PARLIAMENT WITHOUT POWER

I am reminded of yet another of ZANU (PF)'s copycat convulsions - harking back to the last days of Rhodesia. The present ruling party's apparent acceptance of its demolition, its loss of its parliamentary majority in the March 29 2008 elections (leaving aside the Presidential non-appearance of results for the present)has an interesting precedent.

There was a time - following the Rhodesian Front's March 3 Agreement with Bishop Abel Muzorewa's ANC party - prior to the introduction of a `transitional' government when parliament was dominated by the ANC while the Rhodesian Front's Ian Smith, the ZANU (Ndonga)'s Ndabaningi Sithole and ZUPO's Chief Chirau appeared to share the Prime Ministerial position. It looked good for a handover of power from whites to blacks in Zimbabwe Rhodesia. Everyone could talk their heads off in Parliament, but where was the real power? One cabinet member in Muzorewa's line-up was the estimable, the late Byron Hove was on to this deception. He made a huge fuss, blowing the whistle on the powerlessness of the transitional government with its newly `Africanised' parliament. What kind of power do you have, he asked, when the police, the army, the civil service and the judiciary are all dominated entirely by whites still loyal to Ian Smith? The liberation struggle went on with its consequence of the Lancaster House agreement and as we all know (to the country's cost) ZANU (PF) took over.

My point here is that it seems that ZANU (PF) has no fear of an MDC majority in parliament so long as the abovementioned state institutions remain loyal to Robert Mugabe.

We await the final outcome of the current political shenanigans with bated breath.

Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell

Progress is a word

Peregrine Worsthorne has let fly today in The First Post (sorry I haven't mastered links yet) at "Crimes committed in the name of progress". His logic extends to the end product of "progress" in several countries but it is Tibet's renewed travails that have aroused his attention. Clearly he is remembering the romantic setting of old Tibet, unsullied by the "progress" of Chinese domination. I have no quarrel with the exiled Dalai Lama's proper place in Tibet or of the will of Tibetans to return to their past and their special brand of sovereign rule, but I must take issue with his sweeping condemnation of "progress", particularly as he sneers at the concept of "liberal progress". I quote:

"Other countries are doing [the name of progress] a good turn by breaking and entering in the name of progress: communist progress, fascist progress and liberal progress, the last of which has done more dispatching of so-called backward societies to the knacker's yard than any other".

I understand the general drift of his argument, but his First Post piece is too short and therefore emits more heat than light.

My own focus on "progress" inevitably settles on Zimbabwe, the country where I was born. It took 88 years of imperial domination of one kind and another to bring "progress" (originally by force)to that colonized country. Eventually, Zimbabwe was handed over to its rightful owners, its indigenous inhabitants, as a well-developed little state, a "gem" of a country. Ask any `native' (as a non-African, I would be described merely as a `sojourner') if he/she would prefer to be living in the pre-colonial environment, devoid of the "progress" of modern institutions, modern technology and so on and I know the truthful answer would be "don't ask a silly question".

I was (and am) a liberal, and a student of African history. As a former Rhodesian and later, a Zimbabwean, I believed most devoutly in "progress" for my fellow citizens. To that end I once helped "break and enter" - to borrow Worsthorne's expression - a relatively undeveloped, rural region in order to work with women through the establishing of Savings Clubs. Its a long story but not only did our organization's newfangled ideas of proper land husbandry and functional literacy bring new hope for further "progress" (better diet resulting from food self-sufficiency, a cash surplus from sale of crops to be spent on better technology and so on) but also it gave the women a choice - whether to remain poor, or to prosper. Their families benefited greatly from this "progress" offered them, in this case, by "liberals". I had what is called `hands on' experience. Ask Doris Lessing about women's progress. She travelled around Zimbabwe to witness "progress" with a similar "liberal" organization and she marvelled at it.

All this was before Robert Mugabe's rule began to wreak havoc throughout the country.
He and his followers are returning the country to its undeveloped past - lack of safe water, no electricity, transport only for the rich (he will have to resort to being carried again - as he was at the start of his political career - on the shoulders of his admirers when the last drop of fuel disappears)... and so on ad infinitum.

"Progress" be it communist, facist or liberal (and Zimbabwe has experienced all of these)is being undone. I look forward to the day when the tyrant is despatched and "progress" once again means change from a grossly unsatisfactory situation (call it rotten in today's Zimbabwe) to an improved and hope-filled future.

Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell

SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO LAUGH

I really do feel sorry for young Masikosana Ngulube who, as reported from IRIN on 18 Feb 2008 has to cycle the 30km round trip to get to Eveline High school in Bulawayo. She says the return trip is `downhill' so I guess she must live out of the city on the East side. Her brother certainly has an uphill ride from what was once Borrow Street (the location of the public swimming pool - maybe no longer filled with water?)to what was Townsend Road in the old Kumalo suburbs. Milton Junior school is in that same (former) Borrow Street. My late brother was a Milton school boy.

How do I know all this. Don't laugh, but I am an old (very old) Eveline High girl. I had to laugh at the news that Masikosana has to ride a bike to school. I rode a bike to Eveline school as did most of my school mates in the nineteen forties. But that was many decades ago. My first bike ride from Fort Street high on the Western side of the city all the way to Borrow street was all downhill. That's how I know the lie of the land. Thirty km is a bit excessive but not impossible. There was a time when I rode from Borrow Street to Baines Primary School out on the south west side of the city. That was uphill all the way. We must have had big muscles in our legs in those immediate post-WW2 days because we didn't think it hard to peddle our bikes. Cars were for the rich, or if your family owned one, they did not thnk it neccessary to drive you to school.

How things have changed. Only for the good of course -where Eveline is no longer a school for little white girls. What irony it is that Masikosana's mother's car is empty of fuel or the precious liquid is unaffordable. In the Federal years, there was a huge public protest because the Minister of Finance raised the price of a gallon of petrol from 2/6 to three shillings a gallon. World oil prices nothwithstanding, the price of a litre of fuel in Zimbabwe today would have bought my folks most of the country back in 1945.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell

Danger and a king-sized political cockup

When I read on Friday 25th January about the political shenanigans between the former, Ndebele ZAPU members of Mugabe's political elite and his Shona ZANU (PF)adherents my heart sank. As if poor, broken Zimbabwe was not in enough trouble already, this apparent reappearance of old, so-called `tribal' animosities is the pits.

My information is that the Ndebeles, from whichever quarter are fed-up with the way they have been treated by the overlord Robert Mugabe, especially as they were virtually force-fed the 1987 Unity Accord (another `so-called' it seems) which old Joshua Nkomo had to swallow in order to save his people in Matabeleland from what looked like an attempt by Mugabe's lot at genocide in - the national army's 5th Brigade assault, called `Gukurahundi'. An uneasy peace has lasted ten years and Nkomo is long gone. But his right-hand man Joseph Msika lives on, placated, bribed, if you like, by high office as one of Zimbabwe's two vice-Presidents. Until recently he has been remarkably loyal to his present boss.

We had almost forgotten about Dumiso Dabengwa, the former Zipra commander, jailed by Mugabe after independence (was it perhaps to prevent him from leading a revolt against the Shona who had grabbed most of the spoils of the liberation war?). Anyway, he was released after nearly five years; he succeeded as a business magnate (ironic in view of his former incarnation as a Soviet trained guerrilla known as rhe Black Russian) and then was coaxed into Mugabe's cabinet. (Readers are asked to forgive me for so boringly and repetitively invoking the name of Mugabe because it is really rather pointless avoiding the fact that it is from him that all else flows in today's policy making in the country). Back to Dabengwa: by 1997, as Minister of Home Affairs, he functioned as the man responsible for the police until he lost his Matabeleland seat in parliament to a member of the opposition MDC party. He was pretty quiet until his recent move to openly challenge Mugabe at a recent ZANU (PF) party politburo meeting. Angered by Mugabe's cavalier treatment of his vice-president when RGM showed huge favour to Jabulani Sibanda, the disreputable, dismissed `war vet' leader in Matabeleland and sycophant-in-chief to Mugabe, Dabengwa has resurfaced. Seconded by Msika and supported by party chairman John Nkomo and others they look set to fracture the delicate peace between the Matabeleland and Midlands region and old enemies in Mashonaland. I heard Fergal Keane on the BBC today saying that the mayhem in Kenya was not a manifestation of tribalism: he claimed that it is poverty which causes people in different regions within African states to attack each other - or something like that. I cannot agree that tribalism is a fiction, or a convenient and simplistic, white man's way to explain the black-on-black bloodletting that goes on in so many parts of Africa. In Zimbabwe's case the differences between the people of Matabeleland and those of Mashonaland go very deep and well beyond the era of white settlement. Mugabe, in his arrogance is tempting fate, forgetting that the Unity Accord, however fragile, has kept internal `tribal' peace as a vital part of his country's sovereignty. Pleasing Jabulani, rather than Joseph and Dumisa et all may eventually prove to be yet another nail in his coffin.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell




Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell

A King-sized Political Cock-up

When I read yesterday about the political shenanigans between the former, Ndebele ZAPU members of Mugabe's political elite and his Shona ZANU (PF)adherents my heart sank. As if poor, broken Zimbabwe was not in enough trouble already, this apparent reappearance of old, so-called `tribal' animosities is the pits.

My information is that the Ndebeles, from whichever quarter are fed-up with the way they have been treated by the overlord Robert Mugabe, especially as they were virtually force-fed the 1987 Unity Accord (another `so-called' it seems) which old Joshua Nkomo had to swallow in order to save his people in Matabeleland from what looked like an attempt by Mugabe's lot at genocide in the Gukurahundi atrocities. An uneasy peace has lasted ten years and Nkomo is long gone. But his right-hand man Joseph Msika lives on, placated, bribed, if you like, by high office as one of Zimbabwe's two vice-Presidents. Until recently he has been remarkably loyal to his present boss.

We had almost forgotten about Dumiso Dabengwa, the former Zipra commander, jailed by Mugabe after independence (was it perhaps to prevent him from leading a revolt against the Shona who had grabbed most of the spoils of the liberation war?). Anyway, he was released after nearly five years; he made good as a business magnate and then was coaxed into Mugabe's cabinet. (Readers are asked to forgive me for so boringly and repetitively invoking the name of Mugabe because it is really rather pointless avoiding the fact that it is from him that all else flows in today's policy making in the country). Back to Dabengwa: by 1997, as Minister of Home Affairs, he functioned as the man responsible for the police until he lost his seat in parliament to a member of the opposition. He was pretty quiet until his recent move to openly challenge Mugabe at a recent ZANU (PF) party politburo meeting. Angered by Mugabe's cavalier treatment of his vice-president in the matter of showing huge favour to the disreputable dismissed `war vet' leader in Matabeleland, one Jabulani Sibanda, sycophant-in-chief to Mugabe, Dabengwa has resurfaced. Seconded by Msika and supported by party chairman John Nkomo and others they look set to fracture the delicate peace between the Matabeleland and Midlands region and old enemies in Mashonaland. I heard Fergal Keane on the BBC today saying that the mayhem in Kenya was not a manifestation of tribalism: he claimed that it is poverty which causes people in different regions within African states to attack each other - or something like that. I cannot agree that tribalism is a fiction, or a convenient and simplistic, white man's way to explain the black-on-black bloodletting that goes on in so many parts of Africa. In Zimbabwe's case the differences between the people of Matabeleland and those of Mashonaland go very deep and well beyond the era of white settlement. Mugabe, in his arrogance is tempting fate, forgetting that the Unity Accord, however fragile, has kept internal `tribal' peace as a vital part of his country's sovereignty. Pleasing Jabulani, rather than Joseph and Dumisa et all may eventually prove to be yet another nail in his coffin.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell

At a book launch, London 2007

This blog awaits a description of the launch of Peter Godwin's book "When a Crocodile Eats the Sun. Picador (2007).
The pic is of my daughter and Peter Godwin at the launch in London, 2007.

 


Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell

Ian Douglas Smith 1919 - 2007

Last month I penned an obituary which was published in The Zimbabwean. Because so many of my (former)Rhodesian and (current)Zimbabwean friends and acquaintances as well as old political adversaries are scattered over the face of the earth, I forwarded copies per email to a couple of dozen email addresses. Naturally, the people with whom I remain in contact are almost uniformly political think-alikes and/or fellow opposition activists who doubted the wisdom of UDI and all that followed. I know only too well the mindset of my white contemporaries, the majority of whom so keenly placed their trust in Smith's leadership. There was no happy ending for any of us.
The responses to the obit are flowing in and for history's sake I welcome them, the many bouquets as well as a few brickbats. However, I am fully aware of how irrelevant all this seems now that Zimbabwe has been so long in the grip of the tyrant Robert Mugabe. But here, for the record, is the testimony of one Zimbabwe-born, `consistent' and unrepentant opponent of the policies of a former frontiersman, the recently departed Ian Smith:

P 15 – The Zimbabwean 29 November -5 December
IAN DOUGLAS SMITH: OBITUARY

Smith’s intransigence was Mugabe’s opportunity

IF IT HAD NOT BEEN FOR THE REPRESSIVE POLICIES OF SMITH AND THE RF, WHICH LED TO THE VICIOUS BUSH WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE, THERE IS NO WAY PEOPLE WOULD HAVE WELCOMED SOMEBODY LIKE MUGABE WITH OPEN ARMS IN 1980.



Ian Douglas Smith, the last white Prime Minister of Rhodesia, aroused passionate debate in his heyday - and this is being replayed after his death on November 20, 2007. The “Western Christian civilization” which he purported to defend requires that we should not speak ill of the dead, but it seems dishonest to pretend that his legacy of a lost, un-winnable, war against his own indigenous population, has been wiped out by his final exit.

In the first days following the news of the peaceful ending of his long life, far from the country he undoubtedly loved, it is hard to forget the effect of his iron-willed, white supremacist policies on the lives of a largely un-enfranchised black majority.
Today, a great leap of selective memory has come crashing down on to the name of his successor, the black man’s liberator turned evil oppressor, Robert Gabriel Mugabe. It is as if Mugabe’s disastrous rule is the inevitable consequence of not allowing Smith’s Rhodesian Front party to rule for the “thousand years” that he promised. That is not right. Ian Smith’s intransigence was Mugabe’s opportunity.

In media flashbacks, Ian Smith is repeatedly shown uttering his vow: “No majority rule – ever”. He stuck to it until early in 1978 when a brutal and bloody war, forced him to change his tune. On March 3 he made a belated attempt to get an “internal settlement”, giving limited power to moderate blacks led by Bishop Abel Muzorewa.
Then within months, after his erstwhile supporters in apartheid South Africa “betrayed” (his word) and abandoned him he had no choice but to renege on his UDI promises and, at Lancaster House, get the best deal he and Muzorewa could with the militant nationalist leaders (Mugabe and Nkomo).

Ironically, the midwife of the rebel Smith’s “final settlement” of its constitutional dispute with Britain turned out to be his enemy, the British government itself. Further, the changeling “babe” Mugabe was to become the personification of the RF’s self-fulfilling prophecy that a black government would yield “One man, one vote – once”.
If Smith, unlike the tyrant Mugabe, really agreed to go to the negotiating table to save the country, he could have saved it well before the guerilla war got under way in 1972. His worshipping, white electorate might have mandated him to share power with the leaders of “the happiest Africans in the world” before the masses were made unhappy by being assured that they would never be allowed to own their African soil.
In the context of the Cold War era, Smith’s overplayed anti-Communist propaganda yielded another self-fulfilling prophecy: Rhodesia fell into the hands of an avowed Marxist Leninist autocrat.

The son of an immigrant Scottish butcher, Smith was born in 1919 in Shurugwe, a small, Southern Rhodesian mining town. He began his political career by joining (in 1948), the inappropriately named, Liberal Party which was opposed to Prime Minister Huggins policies of gradual racial integration.
His commerce degree studies at Rhodes University were interrupted by WW2 service in 237 (Rhodesia) Squadron of the RAF. His reputation as a war hero, shot down over Italy and joining the partisans before escaping to Britain, was widely acclaimed. He certainly had charismatic appeal for the large majority of Rhodesian whites. Tragically, many sacrificed their sons to the lost cause of the “bush” war.
Smith’s political career had moved from early conservatism to a more enlightened period during the Federal experiment (1953 – 63) when he was Chief Whip of the UFP (United Federal Party). A ranching farmer, he moved again to the Right and eventually helped to found the RF. In the 15 years that he ruled Rhodesia there was no deflecting his stubborn refusal to face the facts of de-colonization in Africa.
He was egged on by an 80% majority of a deluded, tiny white electorate and by his preferred clutch of ultra-conservative civil servants (Hostes Nicolle, the notorious secretary for Internal Affairs being the most influential), his domineering party Chairman, “Des” Frost and the iron-fisted, legal luminary (another Desmond) Lardner-Burke.

When, as Prime Minister in 1965, he declared his UDI (Unilateral Declaration of Independence) wiser heads were ignored or ignominiously sacked or chose to resign or to depart the country.
His policies were racially discriminatory towards the aspirations of blacks although, by his own admission, they were among the best educated on the African continent. More than three quarters of the rural, black population wanted, nay, needed, more and better land but he ignored wise counsel.
The will of his most powerful backers among white land-owners and businesses with vested interests in maintaining the status quo, always prevailed. The rural poor, however blessed with full bellies, a functioning health system and other the trickle-down benefits of a flourishing agro-based economy, were unwilling to be denied equal access to the good life of the average white citizen. Progress towards racial integration, made during Federation with Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Nyasaland (Malawi) was arrested or turned back Like his successor, Mugabe, he was determined to hold on to power.
A veteran black journalist puts the run up to the double catastrophe of Rhodesian Ian Smith and Zimbabwean Robert Mugabe further back in time: “If gradualism had happened back in the 50s there is NO WAY people would have welcomed somebody like Mugabe with open arms in 1980; all they wanted was an end to the war.”
Smith’s autobiography, “The Great Betrayal” said little of the perspectives of black Zimbabweans and, as Mugabe is currently doing, he blamed everybody but himself for the eventual collapse of a potentially great country. - Diana Mitchell

Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell