MDC and their backers want to use it as a tool prise the levers of power from Mugabe's hands. Zanu-PF want it in order to dampen or eliminate the criticism that they would face if they manage to stay in power (by whatever means necessary). None of the sides seems prepared to accept a loss.
It is therefore very unlikely that a new constitution will change much in Zimbabwe. I am certain that it won't remove the political fighting that has been the root cause of Zimbabwe's woes. I am therefore certain that to ordinary Zimbabweans, a new constitution won't mean much. They will still be the grass beneath the feet of two political elephants.
The constitution is not the key problem. The key problem is changing the political mentality of entitlement. As long as the politicians feel that they are entitled to luxury at the taxpayer's expense we are always going to have problems.
You can take any wonderful recipe, as long as you prepare it with rotten ingridients it won't taste nice. No matter what constitution you have, as long as your politicians are corrupt and dishonest, the country will suffer and decline. At the moment, the entire Zimbabwean political fabric is rotten.
Specimens of honest, diligent and truthful politicians on the Zimbabwean landscape have virtually suffered the same fate as the quagga. Extinct. Zimbabwe could take the Bible and use it as a constitution word for word but with the amount of dishonesty we have, there would still be massive problems.
The current saga with the Constituency Development Funds is a reminder of just how deep our problems are. Several politicians were caught investing in their businesses with money meant for development. Others simply blew it without explanation.
The newspapers are full of stories MPs who are on the run, but not a single one about those who used the money properly. This does not bode well for the rest. We do not know whether they have been investigated and cleared or they are still to be investigated.
So far I have had assurance from only one MP, Eddie Cross that they have been investigated and cleared.
I am also worried that if the process threatens to become too politically costly to the major parties, it will be quietly smothered. While Zanu-PF and the MDC fight each other tooth and nail on most fronts, the tendency has been to quietly cooperate where 'eating' for both is involved.
So far no real big names have been fingered on either side of the political divide. I would be surprised if all the ministers are clean.
That Zimbabwe has some of the best educated politicians in the world does not seem to help. How many governments can boast several professors in cabinet? However, a degree does not amount to common sense. Common sense does not amount to education. In life you need both. It seems most of our politicians have the one or the other but never both. Quite a substantial number have neither common sense nor education.
A new constitution will not instill honesty, education or common sense in our politicians. A vulture with a beak muzzle is still a vulture. At some point it will find a way to get rid of the beak muzzle and start tearing at the flesh again. Dishonest politicians with a good constitution are still dishonest politicians. They will be busy looking for the loopholes to exploit before the ink dries.
Most of those clamouring for a new constitution are themselves not being honest. They merely want to use it as another tool in their arsenal for removing Robert Mugabe. This motive has nothing to do with the long term fortunes of ordinary Zimbabweans, but everything to do with the short term objective of removing Mugabe as a stumbling block to neo-colonialist agendas.
Mugabe's continued tenure is in itself also a problem. It encourages personality culture, is a stumbling block to renewal of ideas, and ensures the recycling of the same political deadwood we have had for three decades.
Mugabe's extended tenure is the foundation upon which the culture of crony protection is built - a foundation which the MDC seems intent to reinforce rather than demolish. Both sides of Zimbabwe's political divide want a new constitution only in as much as it serves their narrow agendas.
The MDC and their backers want to use it as a tool prise the levers of power from Mugabe's hands. Zanu-PF want it in order to dampen or eliminate the criticism that they would face if they manage to stay in power (by whatever means necessary). None of the sides seems prepared to accept a loss.
It is therefore very unlikely that a new constitution will change much in Zimbabwe. I am certain that it won't remove the political fighting that has been the root cause of Zimbabwe's woes. I am therefore certain that to ordinary Zimbabweans, a new constitution won't mean much. They will still be the grass beneath the feet of two political elephants.
Monday, 5 March 2012
Response to Sunday Times article
Recently a certain Dr Greg Mills came back from Zimbabwe with an effervescent prognosis of a $100-billion dollar economy that one of the parties is promising to bring to Zimbabwe. From the tone of his article Dr Mills has to be one of the most gullible people to have ever walked the face of this earth.
This Wednesday a friend of mine, a white Portuguese living in Zimbabwe, slept over at my house on a business trip to Johannesburg.
In our discussions he gave Zimbabwe's economy no chance of fully recovering. According to him the leadership culture is simply not right across the board. According to him the companies left are basically retail operations which buy some stock and if they make any profit 'they spend it on flashy cars and girlfriends.' The politicians are all also trying to use public office to get enough money to buy flashy cars and have multiple girlfriends.
I couldn't agree with him more. Look at the girlfriend stories that have been pursuing Morgan Tsvangirai.
I notice that Dr Mills doesn't even mention corruption as a problem. He seems to more interested in shoring up support for the MDC by mentioning impressive pie-in-the-sky economic figures that the MDC 'hope' to achieve. The mechanics of exactly how these figures will be achieved are not a concern of his. You cannot move a mountain unless you know to dig it up, and Mr Mills is simply telling us 'we will move the mountain to over there.' How?
The facts of what is happening here and now, that the MDC has become part of the corruption problem, are ignored. Mind you corruption is not just about the money being diverted to the wrong pockets. The reason why people seek clandestine means to divert the money is that they will be lacking the right skills and ability to correctly perform the task required.
In the end what happens is that the correct skills are not used for the task meaning that it is doomed to fail even before it starts. When the failure does happen, no correct diagnosis and remedial action will be taken because of the cover up and crony protection that accompanies corruption. There is no way that a corrupt entity is going to achieve impressive economic figures. Zanu-PF taught us that. The MDC already have their toes is Zanu-PF's sandals in terms of corruption. What is left is for them to grab the jackboots.
I do not know whether Dr Mills thinks we Zimbabweans are kids who can be mollified by promises of sweets (Nyarara mwanangu. Baba vachauya nemasweets. Be quiet my child, Dad is going to bring sweets). His mentions of a $100-billion economy amounts to just that. An empty promise, that any sensible person will not make unless they are targeting very gullible people, or people they believe to be very gullible like a toddler.
While he correctly identifies patronage is being one of the problems of Zanu-PF, he doesn't mention that the MDC already suffers from the same cancer with Morgan Tsvangirai accused of having a very large 'kitchen cabinet' by his MDC colleagues. These are people who have no official role in the MDC or in government but claim or seem to derive authority from their mere personal association with the prime minister.
Some are eventually slotted into officials roles, not out of any kind of legitimate requirement, but as a way of ensuring that they benefit from their association with higher ups. These are not the symptoms of a party that has the capability to lead a billion dollar economic recovery. These are the symptoms that we saw and ignored in Zanu-PF to our great peril. Dr Mills is essentially telling us to ignore them in the MDC now.
I hope that we do not all share his gullibility.
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