Hoey too ignorant to be taken seriously

January 31, 2010
Jupiter Punungwe

RECENTLY Kate Hoey, a British Labour Party MP, wrote an opinion in which she intimated that she didn’t understand why regional leaders such as Jacob Zuma would not just tell President Robert Mugabe to go.

Kate Hoey

Her statement implies that Zimbabweans are weak and docile, and need an outsider to tackle Mugabe for them.

There are a number of factors that she completely overlooks in her analysis of the Zimbabwe situation.
Hoey should not forget that people did massively support Mugabe for his role in getting rid of racist colonial rule. Many Europeans like to fool themselves that colonial rule was not hated that much. Yet even the likes of MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai were card-carrying members of Zanu-PF. Musicians  who are now self-exiled like Thomas Mapfumo were busy singing songs in praise of Mugabe.

The truth is that Mugabe, despite all his warts and moles, is still considered to be more beautiful than colonial rule. That is why there has been no violent uprising against him. Do not forget that the very same people who are accused of being docile, now fiercely fought against colonialism twice.

The First Chimurenga was a military conflict that lasted almost two years despite the massive technological mismatch. Not even the Zulu lasted that long in their battles against colonial invasion.

The Second Chimurenga was again a very fierce conflict. By some accounts it was the fiercest fight for independence in Africa, eclipsing by far the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya and the Algerian liberation war. It is simple logic to deduce that such fierce wars are not fought by docile people. We Zimbabweans are definitely not docile.

As I write this my brother was expelled from a Zimbabwe university for student activism. He is now on an MDC arranged scholarship in the Netherlands. Yet my father is an open supporter of Mugabe’s land policies. A cousin was at one time proposed as an MDC candidate in parliamentary elections. Yet my aunt was an elected Zanu-PF councillor at the time.

If Zimbabweans were to abandon the so called docility, whom would they fight? Would anyone of them ever be able to lay a hand on Robert Mugabe or even his son, Chatunga Bellamyne? Would the fight not be about son facing father, mother facing daughter and brother facing brother? What would be the result of such a fratricidal conflagration?

The run-up to the June 27 election was very violent. While controlling all the levers of power, Zanu-PF unleashed unprecedented violence on the community. The MDC tried to retaliate, but they were simply strategically outmatched in terms of controlling the instruments of violence.

What many outside observers may not know is that the parties did not manage to set people living in the same area upon each other. It may have happened here and there but most of the violence involved transporting truckloads of youths, plied with liberal amounts of beer and cash to areas they did not live in. Even the soldiers used in the violence were never deployed to their home areas. In cases where violence involved people living in close proximity one can almost always trace it to long standing feuds.

In the 1970s people left school and gainful employment to join the liberation struggle with absolutely no promise of any kind of reward, except liberating the country. That today’s ‘activists’ have to be plied with money and beer is a clear indication that they are opportunistic and not passionate about their cause.
The second fact is that most Africans, including many black Zimbabweans in opposition circles, are not quite as incensed by the plight of white farmers as the Europeans are.

That Zimbabwean society doesn’t seem to care much about the fate of white farmers, is a product of colonial segregationist policies. Segregation bred a ‘them and us’ mentality. Privilege was reserved for whites during colonial times. As a result, many black Zimbabweans simply don’t think whites can ever come to a point of needing succour from the community. They are perceived as always being wealthy. There is also a perception that they can always fly off to England while the blacks largely have nowhere else to go and live comfortably.
Hence the strong feelings about ‘our’ land, ‘their’ land being in England.

True the situation is dire for white farmers. Many are losing lifetimes of hard work and dedication. However, what is not true is that their workers are now much worse off than they were before. The wages they earned amounted to nothing and the opportunities they had to improve themselves amounted to nothing. So if the white farmer goes his departure is not such a big impact for the worker.

They just join their peasant cousins. The lifestyles of their cousins were actually better off. So in a way one can say farm workers are finally going to be better off by being forced to become peasants. I am not being cynical, that is how bad the conditions of farm workers were.

Apparently Hoey believes that it us up to outsiders, namely President Zuma, to tell Zimbabweans what to do. The problem we have in Zimbabwe right now is that the Zimbabwean population cannot agree among themselves and this is reflected in how leadership has evolved in the country.

A substantial number of people support Robert Mugabe and a substantial number support Morgan Tsvangirai. More precisely a substantial number oppose Robert Mugabe and Tsvangirai seems to be the only viable alternative at the moment. The ideal solution to Zimbabwe’s problems is to get these two sides to work together without violence. To think that outsiders can simply tell one of them to simply disappear is not only impractical, but reeks of an ill-informed colonial mentality.

Both sides in the Zimbabwe situation spew propaganda. The trouble with the likes of Hoey is that they swallow hook line and sinker the propaganda of only one side. One of my A-level science teachers taught me a very important lesson. When conducting experiments never ignore your directly observed results if they don’t conform to conventional theories. Least of all never try and force your results to conform to conventional theories.
Rather seek the explanation of why they differ.
Despite conventional thinking, Zuma cannot tell Mugabe to disappear. Even if Mugabe were to openly declare a coup, Zuma has absolutely no power to intervene. Any adventures he might try would definitely disrupt the entire region. The results will not be a quick and clean disappearance of Mugabe, but a regional conflagration with no predictable outcome.
Zimbabwe might have sprung from Rhodesia but Zimbabwe is not Rhodesia. The people who claim that Zuma can do to Mugabe what John Vorster did to Ian Smith are simply not using their logic. Ian Smith was hemmed in on all sides by hostile neighbours. Mozambique was hosting Mugabe’s ZANLA forces. Zambia was hosting Joshua Nkomo’s ZIPRA forces. Incidentally ZIPRA and the ANC’s Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) were sharing the same camps, both being sponsored by the Soviets. Botswana was an important transit point for MK as well as ZIPRA.
Rhodesia was also under United Nations sanctions sponsored by the British. Only South Africa was friendly with Rhodesia to the extent of sending soldiers to fight with the Rhodesians. In short Rhodesia was mortally dependent on South Africa. The Harold MacMillan winds of change had become hurricanes of change buffeting Rhodesia from all directions except South Africa.

Ian Smith had no other friends in the region except John Vorster.

People like Hoey who think Zuma can snap his fingers and Mugabe will then just fall, like a bug off the woodwork, are simply too ignorant to be taken seriously.

Firstly, Mugabe is not hemmed in on all borders. In fact, governments like those of Frelimo in Mozambique and Kabila in the DRC owe Mugabe a debt of gratitude for saving them from demise. Mugabe’s army fought off the apartheid South Africa sponsored RENAMO to stop them from overrunning Mozambique. Frelimo is ruling today because of that critical Mugabe intervention.

Mugabe’s army again drove away Rwanda and Uganda sponsored rebels from the outskirts of Kinshasa to save Laurent Kabila from overthrow. Today his son, Joseph, is still ruling. Only a preposterous fool will believe such bonds tied in blood can easily be broken because someone in London says they should be broken. Only a fool can believe that Zuma can completely ignore such regional bonds, and even ignore the history of his own ANC and their close ties with Zanu-PF.

When Zuma has tea with the Queen, I am sure he will make every effort to make the right noises for the Queen’s and her subjects’ ears. However, I also know that it will never go beyond noises.

Not only do leaders like Hoey hopelessly misread the situation, but they allow themselves to be led up a creek by people who claim to be fiercely opposed to Mugabe but are merely opportunists after making money from Western sponsorship. Zimbabweans have shown in the past that they can fight for their freedom. Yet parties like the MDC seem totally incapable of organizing a real fight. People like Hoey should understand the reasons pretty well.

In 1965 the British would not fight the Rhodesians militarily because they were kith and kin. Today the MDC have no stomach to fight Mugabe militarily because of the kith and kin factor as well. While Tsvangirai himself has made so much money from opposition politics that he no longer needs a piece of land to grow his own food, I do not think his peasant relatives in Buhera are in the same position. I know they will eventually persuade him to get some land for them. It might take years but it will come.

The solution to Zimbabwe’s problems does not lie in merely giving Mugabe the red card. The biggest threat to Zimbabwe right now is corruption. Zanu-PF are masters of the game, having been in there for some time. The accusations flying around in the MDC over corrupt ministers, councilors and branch leaders suggest that the MDC have quickly seized the ropes of corruption as well. Giving one fox a red card to make room for others will not make your chickens safe.

Mugabe’s red card will never be handed to him.

More to land issue than Mugabe’s land grab

IT seems for many people Zimbabwe’s land issue has been reduced to a little more than ‘Mugabe land grab’ issue. The land question has shaped Zimbabwe’s politics for the last century. It is being extremely short-sighted and naïve to reduce it, for no reason other than anti-Mugabe emotions, to a simple Mugabe land grab problem. No matter how large he might loom in the sight of some, the land issue is much bigger than Robert Mugabe.

I once came upon a story about an elephant and a villager. A hardworking villager built his hut at the edge of large savannah woodlands. One day a mighty elephant came charging out of the forest. It wrenched the farmer out of his hut and hurled him aside. It then barged into the hut and somehow managed to fit its large frame inside.

The puny little villager tried very hard to get the enormous elephant out of his hut. First he pulled at the tail, and then he pulled at the trunk. He hung on one of the tusks, then the other. He tried his best to wrap his arms around a leg and tug. But he simply couldn’t make the huge elephant budge.

As he escalated his efforts to liberate his hut he took a spear and started to stab the elephant. The skin was too thick. Then he lit a fire under the elephant’s belly.

“Hoo! Stop! Stop!” shouted the elephant. “Let us make peace.”

So the villager entered into negotiations with the elephant.

“Here is the agreement” proposed the elephant. “I stay where I am, but I will allow you some space in the hut.”

“But it was my hut in the first place, and given the amount of space you have already taken for yourself I won’t have enough space” complained the villager.

“I am willing to move some of my limps to give you more room. But we do it only when I am willing. Also you have to compensate me for loss of space.”

The villager was not happy with the terms but what could he do. The elephant was too big and fighting it out of the hut would be too much of a cost and maybe even result in the destruction of the hut itself. He forlornly and half-heartedly nodded his head.

“That’s it my man!” whooped the elephant happily. “Now we are friends. To make sure we know which space belongs to whom here, take this.”

He whipped out and brandished a piece of paper.

“This is my hut occupancy certificate, this is proof that I own the hut” he said pointing a tusk at the piece of paper in the villager’s hands.

“This piece of paper certifies that I own the hut. If there is a disagreement my friend Mr Rhinoceros will listen to our arguments and pass judgment. That way we will maintain the rule of law.” The elephant explained.

“But where was the rule of law when you were pulling me out of the hut,” the villager complained.

“My friend let’s forget the past. Let’s look to the future. After all you didn’t have the rule of law yourself did you?” the elephant asked.

“No, but I had my customs and system of rule. Everyone in my hut lived by those….”

“Your customs were primitive and backward my friend” the elephant intoned, interrupting the villager. “The certificate of hut occupancy I have introduced is modern, advanced and state of the art.”

“But it leaves you with all the good space. Besides you have taken so much space that me and my children are packed like sardines in a little corner.”

“Look my friend,” said the elephant, “You shouldn’t complain. You have an advanced state of the art system in your hands all because of me.”

Robert Mugabe is not even the villager in this story. The villager, Zimbabwe’s people, still needs equitable land redistribution urgently. The debilitating effects of racist pieces of legislation passed by colonial settlers such as the Land Apportionment Act, the Land Husbandry Act, the Land Tenure Act and others still need to be countered and reversed.

What Zanu-PF chefs are doing, taking white farms and mostly occupying them themselves is like a hippo butting out the elephant and occupying the hut. The villager still needs his hut back.

Some people are currently so incensed by the hippo butting out the elephant. They are focusing solely on the hippo and forgetting the original sin of the elephant. I hope they are equally incensed by the elephant wrenching out the villager.

I am sure we all know that the practice of kicking people out of their homes with only the clothes on their backs was not invented by Robert Mugabe and Zanu-PF. I believe I don’t have to explain again where the popular name for a squatter shack in Zimbabwe, chitangwena, comes from. What happened to the people of Chief Rekai Tangwena was actually the tail end of colonial displacement. All the people who are now settled in the massive former native reserves (maruzevha) were forced there without any compensation and barely the clothes on their backs.

A very recent example of the precarious and insecure tenure afforded to those in the native reserves by colonial laws is the plight of the Chiadzwa people. After discovery of diamonds literally in their fields, these people are now being evicted from an area they have lived for generations. They only depend on the goodwill of government for compensation.

Their biggest problem is they don’t own the land they live on. Remember native reserves were originally Crown Land (land owned by the Queen), then they became TTLs (Tribal Trust Lands) after UDI, and lastly Communal Lands (after independence) owned by the government.

Unlike white farmers who were granted title deeds and can take their cases as far as the SADC tribunal, the villagers do not have and never had title deeds. The villagers are victims of a system designed in colonial times to disempower the natives. The government of the day could evict them as and when it wished. What leaders like Robert Mugabe have done is usurp the powers of colonial masters without enhancing the rights of the people at all.

The people of Chief Rekai Tangwena faced the eviction problem under Ian Smith. Now the people of Chiadzwa are facing the same problem under Robert Mugabe. The whole import of this is that land reform has not been properly done. Land rights and security of tenure have not been passed on to the people, the victims of colonialism. Now everything is being left to the whim of politicians.

Let me hasten to clarify that this is not an attempt to defend Robert Mugabe. I am simply trying to make it clear that there is a huge mass beneath the tip of the iceberg. Melting the tip will only make more of it emerge. Let us not forget the entire context and complexity of the land problem in our haste to demonize Robert Mugabe.

As far as I am concerned both sides are taking people for granted. An honestly pursued land reform program would see white farmers losing the bulk of their land to peasants, anyway. The peasants are definitely not in, and will never be in a position to pay full compensation for the land at present market values. Given that they form the bulk of the population, there is very little chance that the government will ever collect enough tax to pay for the land. In my view this reduces the “willing seller willing buyer” principle to a mere ruse to slow down land reform in the hope that it will eventually fizzle out living most peasants without land, and the colonial occupiers enjoying use of the land.

On the other hand the current black elite have their eyes firmly on personal enrichment. They are clearly hoping to skim off the cream of the land and give it to themselves or have already done so. This scenario again leaves peasants severely shortchanged.

In short none of the two chief antagonistic sides, the white former colonial settlers or the ruling black elite is particularly keen on an honest fair and transparent solution. Both would like to see their respective privileges preserved on enhanced. Unfortunately preserving the privileges of either amounts to doing nothing concrete for the masses.

One of the great weaknesses of Mugabe’s opponents is that they hopelessly chew their words when it comes to specifying when and how land reform is going to happen. Talk of land audits and properly doing things does not assure the peasant that he is going to get a bigger piece of land now. Mugabe’s policy of allowing people to just invade land means that at least some people have access to land now. As more time passes it is going to be more difficult to remove them from that land without use of violence.

The question of who should pay compensation is simple if it is honestly approached. Whoever inherited the British South Africa Company (BSAC) which claimed ownership of Zimbabwe in 1890 should be pursued and made to pay. Alternatively whoever gave the BSAC ‘permission’ to own Zimbabwe must be held responsible. The BSAC were given ‘permission’ by means of a Royal Charter. Surely one doesn’t need to be the Scotland Yard sleuth Sherlock Holmes to figure out who issued that charter and must therefore bear primary responsibility for compensation.

Lastly, let me again express my utter disgust at the notion that blacks need white farmers if they are to avoid starvation. Calling such assertions hogwash would be insulting the bathwaters of pigs. Having grown up in rural Zimbabwe, not for a single day did I witness families around us depending on white farmers for food. Black Zimbabweans have always worked hard to grow their own food and still work hard to do so. The greatest impediments to food security are weather patterns and lack of access to adequate land. It is definitely not lack of the work ethic or skill.

Around 1906 one of the native commissioners reported that the major reason natives did not want to work in the mines and farms set up by settlers was that the average native had his good patch of land on which he grew enough for his needs and therefore saw no need to work for the settlers.

Indeed those who are familiar with the history of Zimbabwe’s urbanization will know that most local people shunned living in towns and depended on their rural homes for livelihood which is why most of the early suburbs in Harare like Mbare, Old Highfields, Mabvuku, Dzivarasekwa and Tafara have houses mostly owned by Zimbabweans of Malawian origin. Do people ever ask themselves what happened for these people to be forced to stop depending on agriculture for their livelihood.

People who attribute Zimbabwe’s agricultural problems solely to the eviction of white farmers are deliberately and dishonestly choosing to leave the bigger part of the picture hidden. The problem of idiosyncratic controls on commercial activity, including price controls on agricultural inputs and commodities, restrictions in the movement and trade of agricultural commodities was a big disincentive to agricultural producers.

Even if the white farmers had not been disrupted, Zimbabwe would still have not produced enough food with the kind of price controls and restrictions that were introduced by the government from around 2003 to 2008.

SA Boredom

I am in South Africa at the moment and I am bored stiff.

Haiwaiwa

Izvi ndazvitangawo nhasi izvi. Hameno