As a Zimbabwean I have seen my country turned from
a bread-basket into a basket case. I can tell you that our educated and
hard-working people are not fools but victims, so what is it that ails us?
Although we are an extreme case, these oppressive economic and political policies are not exclusive to Zimbabwe. The
fallacy of the African dream of Ghanian founding father Kwame Nkrumah
about self-rule has been exposed by the brutal failures of governments
with a revolutionary history. Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda, Milton
Obote, and perhaps even such so-called models of excellence as Yoweri
Museveni and Thabo Mbeki, all espoused Nkrumaism, meaning state control
of the economy and even of society.
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the Osagyefo lives on
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Just down the road from where I
live, there is Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who was not only a
student of Nkrumah's but taught and married in his country. Like many
Africans, he believes that we should cooperate with each other instead of
overseas markets to achieve the economic, political and cultural
integration which could raise our continent to the development level of Europe or
the United States.
For me however, the
true challenge is not cooperation but how we should learn from our history. Before Zimbabwe overthrew white rule, in 1980, a pothole on the
highway was a disaster. A late train would cause public outcry. Now, many year later we
have unfinished roads, bulldozed neighbourhoods and hyperinflation,
while our dictator blames the West.
Why is it that when the white settler government handed over Air Rhodesia to a black manager, the airline had
30 airplanes but now there are only three left? Why is it that before
2000 there were only 4,000 white commercial farmers in Zimbabwe and we
were the bread-basket of southern Africa, yet now there are 40,000
black commercial farmers and we have to import maize from little, poor
Malawi?
I know. There is a fine line between self-criticism
and self-loathing. But our problems are not caused by our being black
but by authoritarians with incompetent and even urderous policies.
Today,
Zimbabwe's health system has collapsed. Our main university once had
1,000 staff, now there are 300. A typical high-school teacher now earns
around $20 a month. As you read this, my car is grounded because of
lack of petrol. Service-station owners cannot sell it for the paltry
controlled price of about 11 U.S. cents a liter when they have to buy
it for about $1. My
home has neither running water nor electricity. Mugabe's ZANU-PF
government inherited one of the most sophisticated hydro-electric power
plants in Africa, Kariba. But because of a gluttonous army, expensive
anti-riot gear and military adventures in Mozambique and Democratic
Republic of Congo, Mugabe has failed to maintain Kariba. It is about to
stop production completely.
Hwange Colliery Mine has some of the richest
coal deposits in the world, yet the thermal power station across the
road does not have enough coal to power it because the railway linking the two has collapsed. In
Harare, raw sewage flows openly in residential areas, contaminating
scarce treated water because of pipes that have rotted since they were
inherited from the white regime 27 years ago.
No private radio
or television station is allowed to operate in Zimbabwe, while it is
almost impossible to register a private newspaper. Yet Robert Mugabe
masquerades on the regional stage as the spokesperson for the
beleaguered citizens of Zimbabwe. He has absolutely no right to speak
on our behalf. Those who do are the citizens protesting in the streets
and some judges and lawyers struggling valiantly to hold together the
shreds of the rule of law.
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| brotherly love |
The lessons of history include the
basic principles of good governance. There are plenty of examples for
us to emulate but the Mugabes of the world ignored them in favour of
ideology. Africans do need each other to develop but our ability to learn from each other's mistakes is miserable.
Even
our neighbor, democratically elected South African President Thabo
Mbeki, repeats with nauseating frequency that Zimbabweans have the
capacity to solve their own problems. But during Mbeki's protracted
struggle against apartheid he had the frontline states backing him, led
by Mugabe. Today, Mbeki and his ilk treat Mugabe like a hero but regard Zimbabweans like dirt.
South
Africa goes on military "peacekeeping" forays to faraway Sudan and
Burundi. Why does Mbeki not believe those countries can solve their own
problems?
We Africans will remain smothered in self-deceit
until this generation of Nkrumaists, the greedy, the corrupt and the
accidental democrats, has expired. Then African citizens may become
free to cooperate with each other, economically and politically.
The
one form of cooperation we need right now is world pressure on Africa's
democratically elected leaders, not the avoidance seen at the recent
G-8 summit in Heiligendamm. Only then might they face up to their
moral, political and economic obligations to embrace freedom and boot
the gangsters out.
The writer contributes to the business in focus blog.
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First, in the post world war II period, the whole world was caught in a grip of large government. People really were terrified that the prophesies of Marx would come true. Look at the state of Zimbabwe's colonisers the UK, during that period.
Bring us to the second point. Post-colonial leaders around the world were charged by destiny with the work of educating and transforming large ignorant societies that were in many cases very young unwieldly states. Zimbabwe is one clear example, and the Gukurahundi had a parallel with Kenya's Shifta Wars or Uganda's troubles especially as encaspulated in the attack on Mengo and the Kabaka's ouster.
Now there was no way even the most callous leader could turn a blind eye to the need for more schools, hospitals, teachers and so on. Zimbabweans will hardly appreciate it, but their country was winning awards for the improvement of the lot of its people. Ian Smith had other priorities, as did the National Party. What Mbeki and Mugabe are faced with is a real meltdown, it has its genesis in the workings of the global system much more than it does in local problems.
Need I remind you that the food riots started in the early 1990s? Or that Zimbabwe's small scale farmers were the ones putting the bread into that basket?