A SELF-FULFILLED PROPHESY
OR
IT WASN’T TRUE UNTIL THEY MADE IT SO.
Successful farmers do not have to be white. Black farmers (not the `telephone farmers’ or the thieving politicians and their friends who only take farms for vanity or spite) are very able farmers. The proof would have been found in that brief moment after independence when the racial barriers to ownership of good land and good farming practises started to come down. The commercial farmers and the Union (GAPWUZ) of black farm workers who had become managers and foremen were producing crops, not merely for subsistence, but surplus food for the nation. All this can be traced in the statistics but that is not the point of this piece. Let me try to explain how pre-independence prejudice and doubts about the abilities of black farmers have turned into a kind of self-fulfilling prophesy.
Almost overnight, after the white farmers were driven so hastily and so violently away, the infrastructure that sustained their good farming methods started to collapse. A new farmer, ANY new farmer was going to find it heavy going, once the little islands of expertise in large and small towns serving the whole range of farming needs were gone. Where was the machine shop that repaired the tractor, the plough, the harrow and the harvester, the farm `bakkie’ and even the old office typewriter? What happened to the warehouse filled with agricultural lime, fertilizer, gypsum insecticides, veterinary supplies? How can the tonnes of seed be delivered before the planting season when the warehouses are empty or the supplier has no fuel? What about keeping the country roads accessible and in good repair? Where are the transporters and their managers both private and public keeping the trucks roadworthy, the goods trains running? Who mends and keeps open the bridges, the arteries of supply? Why can’t the grain for stock feed be delivered from the fields to be milled and widely distributed? What happened to the little factories, the grinding mills that need diesel fuel? These are just a few of the `downstream’ industries that a good farmer needs. They have been trashed, overrun, put out of business, their owners made bankrupt and keen to go somewhere else where business is not so difficult to do.
For a new farmer, operating in the absence of an infrastructure that took a hundred years to bring to near-perfection is not a practical proposition. Farming in such an environment as has existed in Zimbabwe since the mad rush to drive the commercial farmers off the land is impossible.
So there is no produce, the people are starving and the people who say that blacks can’t farm are now speaking the truth. They can’t farm, and soon, neither can whites or anybody else farm successfully in Zimbabwe.
Before independence Zimbabwe had developed over many decades to become a white farmer’s paradise and it has now become anybody’s hell. Droughts cannot be overcome because lakes and dams and river water reticulation are losing their pipes to thieves or their overhead irrigation equipment to vandals. A black farmer walked in to the white farmers’ paradise, looked around and saw that everybody who was needed to sustain it, was leaving, or had already left. They did not leave willingly, there was no farming going on to sustain them. It was a two way thing.
And now the filling station owner a few miles from the farm has closed his pumps and his little workshop because there were few vehicles running and there were sometimes no vehicles because there was no fuel. Or it could have been the other way around: there was no fuel and so there are no vehicles calling by every day to keep the business alive. Whichever way you look at it, it is all quite mad.
Zimbabwe’s Minister of Finance, Herbert Murerwa recently came up with a make-believe budget. He knows that agriculture was the bedrock of the country’s economy before his deranged boss destroyed it, but he has to pretend that there is such a thing as an economy without farmers – never mind the skin colour of the farmers. Tony Hawkins, the economist, giving his annual evaluation of the budget has no need to pretend. He has plenty of facts and statistics at his disposal. He pulls no punches: “If anyone was hoping the budget will alter the direction of the economy they are living in a fool's paradise” and “Murerwa's predictions on growth and a reduction in inflation from 411% at present to 80% by the end of next year were suspect”, he said. He was in no doubt about what happens to an economy whose foundations have been destroyed.
New, black farmers haven’t a hope of showing how good they might have been, given the supporting infrastructure that they need. It wasn’t true about black Zimbabweans being useless as farmers, until the ZANU (PF) government made it so.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Tuesday, December 6, 2005
Thursday, December 1, 2005
FIGHTING OVER THE CARCASS OF PARLIAMENT
I haven't blogged for several days - ` so much to do, so little done'. Only relics like myself will instantly recognise the dying words of Cecil John Rhodes. That wicked colossus of British imperialism had at least managed to kick start a country before he kicked the bucket, while I generally waste my time.
This blog has been given freely to The Zimbabwean for later publication so my blog's three regular readers should not put it up for any prizes until it has been published. I joke about the prizes, of course.
SEVEN SENATE SEATS - A WORTHLESS QUOTA
Seven has always been my favourite number, but I am going off it. When the MDC’s pro-Senate faction won seven seats it set me thinking about numbers – not my favourite pastime – but words have begun to fail me since the whole sorry scenario of a futile and possibly fatal fight with the party’s President over the Senate seats began. So I ruminate over another historical, and equally unhelpful political win for seven opposition men whom I knew long ago. Working together in our little opposition political party, we helped them on their way to parliament. We were looking for political space; we were naïve enough to believe that we could change things. We were wrong. Our seven men won seven seats but they could do absolutely nothing to advance the cause of our party which fought for freedom from minority rule in our country.
Thirty five years ago, the parliament of Rhodesia was almost exclusively filled with devotees of the ruling party, the Rhodesian Front (which was the same as the government). The opposition could not even boast of the worthless quota – in seats, not in personalities - that the current Zimbabwean government (which is the same as the ruling party) has permitted their MDC opposition. It is by Mugabe’s ZANU (PF) party’s design that they currently occupy too few seats to be effective in either the upper or lower chambers of Parliament. A two thirds majority for the ruling party gives them licence to change the constitution, to do whatever they like. Twenty five years of increasingly brutal preparation for this achievement has seen to that. The parallels with Smith’s RF falter here because it has to be said that the majority of white voters followed him out of love (they wanted to believe that he could keep the country safe for them forever), and not, as in Mugabe’s case, out of fear.
In the general elections of 1970, undaunted by the same uneven playing field as exists today – correction, it wasn’t nearly so uneven then as it is today - the Centre Party put up eight good men and true, led by Micah Bhebe, for the eight seats that could only be contested by the very limited numbers of black people on the `B’ roll. Seven of them won (the eighth was won by a candidate from Masvingo called Gondo). All the whites, who contested on the `A’ roll, lost. We were not surprised but we were thrilled to bits with our seven men in parliament. The record (Hansard) reveals, however, that they could change absolutely nothing – just as is the case for the MDC in today’s parliament of Zimbabwe. The little opposition CP had no chance of making alliances in the House with other minority parties - because there were none, way back then, either - to outvote the ruling RF regime. Mere `window dressing’ it was then and window dressing it is now. A small quota of opposition seats was expensive window dressing, but well worth the cost as it presented our apartheid South African neighbours and others disposed to support white rule with the false face of a democratic dispensation. The uninitiated were given the impression that democracy could prevail in a country ruled by one party. We all know now that under the ruling RF, the minority whites eventually had to fight a bloody war,and power came to the majority blacks through the barrel of a gun.
MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai went against his party’s formal decision to contest for seats when he urged a boycott of the Senate election. He was ineffectively suspended, quite legitimately, but unwisely `at this point in time," as his party’s non-partisan Legal Secretary, David Coltart put it. He reacted by making things worse. "I don't want to get bogged down in legal interpretations. This is a political problem and would have to be sorted out politically,” he said, through Bango, his spokesman. William Bango is a good man but perhaps he should shoulder the blame for this awful blunder. Zimbabwe’s most powerful man, the cause of most of Zimbabwe’s problems has exactly the same attitude to `legal interpretations’. He has never allowed himself to get bogged down in them. The only interpretations he will accept are his own, and look where that has brought the country.
Morgan is on firm ground, however, with his reported remark “All this political fiddling while the country is reduced to ashes…” That is indeed a piece of political wisdom. The score between the two factions is just about even `at this point in time’. David got it. Now why can’t the rest of them get it?
The Seven Senate Seats provide a fine piece of alliteration for a headline. Unfortunately, the number Seven is as hopeless as it proved to be thirty five years ago. There really are no words worth concocting around the whole dreary episode of a fatal fight over the carcass of a once proud parliament. Except for the opportunity to play with words and numbers, it is an exercise in futility.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
This blog has been given freely to The Zimbabwean for later publication so my blog's three regular readers should not put it up for any prizes until it has been published. I joke about the prizes, of course.
SEVEN SENATE SEATS - A WORTHLESS QUOTA
Seven has always been my favourite number, but I am going off it. When the MDC’s pro-Senate faction won seven seats it set me thinking about numbers – not my favourite pastime – but words have begun to fail me since the whole sorry scenario of a futile and possibly fatal fight with the party’s President over the Senate seats began. So I ruminate over another historical, and equally unhelpful political win for seven opposition men whom I knew long ago. Working together in our little opposition political party, we helped them on their way to parliament. We were looking for political space; we were naïve enough to believe that we could change things. We were wrong. Our seven men won seven seats but they could do absolutely nothing to advance the cause of our party which fought for freedom from minority rule in our country.
Thirty five years ago, the parliament of Rhodesia was almost exclusively filled with devotees of the ruling party, the Rhodesian Front (which was the same as the government). The opposition could not even boast of the worthless quota – in seats, not in personalities - that the current Zimbabwean government (which is the same as the ruling party) has permitted their MDC opposition. It is by Mugabe’s ZANU (PF) party’s design that they currently occupy too few seats to be effective in either the upper or lower chambers of Parliament. A two thirds majority for the ruling party gives them licence to change the constitution, to do whatever they like. Twenty five years of increasingly brutal preparation for this achievement has seen to that. The parallels with Smith’s RF falter here because it has to be said that the majority of white voters followed him out of love (they wanted to believe that he could keep the country safe for them forever), and not, as in Mugabe’s case, out of fear.
In the general elections of 1970, undaunted by the same uneven playing field as exists today – correction, it wasn’t nearly so uneven then as it is today - the Centre Party put up eight good men and true, led by Micah Bhebe, for the eight seats that could only be contested by the very limited numbers of black people on the `B’ roll. Seven of them won (the eighth was won by a candidate from Masvingo called Gondo). All the whites, who contested on the `A’ roll, lost. We were not surprised but we were thrilled to bits with our seven men in parliament. The record (Hansard) reveals, however, that they could change absolutely nothing – just as is the case for the MDC in today’s parliament of Zimbabwe. The little opposition CP had no chance of making alliances in the House with other minority parties - because there were none, way back then, either - to outvote the ruling RF regime. Mere `window dressing’ it was then and window dressing it is now. A small quota of opposition seats was expensive window dressing, but well worth the cost as it presented our apartheid South African neighbours and others disposed to support white rule with the false face of a democratic dispensation. The uninitiated were given the impression that democracy could prevail in a country ruled by one party. We all know now that under the ruling RF, the minority whites eventually had to fight a bloody war,and power came to the majority blacks through the barrel of a gun.
MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai went against his party’s formal decision to contest for seats when he urged a boycott of the Senate election. He was ineffectively suspended, quite legitimately, but unwisely `at this point in time," as his party’s non-partisan Legal Secretary, David Coltart put it. He reacted by making things worse. "I don't want to get bogged down in legal interpretations. This is a political problem and would have to be sorted out politically,” he said, through Bango, his spokesman. William Bango is a good man but perhaps he should shoulder the blame for this awful blunder. Zimbabwe’s most powerful man, the cause of most of Zimbabwe’s problems has exactly the same attitude to `legal interpretations’. He has never allowed himself to get bogged down in them. The only interpretations he will accept are his own, and look where that has brought the country.
Morgan is on firm ground, however, with his reported remark “All this political fiddling while the country is reduced to ashes…” That is indeed a piece of political wisdom. The score between the two factions is just about even `at this point in time’. David got it. Now why can’t the rest of them get it?
The Seven Senate Seats provide a fine piece of alliteration for a headline. Unfortunately, the number Seven is as hopeless as it proved to be thirty five years ago. There really are no words worth concocting around the whole dreary episode of a fatal fight over the carcass of a once proud parliament. Except for the opportunity to play with words and numbers, it is an exercise in futility.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Saturday, November 26, 2005
A PERFECT PORTRAIT OF DECAY
I have read with huge admiration and great sadness the tale as told by Sokwanele in last week's copy of The Zimbabwean (25 Nov-1 Dec). Headed `Reality of Zanu's rule in rural areas' it is summarized by the editor: `Sokwanele provides a glimpse of the terrifying reality of Zanu (PF) power at village level as it is exercised today: the law - whatever the local chef says it is; the police and traditional leaders - totally subservient to the political masters; mob justice - the order of the day; wild life conservation - a dead letter'
So shattering is the revelation in this brilliant portrayal of a society being systematically destroyed as each human abomination descends upon the rural people - themselves made criminal and degenerate by being forced to squat on stolen land, that it deserves to be more widely circulated. Readers can better comprehend, when reviewing Sokwanele's latest, just how fundamentally things have changed in Zimbabwe. The piece deserves a study worthy of a doctorate. I will try to get my links working for readers to see the whole, but in the meanwhile, will settle down to detailed commentary in my next blog.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
So shattering is the revelation in this brilliant portrayal of a society being systematically destroyed as each human abomination descends upon the rural people - themselves made criminal and degenerate by being forced to squat on stolen land, that it deserves to be more widely circulated. Readers can better comprehend, when reviewing Sokwanele's latest, just how fundamentally things have changed in Zimbabwe. The piece deserves a study worthy of a doctorate. I will try to get my links working for readers to see the whole, but in the meanwhile, will settle down to detailed commentary in my next blog.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
A FREE LUNCH
They say there's no such thing. I had my doubts but have just discovered proof positive that there IS such a thing - quite literally - as a free lunch.
Leaving my Zimbabwe theme aside for now (but inevitably there will be some correlation), the story is told by a Telegraph columnist, Sam Leith (when I have mastered LINKS I will insert the ref) who took the trouble to follow up a great scam:
10 officials of the Department of Trade and Industry were found by Ernst and Young's accounting firm to have drunk an unbelievable quantity of booze - hard tack, wine, beer, Irish coffee, sparkling water, coffee etc - at last year's Christmas party. They had hired expensive sports cars to get to meetings, flown business class across the world, visited Barbados "by way of investigating British export prospects". Leith says he laughed like a hyena to read that the investigation was never completed, "...it started to look like their inquiry would end up costing more than the wasted money into which they were inquiring"
Leith could find no words to tell us what this means. Obviously it means that there is such a thing as a free lunch, especially if you spend enough of other people's money to make sure its free.
Now here comes the Zimbabwe bit:
Mugabe's government has deliberately flattened the economy by means which are now well known. Those kleptomaniacs don't care. I had it from the horse's mouth a few years ago; a friend who later became a Minister of Finance told me that it is policy in a cash strapped underdeveloped country to buy the luxuries (like those above) with money from the national treasury because the donor countries/agencies will fork out for the necessities that keep the economy ticking over. Somebody might like to do his Ph.D thesis on the subject.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Leaving my Zimbabwe theme aside for now (but inevitably there will be some correlation), the story is told by a Telegraph columnist, Sam Leith (when I have mastered LINKS I will insert the ref) who took the trouble to follow up a great scam:
10 officials of the Department of Trade and Industry were found by Ernst and Young's accounting firm to have drunk an unbelievable quantity of booze - hard tack, wine, beer, Irish coffee, sparkling water, coffee etc - at last year's Christmas party. They had hired expensive sports cars to get to meetings, flown business class across the world, visited Barbados "by way of investigating British export prospects". Leith says he laughed like a hyena to read that the investigation was never completed, "...it started to look like their inquiry would end up costing more than the wasted money into which they were inquiring"
Leith could find no words to tell us what this means. Obviously it means that there is such a thing as a free lunch, especially if you spend enough of other people's money to make sure its free.
Now here comes the Zimbabwe bit:
Mugabe's government has deliberately flattened the economy by means which are now well known. Those kleptomaniacs don't care. I had it from the horse's mouth a few years ago; a friend who later became a Minister of Finance told me that it is policy in a cash strapped underdeveloped country to buy the luxuries (like those above) with money from the national treasury because the donor countries/agencies will fork out for the necessities that keep the economy ticking over. Somebody might like to do his Ph.D thesis on the subject.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Sunday, November 20, 2005
DIDYMUS THE GREAT DICTATOR
He has been through some torrid times, has Didymus Mutasa - appointed to the colonial civil service, the first of such appointments; sheltered by the religious at St Faiths; tutored by Clutton Brock, the great exemplar of self-reliant living in a co-operative at Cold Comfort Farm; briefly housed in a relatively civilized jail (unlike his government's jails today) where they didn't starve him or torture him; hosted by foreign countries, Britain amongst them, which extended cash for his ZANU party; given a top job as Speaker in the new Zimbabwe; faltered a little in difficult lowly administrative jobs until finally, he has all the power a man could wish for. He is in charge of state security and has the land, all the land at his disposal. Or effectively that last heaven is where he has landed. Is this the stuff of which a great dictator is made? I think he must be running for President. Note his more recent brilliance: he would cheerfully halve the population - the half that will not support his crazy party, and the very latest is the Sunday Times report; Mutasa's claim that journalists and NGOs must get out of Zimbabwe because they are a threat to state security. These latest utterings are strangely apt. When you aim to become a great dictator, journalists and NGOs, especially humanitarian ones ARE a threat to Zimbabwe's state security at this time. They might be a threat to all those years of suffering Didymus has had to endure and take away the great prize that he has won, weilding unhindered power. He is a rare survivor of the Manyika clan. I think he feels just a little bit insecure and may well be trying to impress his cronies with his toughness. He would make a great dictator.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Saturday, November 19, 2005
WHAT IS A FAILED STATE?
My understanding is that a failed state is one which ceases to be taken seriously as a sovereign (Mugabe's favourite word - going with his fascinaton for British royalty)and independent state, has a worthless currency, cannot pay its bills and has a poor human rights record. There is more, but isn't that enough?
What I find most distressing is the accuracy with which we Zimbabweans who were not busy feeding from the products of state plunder, predicted what would happen once the farms, or rather the agriculture industry was trashed. We knew it would come to this - the failed state - but we stayed in denial for as long as we could. For that reason we put our hopes in a popular opposition party, led by men and women of real integrity who had the courage to go on in spite of discouragement, danger and many deaths.
Very soon, since the split, we shall have two opposition parties made up of MDC brains on one side and popularist brawn on the other. This could lead to schisms, and more schisms, just like the Independent churches. For my reader's edification(yes, I have put the apostrophe in the right place - my one reader!), I studied those churches long ago. It seemed that once there was a `collection box' being passed around the little tree-shaded congregation, following the newest prophet, another one sprouted every week-end. Now, donors/supporters will be reluctant to have to choose their faction in the political opposition ranks or split the money. On one side, they may appreciate the excellent (but not perfect)past performance of Morgan Tsvangirai (which is unfortunately queered by his antipathy to the South African leadership) while on the other, the absence of a charismatic national leader, is nerve wracking. Now that the army is getting restless and impoverished junior ranks are stealing or getting out, the signs for another army Corporal trying the Idi Amin route begin to take shape.
I remember well the late Anne Mujeni (bless her)who worked in the Adult Education Department of UZ when I was studying there in the early seventies. As the first signs of insurgency on our North-Eastern borders began, she raised her eyes to heaven and exclaimed `Oh my God! We are in for coup and counter-coup! I remember it as if it was yesterday. We escaped the coups in the first quarter century. Now we should fear them again. Uganda recovered. How many decades before a failed state recovers in the 21st century?
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
What I find most distressing is the accuracy with which we Zimbabweans who were not busy feeding from the products of state plunder, predicted what would happen once the farms, or rather the agriculture industry was trashed. We knew it would come to this - the failed state - but we stayed in denial for as long as we could. For that reason we put our hopes in a popular opposition party, led by men and women of real integrity who had the courage to go on in spite of discouragement, danger and many deaths.
Very soon, since the split, we shall have two opposition parties made up of MDC brains on one side and popularist brawn on the other. This could lead to schisms, and more schisms, just like the Independent churches. For my reader's edification(yes, I have put the apostrophe in the right place - my one reader!), I studied those churches long ago. It seemed that once there was a `collection box' being passed around the little tree-shaded congregation, following the newest prophet, another one sprouted every week-end. Now, donors/supporters will be reluctant to have to choose their faction in the political opposition ranks or split the money. On one side, they may appreciate the excellent (but not perfect)past performance of Morgan Tsvangirai (which is unfortunately queered by his antipathy to the South African leadership) while on the other, the absence of a charismatic national leader, is nerve wracking. Now that the army is getting restless and impoverished junior ranks are stealing or getting out, the signs for another army Corporal trying the Idi Amin route begin to take shape.
I remember well the late Anne Mujeni (bless her)who worked in the Adult Education Department of UZ when I was studying there in the early seventies. As the first signs of insurgency on our North-Eastern borders began, she raised her eyes to heaven and exclaimed `Oh my God! We are in for coup and counter-coup! I remember it as if it was yesterday. We escaped the coups in the first quarter century. Now we should fear them again. Uganda recovered. How many decades before a failed state recovers in the 21st century?
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Monday, November 7, 2005
ZIMBABWE: THE UNTHINKABLE RESURFACES
It seemed that a split in the MDC had been averted but no, Zimbabwe is in the grip of a new crisis. Brian Raftopoulos has done his best to help the two factions find a compromise, a facesaver, anything that will restore the country's hopes for a return to sanity, but if he cannot broker a peace, I doubt if anybody can.
Protest marches were promised when I started this blog so I kept it short, never sent it and have taken it up again in para 3. The marches have failed, the MDC's leadership has failed, its long suffering membership has failed. What seems to lie ahead is a prospect that has, since independence, been unthinkable: a perpetual state of crisis to be overtaken by the ultimate catastophe of a failed state.
I will blog later on what a failed state means to Zimbabweans who have refused to believe that the innate worth of a potentially great society is incapable of restoring itself. Holding out patiently for the natural death of the man who has been held up by cronies, outlaws (and even in-laws), as a model for African leadership had a sort of nobility to it. That was a feasable excuse for failure to jettison a tyrant only so long as there was hope for new and better leadership. That was the best reason for his subjects to believe his opponents' promises of a new dawn - so long as they engaged in peaceful protest. The masses of Zimbabwe had even come to accept, as the price of peace, their slow starvation and death, directly attributable to his crazed leadership.
They have waited in vain and have become too weak in body and spirit to change. `Chinja!' the war cry of the only viable opposition party in twenty five years now rings hollow. If there is no hope of intervention from democratic friends, `chinja' means change all right - but only for the worse.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Protest marches were promised when I started this blog so I kept it short, never sent it and have taken it up again in para 3. The marches have failed, the MDC's leadership has failed, its long suffering membership has failed. What seems to lie ahead is a prospect that has, since independence, been unthinkable: a perpetual state of crisis to be overtaken by the ultimate catastophe of a failed state.
I will blog later on what a failed state means to Zimbabweans who have refused to believe that the innate worth of a potentially great society is incapable of restoring itself. Holding out patiently for the natural death of the man who has been held up by cronies, outlaws (and even in-laws), as a model for African leadership had a sort of nobility to it. That was a feasable excuse for failure to jettison a tyrant only so long as there was hope for new and better leadership. That was the best reason for his subjects to believe his opponents' promises of a new dawn - so long as they engaged in peaceful protest. The masses of Zimbabwe had even come to accept, as the price of peace, their slow starvation and death, directly attributable to his crazed leadership.
They have waited in vain and have become too weak in body and spirit to change. `Chinja!' the war cry of the only viable opposition party in twenty five years now rings hollow. If there is no hope of intervention from democratic friends, `chinja' means change all right - but only for the worse.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Friday, November 4, 2005
Van Hoogstraten – Tzar Nicholas or Old Nick?
THIS PIECE WAS PUBLISHED IN THE 4-10 NOVEMBER ISSUE OF THE ZIMBABWEAN, leader p.10 (under my own name) Its a lazy way of blogging but no time for new thoughts today.
How much do most Zimbabweans really know about Nicholas Van Hoogstraten except that he is very rich, owns a lot of property and business in the country, was briefly jailed in England’s Belmarsh prison, and is a frightening character who admires Robert Mugabe and all his works – describing him as "100 percent decent and incorruptible”. (Hard to agree with him here).
Enlightenment comes, so long as you wait long enough, read enough and are lucky to have access to an array of information resources – not the least being TV and the internet. I watched last week’s close-up of the man on a BBC2 television programme with enormous interest because I wanted to make up my own mind about him - since his wealth helps to prop up a regime which has all but destroyed the gains of Zimbabwe’s precious freedom. All journalism is biased, just as every individual, including this writer, is almost unavoidably biased; therefore, I beg the readers’ indulgence if I presume to assess the character of Van Hoogstraten. I do this because I am intrigued by the mysteries of human nature, especially if it verges on the inhuman. For me, there is nothing so revealing as body language. Van Hoogstraten revealed himself to be full of contradictions and - if his uncontrollable twitch, his mouth continuously working nervously - is anything to go by, he is as insecure as hell. Clearly, he is also extraordinarily vain and yet absolutely terrified in his chosen, unlovable role as a `loner’, modelling himself on Attila the Hun. He is not nearly hairy enough. His boasts of his heartlessness - a set piece showed him shouting down the phone: “I don’t care if he [a man owing him rent] is being carried off in an ambulance, I want my money, NOW!” I think this sort of thing, like his threatening judges who he said `should never set foot in southern Africa or “they will never see the light of the day" is designed to frighten people. One fearless judge has called him a "self-appointed emissary of Beelzebub" (old Nick?) whilst his own bravery seems mostly to be directed towards people who want to part him from his money. Interestingly, but not related to the Van Hoogstraten programme, some professional psychoanalysts on TV were trying to convince viewers that what makes seemingly harmless humans dangerous, suicide bombers for example, is their mad desire to be part of a group – not their religion or race or their unhappy childhood. This would certainly not apply to Nicholas Van Hoogstraten; he prefers his own company.
He says he won’t be coming to live in Zimbabwe soon because he has five young children in England and he softens towards his eldest son who will be his heir. The pleasant-looking young man may inherit huge shares in Zimbabwe’s tourist, mining, banking and agricultural industries (if they ever recover from their present doldrums): 35 727 640 shares in the Rainbow Tourism Group, 32 percent of coal produced in Hwange, 20 percent of NMB, seven percent of CFI, Ltd., one of Zimbabwe’s biggest agro-industrial firms, about 600 000 acres of farmland – he is Zimbabwe’s largest private landowner. This latter holding was given in exchange, we are told, from some dodgy dealings regarding the regime’s defence requirements. His farms have been `spared from seizure apparently to thank him for financial support’ (Sadly for him his ownership has been ignored by carelessly enthusiastic squatters).
This strange man contradicts himself: talking of how he spends his money: "I don't need it but it's my money and if I choose to give it away I'll choose one of the charities I support in Zimbabwe”. Charity? Now there’s a softie! He has recently said that he is tired of making money and plans a career in politics: “I am already involved with politics... well, not in this country." Has anybody told him that, being white and, generous though he is towards Mugabe, he cannot bank on a place in Zimbabwe’s ruling class, not yet anyway. The ethnic cleansing around the farms and businesses has caught on amongst Mugabe’s violent young green bombers who are getting hungry and fast running out of new targets.
His `grandiose second palace’ in Zimbabwe … `to match his £30 million palace’ in England would be fit for a king. The absolute monarch who rules in Zimbabwe right now is about a quarter of a century older than Nicholas. Perhaps Mugabe’s present palace would not be good enough for a would-be, second Tzar Nicholas.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
How much do most Zimbabweans really know about Nicholas Van Hoogstraten except that he is very rich, owns a lot of property and business in the country, was briefly jailed in England’s Belmarsh prison, and is a frightening character who admires Robert Mugabe and all his works – describing him as "100 percent decent and incorruptible”. (Hard to agree with him here).
Enlightenment comes, so long as you wait long enough, read enough and are lucky to have access to an array of information resources – not the least being TV and the internet. I watched last week’s close-up of the man on a BBC2 television programme with enormous interest because I wanted to make up my own mind about him - since his wealth helps to prop up a regime which has all but destroyed the gains of Zimbabwe’s precious freedom. All journalism is biased, just as every individual, including this writer, is almost unavoidably biased; therefore, I beg the readers’ indulgence if I presume to assess the character of Van Hoogstraten. I do this because I am intrigued by the mysteries of human nature, especially if it verges on the inhuman. For me, there is nothing so revealing as body language. Van Hoogstraten revealed himself to be full of contradictions and - if his uncontrollable twitch, his mouth continuously working nervously - is anything to go by, he is as insecure as hell. Clearly, he is also extraordinarily vain and yet absolutely terrified in his chosen, unlovable role as a `loner’, modelling himself on Attila the Hun. He is not nearly hairy enough. His boasts of his heartlessness - a set piece showed him shouting down the phone: “I don’t care if he [a man owing him rent] is being carried off in an ambulance, I want my money, NOW!” I think this sort of thing, like his threatening judges who he said `should never set foot in southern Africa or “they will never see the light of the day" is designed to frighten people. One fearless judge has called him a "self-appointed emissary of Beelzebub" (old Nick?) whilst his own bravery seems mostly to be directed towards people who want to part him from his money. Interestingly, but not related to the Van Hoogstraten programme, some professional psychoanalysts on TV were trying to convince viewers that what makes seemingly harmless humans dangerous, suicide bombers for example, is their mad desire to be part of a group – not their religion or race or their unhappy childhood. This would certainly not apply to Nicholas Van Hoogstraten; he prefers his own company.
He says he won’t be coming to live in Zimbabwe soon because he has five young children in England and he softens towards his eldest son who will be his heir. The pleasant-looking young man may inherit huge shares in Zimbabwe’s tourist, mining, banking and agricultural industries (if they ever recover from their present doldrums): 35 727 640 shares in the Rainbow Tourism Group, 32 percent of coal produced in Hwange, 20 percent of NMB, seven percent of CFI, Ltd., one of Zimbabwe’s biggest agro-industrial firms, about 600 000 acres of farmland – he is Zimbabwe’s largest private landowner. This latter holding was given in exchange, we are told, from some dodgy dealings regarding the regime’s defence requirements. His farms have been `spared from seizure apparently to thank him for financial support’ (Sadly for him his ownership has been ignored by carelessly enthusiastic squatters).
This strange man contradicts himself: talking of how he spends his money: "I don't need it but it's my money and if I choose to give it away I'll choose one of the charities I support in Zimbabwe”. Charity? Now there’s a softie! He has recently said that he is tired of making money and plans a career in politics: “I am already involved with politics... well, not in this country." Has anybody told him that, being white and, generous though he is towards Mugabe, he cannot bank on a place in Zimbabwe’s ruling class, not yet anyway. The ethnic cleansing around the farms and businesses has caught on amongst Mugabe’s violent young green bombers who are getting hungry and fast running out of new targets.
His `grandiose second palace’ in Zimbabwe … `to match his £30 million palace’ in England would be fit for a king. The absolute monarch who rules in Zimbabwe right now is about a quarter of a century older than Nicholas. Perhaps Mugabe’s present palace would not be good enough for a would-be, second Tzar Nicholas.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Tuesday, November 1, 2005
CARRYING OLD ENGLAND BACK from ZIM
There is a general consensus among Zimbabweans working abroad that if they can get work, they work harder and are more valued by their employers than the locals - just like migrants the world over. This blog, however, is not about the flame of political freedom that was carried in the historic, pre-independence era. It has a social and economic thrust.
Don't get me wrong, I have not strayed into conservative territory; I am still, as I always have been, pro-democracy and politically dead centre. That is why I am politically dead in this dreadful Mugabe era of Zimbabwe's development. I am blogging on about observed changed standards of behaviour that have evolved very slowly during a lifetime in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe and which have suddenly become very visibly new to me in a changed environment here in England.
I was ruminating on these changes today when I tumbled to another conclusion: not only do our migrants work harder etc, be they of British ancestry or not, they often carry back to this ancient island some of the best of their Zimbabwean (and former Rhodesian) social and economic norms. They find themselves more British than the British. These norms were long ago exported to the colonies and the best of them (forget about the worst, for purposes of this argument)are no longer to be found in contemporary Britain In some places that have been sheltered for three or four generations from the slow attrition of old-fashioned values, this may not apply.
The best examples I can think of are in business practises and in education.
I can't think of any time in the colonial era when a business would pull a trick like the following: send a product in the guise of a luxury gift to a customer, and then send another a year later, demanding a double payment and claiming that the recipient had `subscribed' by accepting the first gift. That is not a very subtle `hard sell'. And quoted this very day in a daily paper is the story of an organization using the name of its patron, a famous actor, in order to spend a large sum of the organization's cash on an unpopular project, without having consulted the patron. The actor was furious.
Education: in Rhodesia, and up to about 2000, in Zimbabwe (when the place was run like a country and not like Mugabe's personal fiefdom), nobody would have openly questioned the authority of a headmaster or dreamed of abusing a teacher, let alone drawing a knife on a fellow pupil. We acted almost like obedient Victorian subjects towards authority. Frozen in time, almost. Come to think of it, that might explain today's Zimbabweans' passive response to the nastiest headmaster we have ever experienced.
These examples are not particularly shocking, but I shall be on the lookout for better ones, bigger gripes, to illustrate my point.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Don't get me wrong, I have not strayed into conservative territory; I am still, as I always have been, pro-democracy and politically dead centre. That is why I am politically dead in this dreadful Mugabe era of Zimbabwe's development. I am blogging on about observed changed standards of behaviour that have evolved very slowly during a lifetime in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe and which have suddenly become very visibly new to me in a changed environment here in England.
I was ruminating on these changes today when I tumbled to another conclusion: not only do our migrants work harder etc, be they of British ancestry or not, they often carry back to this ancient island some of the best of their Zimbabwean (and former Rhodesian) social and economic norms. They find themselves more British than the British. These norms were long ago exported to the colonies and the best of them (forget about the worst, for purposes of this argument)are no longer to be found in contemporary Britain In some places that have been sheltered for three or four generations from the slow attrition of old-fashioned values, this may not apply.
The best examples I can think of are in business practises and in education.
I can't think of any time in the colonial era when a business would pull a trick like the following: send a product in the guise of a luxury gift to a customer, and then send another a year later, demanding a double payment and claiming that the recipient had `subscribed' by accepting the first gift. That is not a very subtle `hard sell'. And quoted this very day in a daily paper is the story of an organization using the name of its patron, a famous actor, in order to spend a large sum of the organization's cash on an unpopular project, without having consulted the patron. The actor was furious.
Education: in Rhodesia, and up to about 2000, in Zimbabwe (when the place was run like a country and not like Mugabe's personal fiefdom), nobody would have openly questioned the authority of a headmaster or dreamed of abusing a teacher, let alone drawing a knife on a fellow pupil. We acted almost like obedient Victorian subjects towards authority. Frozen in time, almost. Come to think of it, that might explain today's Zimbabweans' passive response to the nastiest headmaster we have ever experienced.
These examples are not particularly shocking, but I shall be on the lookout for better ones, bigger gripes, to illustrate my point.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Saturday, October 29, 2005
NEW STRATEGIES FOR ZANU (PF)’S SURVIVAL?
I know this is cheating but I have wasted too much time trying to correct my last blog's reference to Financial Mail which should in fact read BUSINESS DAY
SO TO KEEP UP MY BLOGGING AND TRY TO INTEREST ALL THOSE CURIOUS FOLK OUT THERE HERE IS THE PIECE I HAVE HAD PUBLISHED YESTERDAYS THE ZIMBABWEAN:
As each day brings new disasters for Zimbabwe, all of them entirely expected but, paradoxically, still surprising, nothing but a malevolent glare has remained embedded in my imagination as I scour it for words of hope. The country’s self-destructive madness has gone on and on, paralysing watchers and victims alike.
When every other avenue of protest was ruthlessly closed, we looked South for our salvation but until this month, nothing moved. Only `quiet diplomacy’ emanated from that direction. But wait a minute! Could the quietness have been a clever disguise for time buying while a successful strategy for Robert Mugabe’s ZANU (PF)’s survival could be worked out?
When reports like “Mbeki, has been working to bring the Zimbabwean leader and the opposition to the table to cobble up a settlement to end the country’s political and economic crisis” are repeated, all sorts of contradictions come to mind.
True, there has, most recently been the conditionality of the ruling party talking to the MDC before any money bale out for the IMF could be delivered. There has been the Mnangagwa as emissary moment, the Tsholtsho/Moyo turnaround - things like that. But the most significant move was last Thursday’s command performance of the MDC’s Sibanda/Ncube faction in the Tshwane office of President Mbeki. They were there, it seems, because they are willing to go along with next month’s elections to a new Senate. (at the time of writing, the outcome of the meeting is not known).
The conventional wisdom among ZANU (PF)’s critics is that the Senate is a kind of bribe – a blatant splitting and weakening of the opposition. Looked at another way, It could just possibly be a part of a different, far more subtle plan. Try this:
· Fact: Morgan Tsvangirai has openly declared his hostility to South Africa as an honest broker and will not countenance any alliance with ZANU (PF);
· fact: Mbeki has expressed the wish that the MDC should be drawn into such an alliance with ZANU (PF) to break the political logjam in Zimbabwe and its damaging consequences for South Africa;
· fact: exhausted MDC leaders have both good and bad reasons for blindly endorsing a Senate.
· fact: the ground for ensuring that only a few opposition members enter the upper house (at the behest of Mugabe’s officials) has been well-prepared – Murambatsvina, the powers of the nomination court to `pick and choose’ who (outside of the ruling party) shall be allowed to contest for Senate seats, the delimitation exercise (Dr Reginald Matshaba-Hove, chairman of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, has stated that Zanu PF has already rigged the upcoming senate poll, making any MDC participation meaningless).. and so on‘
From President Mbeki’s point of view, one can only speculate:
· He would welcome the success of the alliance he has been seeking.
· He would not welcome any electoral success of a former Trade Union (ZCTU) leader (Tsvangirai) which might lead to unseating Mugabe. His country’s COSATU is in sympathy with the suffering of its counterparts in Zimbabwe and the pattern (remember Zambia) might be repeated in SA (There was no official protest from SA’s government at COSATU’s rude treatment by Zimbabwe’s border officials when the organization attempted to enter the country).
· He must be seen to be in solidarity with Africa’s hero of liberation (Mugabe) and a ZANU (PF)/MDC alliance would provide an excellent face saver for Mbeki and the continent’s African brotherhood.
· NEPAD, too long delayed in delivery might at last become viable. His African `renaissance’ plans (whatever they are) might recommence.
· He would remain firmly (and indefinitely) in power in South Africa.
The claim, by unnamed sources that “Mbeki now fears his project to broker a negotiated solution that could bring Zimbabwe out of isolation could be derailed if the MDC continues bickering or even splits deserves very close scrutiny. .
How many years is it since our powerful southern neighbour, Mbeki, stood square shouldered before Zimbabweans, assembled in an orderly, admiring crowd at Harare’s show grounds? His words then made us feel that somehow, some day, we would get a helping hand from him. Perhaps we will. But maybe it will not be the kind of help we need. How exhilarating, how liberating if I were to be proved wrong.
ENDS
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
SO TO KEEP UP MY BLOGGING AND TRY TO INTEREST ALL THOSE CURIOUS FOLK OUT THERE HERE IS THE PIECE I HAVE HAD PUBLISHED YESTERDAYS THE ZIMBABWEAN:
As each day brings new disasters for Zimbabwe, all of them entirely expected but, paradoxically, still surprising, nothing but a malevolent glare has remained embedded in my imagination as I scour it for words of hope. The country’s self-destructive madness has gone on and on, paralysing watchers and victims alike.
When every other avenue of protest was ruthlessly closed, we looked South for our salvation but until this month, nothing moved. Only `quiet diplomacy’ emanated from that direction. But wait a minute! Could the quietness have been a clever disguise for time buying while a successful strategy for Robert Mugabe’s ZANU (PF)’s survival could be worked out?
When reports like “Mbeki, has been working to bring the Zimbabwean leader and the opposition to the table to cobble up a settlement to end the country’s political and economic crisis” are repeated, all sorts of contradictions come to mind.
True, there has, most recently been the conditionality of the ruling party talking to the MDC before any money bale out for the IMF could be delivered. There has been the Mnangagwa as emissary moment, the Tsholtsho/Moyo turnaround - things like that. But the most significant move was last Thursday’s command performance of the MDC’s Sibanda/Ncube faction in the Tshwane office of President Mbeki. They were there, it seems, because they are willing to go along with next month’s elections to a new Senate. (at the time of writing, the outcome of the meeting is not known).
The conventional wisdom among ZANU (PF)’s critics is that the Senate is a kind of bribe – a blatant splitting and weakening of the opposition. Looked at another way, It could just possibly be a part of a different, far more subtle plan. Try this:
· Fact: Morgan Tsvangirai has openly declared his hostility to South Africa as an honest broker and will not countenance any alliance with ZANU (PF);
· fact: Mbeki has expressed the wish that the MDC should be drawn into such an alliance with ZANU (PF) to break the political logjam in Zimbabwe and its damaging consequences for South Africa;
· fact: exhausted MDC leaders have both good and bad reasons for blindly endorsing a Senate.
· fact: the ground for ensuring that only a few opposition members enter the upper house (at the behest of Mugabe’s officials) has been well-prepared – Murambatsvina, the powers of the nomination court to `pick and choose’ who (outside of the ruling party) shall be allowed to contest for Senate seats, the delimitation exercise (Dr Reginald Matshaba-Hove, chairman of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, has stated that Zanu PF has already rigged the upcoming senate poll, making any MDC participation meaningless).. and so on‘
From President Mbeki’s point of view, one can only speculate:
· He would welcome the success of the alliance he has been seeking.
· He would not welcome any electoral success of a former Trade Union (ZCTU) leader (Tsvangirai) which might lead to unseating Mugabe. His country’s COSATU is in sympathy with the suffering of its counterparts in Zimbabwe and the pattern (remember Zambia) might be repeated in SA (There was no official protest from SA’s government at COSATU’s rude treatment by Zimbabwe’s border officials when the organization attempted to enter the country).
· He must be seen to be in solidarity with Africa’s hero of liberation (Mugabe) and a ZANU (PF)/MDC alliance would provide an excellent face saver for Mbeki and the continent’s African brotherhood.
· NEPAD, too long delayed in delivery might at last become viable. His African `renaissance’ plans (whatever they are) might recommence.
· He would remain firmly (and indefinitely) in power in South Africa.
The claim, by unnamed sources that “Mbeki now fears his project to broker a negotiated solution that could bring Zimbabwe out of isolation could be derailed if the MDC continues bickering or even splits deserves very close scrutiny. .
How many years is it since our powerful southern neighbour, Mbeki, stood square shouldered before Zimbabweans, assembled in an orderly, admiring crowd at Harare’s show grounds? His words then made us feel that somehow, some day, we would get a helping hand from him. Perhaps we will. But maybe it will not be the kind of help we need. How exhilarating, how liberating if I were to be proved wrong.
ENDS
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Thursday, October 27, 2005
UNHOLY NEW ALLIANCES - DRAMATIS PERSONAE?
For a few days I have reserved judgement re the question of the identity of the Director manipulating the `split' in the MDC. Zimbabwe's fragile little cast of opposition party characters appear to have got hold of the wrong script. A more germane question might be `Who is the author of the script?' I suggested the US's Dr Rice might be `the one', but she could very well have found job awaiting her in her in her in-tray, been too busy with more important foreign matters and delegated it to Ms Frazer. (see my Frazer Enigma blog)This newly appointed Assistant Secretary of State is/was, I remind myself, a friend of Jonathon Moyo and together with him, a student of Rice at Uni. The mystery of it all is still to be revealed but yesterday's Business Day is still peddling the well rehearsed story of a possible future alliance between the MDC and ZANU (PF). I quote: [MY COMMENTS IN UPPER CASE]
"But the biggest challenge facing the MDC is not whether to participate in elections. It centres on a more fundamental malaise within the opposition party - the lack of decisive, credible leadership. [DOES THIS `LEADERSHIP' INCLUDE THE FIVE WHO ARE PURPORTED TO HAVE `SPLIT' FROM HIM? IF SO, WHY HAVE THEY WAITED FOR MUGABE'S/WHOMSOEVER'S SENATE BRIBE BEFORE `RESPONDING' WITH THEIR `SPLIT'? SOMEBODY IS TRYING TO CHANGE THE SCENERY. DM]Since the parliamentary elections in March and the launch by the government of its mass urban eviction campaign, Operation Murambatsvina, questions about Tsvangirai’s leadership have multiplied [WHOSE QUESTIONS? DM]. The MDC did not mobilise against the flawed result of the election and, for weeks, did not respond to the mass evictions.
The Zimbabwean government’s repressive tactics towards the MDC are part of the reason, but the absence of charismatic leadership has been at the core of its repeated failure to build opposition to Mugabe.[WHAT ABSOLUTE BOLLOCKS! WHO BUILT THE OPPOSITION PARTY AS ITS LEADER FROM THE OUTSET? I SEEM TO REMEMBER THAT IT WAS MORGAN TSVANGIRAI AND IF HE HAS `FAILED TO RESPOND... ETC PERHAPS THE WRITER OF THIS TOSH - OR IS IT DISINFORMATION? - HAS OVERLOOKED THE VERY REAL DANGER HE HAS FACED WHEN `RESPONDING'. IF HE CHOOSES TO STAY ALIVE, HE LIVES TO FIGHT ON, ON A MORE LEVEL PLAYING FIELD. DM] What is needed now is a united party rallying behind a strong leader fully committed to the principles of democracy and peaceful struggle. But that can happen only with much difficulty as ethnic factors are of importance and the egos of some of the party’s leaders are big. Some argue that the MDC should be allowed to split. This would make way for "a third force" made up of former Zanu PF members, including Mugabe’s former propaganda chief Jonathan Moyo, and members of the opposition. [THERE'S THE KEY. BEWARE, MDC! DM]But there are dangers here, too. A third force may well be stillborn - there are big rewards for staying in Zanu PF and possible threats of violence against those who leave [LIKE MOYO? WHO ELSE? NAME THEM PLEASE! DM]. The MDC is pivotal to the struggle against the dictatorship of Mugabe and his party, but it needs new leadership. A party split or a merger between an MDC faction and one from Zanu PF would not guarantee an effective opposition. Staying together with fresh leadership that must be allowed to emerge rapidly is the best course - for now".[FAR TOO SIMPLISTIC. DM]
The economy does not seem to feature in all these `noises off'.
Have we come to the end of Act 1 yet?
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
"But the biggest challenge facing the MDC is not whether to participate in elections. It centres on a more fundamental malaise within the opposition party - the lack of decisive, credible leadership. [DOES THIS `LEADERSHIP' INCLUDE THE FIVE WHO ARE PURPORTED TO HAVE `SPLIT' FROM HIM? IF SO, WHY HAVE THEY WAITED FOR MUGABE'S/WHOMSOEVER'S SENATE BRIBE BEFORE `RESPONDING' WITH THEIR `SPLIT'? SOMEBODY IS TRYING TO CHANGE THE SCENERY. DM]Since the parliamentary elections in March and the launch by the government of its mass urban eviction campaign, Operation Murambatsvina, questions about Tsvangirai’s leadership have multiplied [WHOSE QUESTIONS? DM]. The MDC did not mobilise against the flawed result of the election and, for weeks, did not respond to the mass evictions.
The Zimbabwean government’s repressive tactics towards the MDC are part of the reason, but the absence of charismatic leadership has been at the core of its repeated failure to build opposition to Mugabe.[WHAT ABSOLUTE BOLLOCKS! WHO BUILT THE OPPOSITION PARTY AS ITS LEADER FROM THE OUTSET? I SEEM TO REMEMBER THAT IT WAS MORGAN TSVANGIRAI AND IF HE HAS `FAILED TO RESPOND... ETC PERHAPS THE WRITER OF THIS TOSH - OR IS IT DISINFORMATION? - HAS OVERLOOKED THE VERY REAL DANGER HE HAS FACED WHEN `RESPONDING'. IF HE CHOOSES TO STAY ALIVE, HE LIVES TO FIGHT ON, ON A MORE LEVEL PLAYING FIELD. DM] What is needed now is a united party rallying behind a strong leader fully committed to the principles of democracy and peaceful struggle. But that can happen only with much difficulty as ethnic factors are of importance and the egos of some of the party’s leaders are big. Some argue that the MDC should be allowed to split. This would make way for "a third force" made up of former Zanu PF members, including Mugabe’s former propaganda chief Jonathan Moyo, and members of the opposition. [THERE'S THE KEY. BEWARE, MDC! DM]But there are dangers here, too. A third force may well be stillborn - there are big rewards for staying in Zanu PF and possible threats of violence against those who leave [LIKE MOYO? WHO ELSE? NAME THEM PLEASE! DM]. The MDC is pivotal to the struggle against the dictatorship of Mugabe and his party, but it needs new leadership. A party split or a merger between an MDC faction and one from Zanu PF would not guarantee an effective opposition. Staying together with fresh leadership that must be allowed to emerge rapidly is the best course - for now".[FAR TOO SIMPLISTIC. DM]
The economy does not seem to feature in all these `noises off'.
Have we come to the end of Act 1 yet?
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Monday, October 24, 2005
GREMLIN IN MY BLOGGING
Being new at this game I have clearly pressed the wrong button and lost three quarters of what I wrote about Resolving the So-called Split in the MDC. All that has appeared is the list of quotes from Fingaz and some of my commentary but the effort to write something of greater erudition was a waste of time. The top and the conclusion have vanished and I shall henceforth compose in Word and copy and paste in the hopes that I do not repeat the error.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
RESOLVING THE SO-CALLED SPLIT IN MDC
Excerpts from Fingaz report (undated on internet ?last week)
The president believes there are some people in the party and elsewhere who are up to mischief, generating various documents purporting to amplify a position made in good faith by senior members of the party in favour of participating in the senate elections. These were divergent views which do not, in any way, mean that the party is in danger," Tsvangirai's spokesperson William Bango said.
They blamed this on a plot allegedly hatched with the connivance of "some western governments, the South Africans and influential players in business and the NGO community", to sideline Tsvangirai and create a coalition of those considered reasonable between some senior MDC officials and a progressive wing in ZANU PF.
"There is a ZANU PF dimension to what is going on. Both factions in ZANU PF hate Tsvangirai with a passion, he seems to be a stumbling block to a number of things. The group in the MDC wants to work with either faction in ZANU PF but find Tsvangirai as a problem because he pursues a simple political philosophy that shuns the boardroom and promotes a mass-line approach. His popularity has to do with that approach, which tends to put ordinary people at the forefront", another source said.
According to the sources the ZANU PF dimension was interesting in other respects. It sucked in foreign governments and key players in the business and NGO community. Way back in 2002, they said, there were concerted efforts and funding for an alternative leadership of the MDC. The argument then was that a solution was not possible in Zimbabwe because (President Robert) Mugabe and Tsvangirai could never be brought together. The best way out was therefore to find a coalition of the reasonable from both ZANU PF and the MDC and create an acceptable regime. The MDC would be the junior partner in that arrangement, holding the office of the prime minister.
Ncube and Chinamasa went on to agree and sign a document proposing constitutional changes in which the post of prime minister was one. Tsvangirai is understood to have taken Ncube to task over why he had already signed an agreement with Chinamasa without putting it either to the national executive, the national council or himself first.
The agreement had other contentious issues, which Tsvangirai felt were not well thought out and could plunge the party and Zimbabwe into problems.
"In addition, there were forays by (ZANU PF stalwart Emmerson) Mnangagwa and (retired general Vitalis) Zvinavashe, using colonel Lionel Dyke, but what is of interest is that the South Africans, the British and some European countries were keen to see this coalition of the reasonable taking over power, with a sanitised ZANU PF party largely in charge."
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
The president believes there are some people in the party and elsewhere who are up to mischief, generating various documents purporting to amplify a position made in good faith by senior members of the party in favour of participating in the senate elections. These were divergent views which do not, in any way, mean that the party is in danger," Tsvangirai's spokesperson William Bango said.
They blamed this on a plot allegedly hatched with the connivance of "some western governments, the South Africans and influential players in business and the NGO community", to sideline Tsvangirai and create a coalition of those considered reasonable between some senior MDC officials and a progressive wing in ZANU PF.
"There is a ZANU PF dimension to what is going on. Both factions in ZANU PF hate Tsvangirai with a passion, he seems to be a stumbling block to a number of things. The group in the MDC wants to work with either faction in ZANU PF but find Tsvangirai as a problem because he pursues a simple political philosophy that shuns the boardroom and promotes a mass-line approach. His popularity has to do with that approach, which tends to put ordinary people at the forefront", another source said.
According to the sources the ZANU PF dimension was interesting in other respects. It sucked in foreign governments and key players in the business and NGO community. Way back in 2002, they said, there were concerted efforts and funding for an alternative leadership of the MDC. The argument then was that a solution was not possible in Zimbabwe because (President Robert) Mugabe and Tsvangirai could never be brought together. The best way out was therefore to find a coalition of the reasonable from both ZANU PF and the MDC and create an acceptable regime. The MDC would be the junior partner in that arrangement, holding the office of the prime minister.
Ncube and Chinamasa went on to agree and sign a document proposing constitutional changes in which the post of prime minister was one. Tsvangirai is understood to have taken Ncube to task over why he had already signed an agreement with Chinamasa without putting it either to the national executive, the national council or himself first.
The agreement had other contentious issues, which Tsvangirai felt were not well thought out and could plunge the party and Zimbabwe into problems.
"In addition, there were forays by (ZANU PF stalwart Emmerson) Mnangagwa and (retired general Vitalis) Zvinavashe, using colonel Lionel Dyke, but what is of interest is that the South Africans, the British and some European countries were keen to see this coalition of the reasonable taking over power, with a sanitised ZANU PF party largely in charge."
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
Sunday, October 23, 2005
CORRECTION TO LAST BLOG
See my blog on October 22 should read my undated blog (don't know what happened to the date)headlined THE SPLIT - THINK OF THE BIGGER PICTURE. It follows October 20 whose heading is SUBSTANTIAL MEN CALLED NKOMO.
MORE ON SA'S LATEST INTEREST IN ZIM
Sistersuzanna in SA says "current political debate centres around former vice-president,Jacob Zuma - sacked in June after trial and sentencing of his friend, Shapir Shaik a businessman found guilty of corruption charges in his relationship
with Zuma. Zuma, is a Zulu (?) and his sacking by Mbeki is interpreted
by Zuma's supporters as an attempt to stop him from running for president when
Mbeki's second term elapses. Zuma has strong political support from people
like the Trade Union Head who criticized Mbeki's support for the Mugabe
regime".
See my blog on Oct 22... This is more grist to the mill for my theory that Mbeki is keen to keep out any competition for his own position and fears the power of the Trade Union (COSATU). Those last two lines about Zuma's strong political support are the interesting ones.
with Zuma. Zuma, is a Zulu (?) and his sacking by Mbeki is interpreted
by Zuma's supporters as an attempt to stop him from running for president when
Mbeki's second term elapses. Zuma has strong political support from people
like the Trade Union Head who criticized Mbeki's support for the Mugabe
regime".
See my blog on Oct 22... This is more grist to the mill for my theory that Mbeki is keen to keep out any competition for his own position and fears the power of the Trade Union (COSATU). Those last two lines about Zuma's strong political support are the interesting ones.
Saturday, October 22, 2005
BLOGGER BLOCK
My past not only catches up with me - far from home though I may be - but today it has overtaken me and all the hours of the days are not enough to keep up with this daily blog. My promises: to finish my book, to write an occasional column and to tidy up my life must be delivered. A visitor from Canada has reminded me today that the first promise looks like being broken - if I try to keep up with my blog. I can't let that happen. The column is what I call a moveable feast, but I shall blog tomorrow and then close down every activity that allows me to go on making excuses about THE BOOK. And so! - the blog will not henceforth be written daily - only occasionally. I guess it will not be missed by my three fellow bloggers because it has hardly begun.
Thursday, October 20, 2005
SUBSTANTIAL MEN CALLED NKOMO
Its good to have lived long enough to see some of the stuff that is coming out of archives, public and private. This internet is the source of so much that would otherwise have passed me by. For instance, Joshua Nkomo's letter to Mugabe, written in 1983, has surfaced. (click on to yesterdays's swradioafrica.com).Zimbabweans were sickened by the massacres in Matabeleland soon after the euphoria of a new Zimbabwe had faded but we were not surprised when ZANU (PF)'s curtain raiser was so violent. Joshua has been dead for several years but his letter speaks from the grave. You should read it, but be warned, it makes a hundred and ten points - each paragraph is neatly numbered and every one is worth noting. The man was a genius at record keeping. The Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace and the Legal Resources Foundation together brought out their full report on the atrocities of Gukurahundi but Joshua Nkomo's letter is almost blinding in its revelation of the truth of what the megalomaniac Mugabe had in store for us. It is a monument to Joshua's his huge personality and his reputation for devotion to the cause of uniting Zimbabweans and to the tragedy that ultimately overtook him and the nation when his fellow liberator destroyed everything they had fought for.
John Nkomo, currently the Speaker in Zimbabwe's Parliament, has just cancelled his trip to Geneva where he was to attend an inter-Parliamentary Union conference - or has he been banned? We do not yet know. But let me tell you a little about this Nkomo. He was a top lieutenant in Joshua's (PF) ZAPU party. I met him in Chinamano's little house in Highfield. (You will hear a lot about Chinamano from me because it was he and Joshua's publicity secretary, Willie Musarurwa were the men through whom I got to know so many nationalists in their best days). The younger Nkomo was just recovering from an eye injury sustained at the close of the liberation war. Like his colleagues in ZAPU, he was at that time still a man of hope, patiently enlightening, even inspiring us with his quiet conviction that peace was at hand. There he sat at Chinamano's table, the same elegant, well groomed, quietly charismatic gent that you see, more gray-haired, today. The difference now is that he, like several other top men in ZAPU, if they lived long enough, were sucked into the power vortex if they wanted to survive and more importantly, to prosper. John Nkomo has gone along, willingly it seems, with every new abomination that unrestrained power has wrought. Unlike Big Joshua who was so shamefully lured, in his last years into that warlock's coven from which only his old age released him.
John Nkomo, currently the Speaker in Zimbabwe's Parliament, has just cancelled his trip to Geneva where he was to attend an inter-Parliamentary Union conference - or has he been banned? We do not yet know. But let me tell you a little about this Nkomo. He was a top lieutenant in Joshua's (PF) ZAPU party. I met him in Chinamano's little house in Highfield. (You will hear a lot about Chinamano from me because it was he and Joshua's publicity secretary, Willie Musarurwa were the men through whom I got to know so many nationalists in their best days). The younger Nkomo was just recovering from an eye injury sustained at the close of the liberation war. Like his colleagues in ZAPU, he was at that time still a man of hope, patiently enlightening, even inspiring us with his quiet conviction that peace was at hand. There he sat at Chinamano's table, the same elegant, well groomed, quietly charismatic gent that you see, more gray-haired, today. The difference now is that he, like several other top men in ZAPU, if they lived long enough, were sucked into the power vortex if they wanted to survive and more importantly, to prosper. John Nkomo has gone along, willingly it seems, with every new abomination that unrestrained power has wrought. Unlike Big Joshua who was so shamefully lured, in his last years into that warlock's coven from which only his old age released him.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
The Frazer enigma
This has to be a quickly composed blog because I have run out of time, but I promised Parafeen that I would practise the art of blogging regularly.
By coincidence, two entirely separate references to Dr Jendayi Frazer, the newly appointed US Ambassador to South Africa and a former US Assistant Secretary for Africa, came up today. There is a little mystery here, fit for the attention of some investigative journalism.(ButI am not the one!) My peculiar talent for putting two and two together (and sometimes making five) brings me to the point I shall try to make as delicately as possible:
Ms Frazer is (was?) a friend of Jonathon Moyo. In 2003 Walter Kansteiner was her predecessor in the Assistant Secretary of State job. He wanted a hard line on Zimbabwe. She clashed with him then. Now there is a turnaround, Ms Frazer has changed her tune. If Moyo were still in the bosom of ZANU(PF) and not cast out of his powerful position as Information Minister, she and Moyo would not now be such close friends. But he too has also experienced another (his second) remarkable change of heart. Now in opposition as an Independent in Zimbabwe's Parliament, he is taking a hard line on ZANU (PF) - never mind the reasons: the Tsholotsho debacle and all that...*
In 2002, Kansteiner had said that the U.S. government had a “strained relationship” Mugabe's government. (Specifically, he pointed out that Mugabe was violating principles of “ democracy, human rights, civil liberties and economic freedoms”). He got precious little action out of President Bush who visited South Africa and praised Mbeki as the `point man' for the solution to Zimbabwe's troubles at a time when Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice (Frazer's former teacher) were at odds with each other(Powell wanted more pressure on Mugabe, Rice was the radical).
Dr Frazer, a black American woman, had been the NSC's senior director for African Affairs and was at that time known to have radical views. Another little chip of information is that she was once a student at Stanford University - the place where Condoleezza Rice taught for many years. Rice has now also lost her radical stance (remember? Zimbabwe is one of her recently named `outposts of tyranny'). It is clear why Kansteiner originally lost out when the NSC’s view had prevailed over his own.
Mugabe has reacted viciously to Rice's turnaround and no doubt he will have some hard words for Frazer, now taking her former boss's tough line on him. She has even been quoted recently in The Star (South Africa), saying that she is "disappointed" that African leaders are `"looking away" from the Zimbabwe crisis". She observes that `the country could easily descend into violence'and `the international community, including the UN Security Council and the African Union's Peace and Security Council, should be taking up the Zimbabwe issue because ... the US [is] busy deepening and broadening its selective travel and financial sanctions against Zanu PF leaders by also targeting their children and spouses.'
This really is quite extraordinary. I quote further from the Star:
`It [the US]was also targeting specific farms taken over in Zimbabwe's land grab. Frazer disagreed that US and other sanctions had failed, saying it was impossible to tell whether a government had been weakened until it cracked. She agreed with the SA government that ultimately only Zimbabweans could solve their own problems. But she disagreed that Zimbabweans should be left to do this in isolation. The international community should do its best to create the right environment for Zimbabweans to solve their problem. "It is ironic that the ANC should take that stance since the ANC itself built a strategy which included both inside and outside forces for change here. It's not either-or. It can't be." Frazer was also adamant that the US would not abandon the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and focus its hopes for change elsewhere, as some analysts had advised, because of the MDC's failure to weaken the Mugabe government. She said the US intended to stick to its long-term strategy of supporting all elements of civil society...'
What would her friend Moyo, if he were still serving the ruling party, have had to say about that?
What does one make of the amazing coincidence of Frazer and Moyo's simultaneous change of heart. Can the one have influenced the other?
* Sorry to bang on about the Moyo man, but he was, at the start of the nineties, an intellectual whom I admired for his being the first, post-independence, who had both the courage and the ability to confront, through his teaching, speaking and writing, the ruling party's betrayal of the ideals of the liberation struggle. His mysterious reversal and iniquitous attacks upon fellow Zimbabweans pursuing those same ideals - especially those of freedom of expression - by ingratiating himself with the Mugabe regime was sickening. It is well known how well he was rewarded.
By coincidence, two entirely separate references to Dr Jendayi Frazer, the newly appointed US Ambassador to South Africa and a former US Assistant Secretary for Africa, came up today. There is a little mystery here, fit for the attention of some investigative journalism.(ButI am not the one!) My peculiar talent for putting two and two together (and sometimes making five) brings me to the point I shall try to make as delicately as possible:
Ms Frazer is (was?) a friend of Jonathon Moyo. In 2003 Walter Kansteiner was her predecessor in the Assistant Secretary of State job. He wanted a hard line on Zimbabwe. She clashed with him then. Now there is a turnaround, Ms Frazer has changed her tune. If Moyo were still in the bosom of ZANU(PF) and not cast out of his powerful position as Information Minister, she and Moyo would not now be such close friends. But he too has also experienced another (his second) remarkable change of heart. Now in opposition as an Independent in Zimbabwe's Parliament, he is taking a hard line on ZANU (PF) - never mind the reasons: the Tsholotsho debacle and all that...*
In 2002, Kansteiner had said that the U.S. government had a “strained relationship” Mugabe's government. (Specifically, he pointed out that Mugabe was violating principles of “ democracy, human rights, civil liberties and economic freedoms”). He got precious little action out of President Bush who visited South Africa and praised Mbeki as the `point man' for the solution to Zimbabwe's troubles at a time when Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice (Frazer's former teacher) were at odds with each other(Powell wanted more pressure on Mugabe, Rice was the radical).
Dr Frazer, a black American woman, had been the NSC's senior director for African Affairs and was at that time known to have radical views. Another little chip of information is that she was once a student at Stanford University - the place where Condoleezza Rice taught for many years. Rice has now also lost her radical stance (remember? Zimbabwe is one of her recently named `outposts of tyranny'). It is clear why Kansteiner originally lost out when the NSC’s view had prevailed over his own.
Mugabe has reacted viciously to Rice's turnaround and no doubt he will have some hard words for Frazer, now taking her former boss's tough line on him. She has even been quoted recently in The Star (South Africa), saying that she is "disappointed" that African leaders are `"looking away" from the Zimbabwe crisis". She observes that `the country could easily descend into violence'and `the international community, including the UN Security Council and the African Union's Peace and Security Council, should be taking up the Zimbabwe issue because ... the US [is] busy deepening and broadening its selective travel and financial sanctions against Zanu PF leaders by also targeting their children and spouses.'
This really is quite extraordinary. I quote further from the Star:
`It [the US]was also targeting specific farms taken over in Zimbabwe's land grab. Frazer disagreed that US and other sanctions had failed, saying it was impossible to tell whether a government had been weakened until it cracked. She agreed with the SA government that ultimately only Zimbabweans could solve their own problems. But she disagreed that Zimbabweans should be left to do this in isolation. The international community should do its best to create the right environment for Zimbabweans to solve their problem. "It is ironic that the ANC should take that stance since the ANC itself built a strategy which included both inside and outside forces for change here. It's not either-or. It can't be." Frazer was also adamant that the US would not abandon the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and focus its hopes for change elsewhere, as some analysts had advised, because of the MDC's failure to weaken the Mugabe government. She said the US intended to stick to its long-term strategy of supporting all elements of civil society...'
What would her friend Moyo, if he were still serving the ruling party, have had to say about that?
What does one make of the amazing coincidence of Frazer and Moyo's simultaneous change of heart. Can the one have influenced the other?
* Sorry to bang on about the Moyo man, but he was, at the start of the nineties, an intellectual whom I admired for his being the first, post-independence, who had both the courage and the ability to confront, through his teaching, speaking and writing, the ruling party's betrayal of the ideals of the liberation struggle. His mysterious reversal and iniquitous attacks upon fellow Zimbabweans pursuing those same ideals - especially those of freedom of expression - by ingratiating himself with the Mugabe regime was sickening. It is well known how well he was rewarded.
Monday, October 17, 2005
ACQUAINTED WITH IBBO
ACQUAINTED WITH IBBO
Everybody is writing about `Breakfast with...' or `Dinner with...' but I have never dined, I was only acquainted with Ibbo Mandaza. You could say that I have had a bone to pick with him once he opted for slavish devotion to a political party which any fool could see was taking Zimbabwe to perdition.
Perdition by attrition I call it.
This is a very personal review of the way that Ibbo touched my life. We never had more than eyeball contact but I watched his career with huge interest because of the good turn he did me the first time we met. More than twenty years ago, I was lined up with two underqualified men for a promotion to head a department at the Harare Polytechnic. Present at the interview was Ibbo, then a civil servant, Secretary for Labour I guess. I was gobsmacked when my promotion went through, I fully expected a man to get the job, especially as my competition was black.
Next sighting of Ibbo came with AAPS, the Association of African Political Scientists. He promoted regular debates, mostly brilliant speakers and packed the Great Indaba room of the Monomatapa hotel with newly liberated Zimbabweans eager to air their views from the floor. I was hooked and never missed the event. Then there were early SAPES publications, full of long-overdue Afro-centric views.
So far so good. Dr Mandaza seemed to be his own man, maybe a little imbalanced in correcting the `imbalances' of the colonial past, but understandably so. As Ibbo's empire, and his waistline expanded, things went downhill, nothing admirable from then onward about his abandonment of principle. I began to worry about his insecurities: he had been Ibbotsen Joseph, a person of mixed race, before Independence. Ruth Chinamano, who claimed to have taught him at a school for children of blacks and some of mixed race in those apartheid Rhodesian days said that he scorned offers of `sadza duri' the staple food of black schoolmates. White people didn't eat sadza. Her story may have been apocryphal but it is true that after independence, Ibbo became a Mandaza, and good luck to him.
It seemed to me that he had little choice other than to do what Joseph Culverwell had done, taking a wise father's advice and supporting `the nashies' if - with his racial mix - he wanted to get on in an African country. It remains the tragedy of our times. Ibbo deserved recognition for his talents because they were what made him. His name or his DNA should always have been irrelevant. My view will inevitably be called patronizing. But who needs to patronize him now? Wealth and power did nothing to build his character except in the image of his dreadful political masters. His close acquaintance with Jonathon Moyo may have had something to do with his most recent troubles: that Tsholotsho `conspiracy'took plenty of casualties. But now that he has been pushed out of his media power-base, even Wallace Chuma, a former editor of his Mirror newspaper has reserved a drop of sympathy for him. Wallace, now working in Cape Town experienced Ibbo's arrogance and cruelty and has written a lengthy and savagely revealing piece about his former employer, published on The New Zimbabwe website on October 17. The hard exterior is pathetically vulnerable with the carapace stripped away. I have provided a hyperlink* but there can surely be no better illustration than the folowing excerpts:
"He took the opportunity [in 2001] to outline the [Mirror]paper’s editorial policy, which he defined as “nationalist” and “non-partisan”. He urged the journalists to report objectively, and frame events and issues from the point of view of their impact on what he roughly called the “national interest”....
But I soon realised I was naïve if I thought Mandaza meant what he said....
Mandaza called to congratulate me on the piece[on Jonathon Moyo] on a Friday morning. Early in the next week, after he had spoken to Moyo during the weekend, he called again to complain about the same piece, saying we should avoid making unnecessary criticism of some Zanu PF officials....
It did not take me long to notice that Ibbo’s loyalties were with Zanu PF; in fact, a PARTICULAR FACTION within that party...(DM’s emphasis)
But from the first week of 2002, Mandaza became shrill in his editorial interference and paranoia. He thought the paper was not supporting Zanu PF enough, and convinced himself the entire newsroom had been ‘infiltrated’ by MDC supporters....
Ibbo would insist we run with the conspiracies, in the process making fools of ourselves...
The whole things had less to do with the ideology of nationalism and the “national interest” than newspaper economics. The Mirror was founded on weak financial footing, and never made a profit...
… the paper relied heavily on the “benevolence” of CBZ Kaguvi Branch for operations and salaries....
Ibbo enjoyed the dual, if contradictory, identity of being an indigenous solid capitalist and an independent intellectual and academic running an independent research think-tank. I’m sure this carried tremendous prestige. And yet Ibbo’s lifestyle and assumed identity could not be sustained by his struggling business “empire”. Things became even more difficult when Sapes Trust, his research think tank and occasional source of forex, became cash-strapped as a result of donor fatigue…
...And then I [CHUMA]left in a huff.
When I read about the way Ibbo had been brutally ejected out of the Mirror by the CIO, I felt for him, in the spirit of ubuntu. But I also remembered the brutality with which he offloaded those among his staff who questioned his occasionally strange decisions".
ENDS
* Sorry. No hyperlink. I have to practise how to do it again.
Everybody is writing about `Breakfast with...' or `Dinner with...' but I have never dined, I was only acquainted with Ibbo Mandaza. You could say that I have had a bone to pick with him once he opted for slavish devotion to a political party which any fool could see was taking Zimbabwe to perdition.
Perdition by attrition I call it.
This is a very personal review of the way that Ibbo touched my life. We never had more than eyeball contact but I watched his career with huge interest because of the good turn he did me the first time we met. More than twenty years ago, I was lined up with two underqualified men for a promotion to head a department at the Harare Polytechnic. Present at the interview was Ibbo, then a civil servant, Secretary for Labour I guess. I was gobsmacked when my promotion went through, I fully expected a man to get the job, especially as my competition was black.
Next sighting of Ibbo came with AAPS, the Association of African Political Scientists. He promoted regular debates, mostly brilliant speakers and packed the Great Indaba room of the Monomatapa hotel with newly liberated Zimbabweans eager to air their views from the floor. I was hooked and never missed the event. Then there were early SAPES publications, full of long-overdue Afro-centric views.
So far so good. Dr Mandaza seemed to be his own man, maybe a little imbalanced in correcting the `imbalances' of the colonial past, but understandably so. As Ibbo's empire, and his waistline expanded, things went downhill, nothing admirable from then onward about his abandonment of principle. I began to worry about his insecurities: he had been Ibbotsen Joseph, a person of mixed race, before Independence. Ruth Chinamano, who claimed to have taught him at a school for children of blacks and some of mixed race in those apartheid Rhodesian days said that he scorned offers of `sadza duri' the staple food of black schoolmates. White people didn't eat sadza. Her story may have been apocryphal but it is true that after independence, Ibbo became a Mandaza, and good luck to him.
It seemed to me that he had little choice other than to do what Joseph Culverwell had done, taking a wise father's advice and supporting `the nashies' if - with his racial mix - he wanted to get on in an African country. It remains the tragedy of our times. Ibbo deserved recognition for his talents because they were what made him. His name or his DNA should always have been irrelevant. My view will inevitably be called patronizing. But who needs to patronize him now? Wealth and power did nothing to build his character except in the image of his dreadful political masters. His close acquaintance with Jonathon Moyo may have had something to do with his most recent troubles: that Tsholotsho `conspiracy'took plenty of casualties. But now that he has been pushed out of his media power-base, even Wallace Chuma, a former editor of his Mirror newspaper has reserved a drop of sympathy for him. Wallace, now working in Cape Town experienced Ibbo's arrogance and cruelty and has written a lengthy and savagely revealing piece about his former employer, published on The New Zimbabwe website on October 17. The hard exterior is pathetically vulnerable with the carapace stripped away. I have provided a hyperlink* but there can surely be no better illustration than the folowing excerpts:
"He took the opportunity [in 2001] to outline the [Mirror]paper’s editorial policy, which he defined as “nationalist” and “non-partisan”. He urged the journalists to report objectively, and frame events and issues from the point of view of their impact on what he roughly called the “national interest”....
But I soon realised I was naïve if I thought Mandaza meant what he said....
Mandaza called to congratulate me on the piece[on Jonathon Moyo] on a Friday morning. Early in the next week, after he had spoken to Moyo during the weekend, he called again to complain about the same piece, saying we should avoid making unnecessary criticism of some Zanu PF officials....
It did not take me long to notice that Ibbo’s loyalties were with Zanu PF; in fact, a PARTICULAR FACTION within that party...(DM’s emphasis)
But from the first week of 2002, Mandaza became shrill in his editorial interference and paranoia. He thought the paper was not supporting Zanu PF enough, and convinced himself the entire newsroom had been ‘infiltrated’ by MDC supporters....
Ibbo would insist we run with the conspiracies, in the process making fools of ourselves...
The whole things had less to do with the ideology of nationalism and the “national interest” than newspaper economics. The Mirror was founded on weak financial footing, and never made a profit...
… the paper relied heavily on the “benevolence” of CBZ Kaguvi Branch for operations and salaries....
Ibbo enjoyed the dual, if contradictory, identity of being an indigenous solid capitalist and an independent intellectual and academic running an independent research think-tank. I’m sure this carried tremendous prestige. And yet Ibbo’s lifestyle and assumed identity could not be sustained by his struggling business “empire”. Things became even more difficult when Sapes Trust, his research think tank and occasional source of forex, became cash-strapped as a result of donor fatigue…
...And then I [CHUMA]left in a huff.
When I read about the way Ibbo had been brutally ejected out of the Mirror by the CIO, I felt for him, in the spirit of ubuntu. But I also remembered the brutality with which he offloaded those among his staff who questioned his occasionally strange decisions".
ENDS
* Sorry. No hyperlink. I have to practise how to do it again.
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Sunday & a question of Democracy and Economy
Today's first read yielded a new thought or two. Saturday's Guardian Review ran a piece by Martin Jaques (p.8) on Chris Patten's second book Not Quite the Diplomat: Home Truths about World Affairs. Jaques says that Patten "provides a useful antidote to New Labour's worldview". Patten is disillusioned with the US, but the reviewer's critique concludes: "...Empire and colonialism are for the most part strangely absent...history starts at around 1900... It is quite impossible (my emphasis) to make sense of modern Britain - or the modern world including nation states and natioinal sovereignty - without discussing the legacy of colonialism. ... Moreover, he seems almost oblivious to race or racism. He also adopts a strangely unhistorical view of democracy, which he never ceases to lecture the world upon, often, it feels from the pulpit. He notes, in a tone of surprise: `China - like other authoritarian regimes in recent years in Asia - shows that it is possible to develop an economy without democracy.' Why the surprise? That has been the case with virtually every industrialised country in the world, with the exception of India. It was certainly true of Europe"
Interesting?
(Forgive my emphasising. It helps me not to stray from the point of this blog. As my blogname suggests, it is colonialism with which I remain preoccupied but latterly, the entry of China into almost everybody's `worldview' is a phenomenon which sets a lot of new hares running (for want of a better phrase). I am most intrigued with the statement that it is possible to develop and economy without democracy. I know that Singapore is an outstanding recent example but I am shifted from my limited perception of this issue where Zimbabwe is concerned. I have been convinced, without reference to history, that democracy was an essentail precursor to developing (or rather re-developing) Zimbabwe's economy).
On America
One other observation, Jaques says that Niall Fergussen in his book Colossus suggests that `America was expansionary from its very inception. Its committment to international rules and alliances since 1918, and especially after 1945 was more a matter of expediency than high principle' (my emphasis again - I like that latter phrase).
ends
Interesting?
(Forgive my emphasising. It helps me not to stray from the point of this blog. As my blogname suggests, it is colonialism with which I remain preoccupied but latterly, the entry of China into almost everybody's `worldview' is a phenomenon which sets a lot of new hares running (for want of a better phrase). I am most intrigued with the statement that it is possible to develop and economy without democracy. I know that Singapore is an outstanding recent example but I am shifted from my limited perception of this issue where Zimbabwe is concerned. I have been convinced, without reference to history, that democracy was an essentail precursor to developing (or rather re-developing) Zimbabwe's economy).
On America
One other observation, Jaques says that Niall Fergussen in his book Colossus suggests that `America was expansionary from its very inception. Its committment to international rules and alliances since 1918, and especially after 1945 was more a matter of expediency than high principle' (my emphasis again - I like that latter phrase).
ends
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
BACK IN BLIGHTY
This colonial relic is still getting to grips with the developed world and so my ruminations on the state of old and new worlds will have to await the unpacking exercise after coming home from the US trip. Gatwick Airport requires well-developed calf muscles and a firm resolve to escape into the open air no matter how difficult the maze. It took me more than an hour to burrow out. I had bought a pedometer on the plane (duty free) and should have attached it as I exited into the first tunnel. Hundreds of meters of, passages, escalators and delivery drops at every angle, designed for sheeplike passengers make the sternest Gym set-up look tame. I also learned this morning not to ask the way: I was twice directed down the wrong tunnel and but at last, oh blessed relief! I found the trains and ticket zone. Don't tell me I should read the excellent signposting and TV screens all over the place : there is nothing to tell you where the South Terminal is if you come into it from a different direction from the one you are accustomed to. `North' is all you can find when looking for a label that says `Trains'. It didn't help that after a sleepless night I forgot to look at the label - or even for its position - for baggage collection for my flight. Roll your Atlas and Axis cervical bones well, ninety degrees backwards to see the overhead signs for the carousel that delivers your luggage. A wasted half an hour watching suitcases roll out from their subterranean depths, in the company of sinewy youths in sleevless vests and crowds of well-padded and tanned holiday makers in family groups' apparel did not alert me to the fact that they had all landed from Orlando. My sedate co-passengers from the Newark flight CO18 had all seemingly vanished. My baggage, lifted from the carousel by now, was cunningly hidden behind yet another maze of poles and passages.
I got a taxi home from my station, caught up on a bit of sleep, tidied the house and postage-stamp sized garden. Now I sit at the computer honouring my promise to Parafeen to practise writing my blog every day until it becomes a thing of wondrous fascination, or at least a habit that obeys the fundamental rule for good writing: practise, practise, practise.
I got a taxi home from my station, caught up on a bit of sleep, tidied the house and postage-stamp sized garden. Now I sit at the computer honouring my promise to Parafeen to practise writing my blog every day until it becomes a thing of wondrous fascination, or at least a habit that obeys the fundamental rule for good writing: practise, practise, practise.
Monday, October 10, 2005
Let go the hand of nurse
What a splendid thing is this! Now that I've got my head around `post' which no longer means stamps and envelopes, a gaping hole in a red pillar box - or even a pole to tie my horse up to (I joke of course) I'm up and flying into cyberspace.
I must try one last practise with hyperlink before Parafeen, my patient teacher zooms out into a spot on the globe too far from Britain for hands-on internursing. (Today I do the old fashioned atmospheric Continental air flight). Let me try my favourite ZWNEWS website for hyperlinking:
SUCCESS! go!
I must try one last practise with hyperlink before Parafeen, my patient teacher zooms out into a spot on the globe too far from Britain for hands-on internursing. (Today I do the old fashioned atmospheric Continental air flight). Let me try my favourite ZWNEWS website for hyperlinking:
SUCCESS! go!
Sunday, October 9, 2005
Making Progress
Tricky! very tricky. Getting going with this blog has to wait for serious attention when I get home in the UK. A week in the US has confirmed Parafeen's prejudice about the paucity of entertainment and the poverty of art among the dozens of TV channels: all too bright, too loud and far too much advertising. These latter are the worst ever because they seldom get across to you exactly what it is they think is worth your money. Maybe they just go too fast for me.
A meagre offering of global news – but that may be because now it is only the catastrophes that engage our attention. This has been a year of mega-drama in Indonesia's Tsunami, New Orleans' drowning and now, today, South-East Asia's earthquake among a spate of terrorist incursions into the lives of innocents, world wide. I can see now why the internet becomes the preferred source of information of a meaningful kind. Parafeen's favourite website, his `Smirking Chimp' tells me today that an old hero of the fight against bigotry and damn foolishness, one Zbigniew Brzezinski has come up with a piece about the reason's for the US having lost its high standing in the community of nations. He offers a solution, quite impossible according to Parafeen because it requires co-operation between political rivals – Democrats and Republicans rather than the ongoing competitive point scoring in the struggle for power on the home front.
Which brings me to my favourite subject and one upon which I will dwell ad nauseam in this blog: my views on Zimbabwe's past, present and what little sense I can make of the country's future. The nausea is my own and I will strive mightily to enlighten those who might chance upon this blog as to why they should bother to read it. But more later when I get home to my own attic across the Atlantic ocean.
A meagre offering of global news – but that may be because now it is only the catastrophes that engage our attention. This has been a year of mega-drama in Indonesia's Tsunami, New Orleans' drowning and now, today, South-East Asia's earthquake among a spate of terrorist incursions into the lives of innocents, world wide. I can see now why the internet becomes the preferred source of information of a meaningful kind. Parafeen's favourite website, his `Smirking Chimp' tells me today that an old hero of the fight against bigotry and damn foolishness, one Zbigniew Brzezinski has come up with a piece about the reason's for the US having lost its high standing in the community of nations. He offers a solution, quite impossible according to Parafeen because it requires co-operation between political rivals – Democrats and Republicans rather than the ongoing competitive point scoring in the struggle for power on the home front.
Which brings me to my favourite subject and one upon which I will dwell ad nauseam in this blog: my views on Zimbabwe's past, present and what little sense I can make of the country's future. The nausea is my own and I will strive mightily to enlighten those who might chance upon this blog as to why they should bother to read it. But more later when I get home to my own attic across the Atlantic ocean.
Tuesday, October 4, 2005
Something worth saying.
Having the expertise on hand during a visit to the USA has provided the impetus for doing something which has been long delayed: using this marvellous technology to establish a blog. It is so much more productive for a compulsive writer,observer, analyst and record keeper. It makes more sense than merely keeping an out-of-control bundle of notes - now filed electronically - or beavering away at a private diary. I have something of my past worth capturing, something about the present and future to say. This seems to be the way to say it. It is neither a private diary nor an exercise in showmanship which my regular, published columns could be, but something in between. I welcome the opportunity that this electronic interface provides. A diary simply captures events, experiences recorded on a regular basis. It has little importance and no impact outside of the private world of the writer. It hardly justifies the effort if the words simply disappear into oblivion. This is not so with the diaries of the famous of course, but the internet has made of a private record or diary something which can be exposed to a wide audience. The way I see it, this forces the writer to write down observations in a presentable way. Like published writing it must be more rigorously prepared. Ergo, one must not be irrelevant nor boring. Most of all, for the reader this blog should try mightily not to be time- wasting and generally pointless.
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