Crying for Zimbabwe

As Spring 2008 wore on I had the distinct impression that we were witnessing the implosion of what were once considered two "sure things:" (1) the stability of Zimbabwe; and (2) Hillary Clinton's campaign for the Democratic nomination for President. The latter is no tragedy, really; but the former is a huge tragedy in so many ways. Zimbabwe's three latest manifestations of coming apart at the seams are the arrest and threat to US Ambassador James D. McGhee, and English diplomats, by Mugabe's "veteran" troops (i.e., the ones who have benefitted from the largesse of his rule); the detention of opposition Presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai on two occasions; and the suspension of international aid agencies from helping the people of this inflation-torn, increasingly impecunious and desperate land.

Ambassador McGhee has laid out the issue very clearly. He says the Government is using food now as a weapon to ensure its success in the June 27 Presidential run-off election. Here is how he explained it. When impoverished and hungry people of the opposition party (Tsvangirai's party is called the Movement for Democratic Change--MDC) come to government facilities for food, they must surrender their personal ID cards to get food. These cards are necessary in order for a person to vote. Members of Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF party in the same situation are not required to give up their identity cards. If there is a clearer indication of Mugabe's intention to hold onto power by any means necessary, I don't know one.

The reason we should weep for Zimbabwe is that it not only was once a country of so much promise--called the "bread basket" of Africa, but that it began its life as the independent country of Zimbabwe in 1980 with lots of optimism. But the heavy hand of British colonialism was starkly evident in this colony (formerly called Southern Rhodesia, named after the 19th century imperialist whom we honor in the prizes given to leading scientists and peace-makers each year) in the 1960s and beyond, and the issue that continually stuck in the craw of the first generation of Black leaders was the issue of land. This article neatly explains how the land issue has been defined since the colony was declared to be owned by the English Crown, and not the British South Africa Company, in 1918.

In the remainder of this article I will mention the development of my awareness of political and economic realities in this unfortunate place, culminating in some statements about how the issue of land provided the occasion for Zimbabwe's (former) relative affluence and (now) its problems.

First Stirrings

My first acquaintance with the world in general came through my philately-inclined father. He had only traveled to Europe (if "travel" is the right word) during WWII, where he fought and was injured in the Battle of the Bulge, but even before the 1940s he collected postage stamps from around the world. When I was growing up in CT in the 1950s-1960s, I used his beaten-up old stamp book. Marveling at how my dad could have collected stamps from regions as various as Azerbaijan to Zululand (as both were known early in the 20th century), I too eagerly gathered stamps from all over the world. Some of my favorites, apart from all the brilliantly-colored stamps from San Marino and Monaco, were those from Southern Rhodesia (contemporary Zimbabwe). I especially loved the stamps portraying Victoria Falls. I knew of Niagara Falls, which I actually never visited, but to see the falls on these stamps made me wonder about the beauty and exoticism of this land. Then, I also liked the heads of British royalty, especially the new and young queen Elizabeth, which were in little circles at the side of some stamps, with the rest of the stamp depicting the people engaged in some industrious purusit (such as agriculture). Southern Rhodesia seemed like a sort of romantic getaway to me, and when it combined with neighboring Nyasaland (they, it seemed to me, had elephants and giraffes on their stamps) in the early 1960s, I though that this was a sort of undiscovered paradise in Africa.

Power to the People

In the 1970s I was, like millions of American college students, fed the mother's milk of soft-core Marxism, primarily in the form of criticism of the United States and elevation of "independence movements" around the globe. And, indeed, the times were "a changin'." Few people could really defend the position that Britain should continue to exercise actual control over large swaths of the world thousands of miles from the halls of Westminster. So, in the late 1970s, I was one of those who was all for the independence of Zimbabwe, and I probably supported the handsome and more "Western-looking" Mugabe over his obese antagonist Joshua Nkomo. But I had no real understanding of any of the historical realities of the place, other than that "the people" (a term I heard thrown around a lot in the late 1970s) had to be free. So, I went along with it, as did those around me, and I celebrated the independence of Zimbabwe and roundly criticized Ian Smith and other Whites for holding on to the last vestiges of their power when they represented only 3% of the population.

III. Today

But then, in the 1990s and this decade, I began to understand the complexity of the "land" issue, both as an economic and political issue. It is an economic issue, of course, because the land nurtured the people--until the 1990s. Then, because of confiscations under the 1992 Land Acquisition Act, abrogating the "willing seller, willing buyer" approach of the original 1979 Lancaster House Agreement, a larger and larger portion of land was taken from people with skill in land cultivation and given to those whose major skill was that they were loyal to Mugabe. Hence, in the 1990s, the "major business" in Zimbabwe went from agriculture to mining and tourism. Then, when the economic bottom fell out more fully in the 2000s, tourism collapsed. Because people who now were on confiscated lands, in general, lacked agricultural experience, the banks were reluctant to lend money to them for equipment purchase/lease. All the features of economic collapse were in place; time only was needed.

But land also became a political issue because of its symbolic power. It was a symbol of a system that every self-respecting Zimbabwean citizen was taught to detest--where a few white people got the best land to cultivate, while the "people" were placed in impoverished conditions. Thus, anyone making the argument that it might be good to keep agricultural expertise around in the country could easily be shouted down because that person was simply, as the argument went, an apologist for an oppressive racial system. When land, the biggest gift the people enjoyed, thus became a symbolic and economic burden, the collapse of the country was not far away.

Conclusion

So, what is to be done, both by people in the country and those of us outside? Talks are proceeding, as the news tells us, to form a joint GNU party--with both Mugabe and Tsvangirai as leaders. If Hillary and Barack can barely agree to stay in the same party/room, how long do you think such an arrangement will work in Zimbabwe? So, internal affairs are problematic. What can we outsiders do? I don't really know. I think crying is best at this point.

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