Why The West Is Less Influential in Zimbabwe?
Preamble
A genius musician composes a hit song in a matter of minutes. A political leader is more schooled and astute than an average musician. He thinks quickly on his feet in a shortest space of time. It’s a primal instinct of his political animal. In this article we take an analytical look at the Constitutional Conference at Lancaster House, the single most important factor, the treachery of self-interest, the advent of Tony Blair, the promise of majority rule and the contentious points of the conference and why the current stalemate in Zimbabwe.
Convening of the Lancaster House
The Lancaster House Constitutional Conference in London England, headed by the highly respected British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Lord Carrington, convened for 99 days where 47 plenary sessions were conducted. The Conference began on September 10 and concluded on December 15 of 1979. If we were to convert the time to hours it works out at 2 376 hours and if you prefer minutes we are looking at a whopping 142 560 minutes! Following our musician analogy with respect to the Lancaster House Constitutional Conference such a musician would have had nearly 30 000 chances of coming up with a ground-breaking masterpiece assuming an ability to compose a song in 5 minutes. This is huge because in the jungle you only have one chance.
Single Most Important Factor
In the sessions while architecting independence for Zimbabwe there was one single most important factor that remained pivotal (for better or for worse) in the future stability of an independent Zimbabwe and that was a guarantee of a genuine majority rule. Dr. Joshua Nkomo addressed this issue to Lord Carrington in the Lancaster House Constitutional Conference when he said "Zimbabwe must be a sovereign Republic in which the sovereign nation pursues its own destiny, totally unshackled by any fetters or constraints." The italics are mine.
Lord Carrington seemed to resonate with Dr. Nkomo’s impassioned plea for the concept of a genuine majority rule when he referred to the assurances made prior by the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Lusaka during the Commonwealth meeting there. Lord Carrington said "Agreement has been reached on an Independence Constitution providing for genuine majority rule and thereby removing the fundamental cause of the war”. The italics are mine. Now keep in mind that the Nkomo/Mugabe team had no input in formulating and drafting the constitutional outline now put before them. Their role was to react to what was put before them. They only had four weeks to consider the constitutional proposals for a new country prior to the convening of the Lancaster House Constitutional Conference.
The Treachery of Self-Interest
Lord Carrington had underscored the vital fact of a genuine majority rule which injected good vibes into the conference. Nonetheless by the time everything was said and done the Annex D of the Lancaster House Agreement was thus written “The Constitution gives full effect to the principle of genuine majority rule and will give the government of independent Zimbabwe the powers it needs to carry out the policies on the basis of which it is elected."
Note my italics! If you are new to the subtleties of the English language you would be fooled into thinking that the wishes of Dr. Joshua Nkomo and Mr. Robert Mugabe had been fulfilled by the above entry in the agreement. Don’t touch that down because you are in for a rude awakening. If an English man says he agrees with you in principle that does not imply an agreement per se. It’s one form of reasoning that guarantees to fail the fundamental objective unless the “principled” person is persuaded otherwise.
In my contextual poetry book A Goodbye To My Little Troubles I wrote a piece “Mystery Love” where the contextual commentary refers to the juxtaposition of “intellectual honesty” and “deceptive reasoning”. The highly respected Lord Carrington had an opportunity to steer Zimbabwe in the direction of a genuine majority rule but it was not to be. I can only think of one reason why a politician would not exercise his superior fluency in problem solving and that is when he is motivated by an instinctive need to protect some self-interest.
Moreover, the independence to Zimbabwe was granted under one harsh precondition that stipulated the exclusion from discussion of the land issue. Dr. Kenneth Kaunda who had persuaded both Dr. Nkomo and Mr. Mugabe to hold talks with Britain by virtue of his friendship with Margaret Thatcher, his dance floor partner at the time, would later refer to Britain’s betrayal.
The British Prime Minister had consistently insisted on Zimbabwe becoming independent but leaving the land issue to the British Government on the promise that the land issue would be dealt with after 10 years during which time Britain would find money to fund the land redistribution on a “willing seller, willing buyer” basis. Ten years later this issue was not dealt with and Britain was not forthcoming on the land issue. The Zimbabwe people at this point had become frustrated with the dubious and acrobatic answers on the question of land distribution. Zimbabwe’s repertoire of answers on why people had to wait more than ten years without land had overreached itself. Interestingly, the neighbouring South Africa did not take a page from Zimbabwe’s paradox because South Africa went down the same failed road of “willing seller, willing buyer” when they achieved their own independence in 1994. Coincidentally, this is the same year that the British Prime Minister John Major successfully recommended to the Queen the knighthood for Mr. Mugabe, making him a British knight on shining armour! The shine on the armour was not bright enough to eclipse the people’s rumblings on the ground about the land.
The Advent of Tony Blair
After many years of inaction on the land issue, the new Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1997 created a new department International Development headed by a very young and impressive Irish young lady Ms. Clare Short cousin to the famous Canadian Hollywood star Martin Short of Hamilton, Ontario. This is what used to be the old colonial office but with a new and catchy name. Everybody had a good feeling about Prime Minister Blair even Dr. Kaunda wrote a praise poem in Tony Blair’s honour. Something strange followed his arrival. The already weak pulse of the land issue suddenly stopped. Dr. Kaunda would later blame Ms. Clare Short for dropping the ball on the Zimbabwe land issue.
The Promise of Genuine Majority
In the final analysis Zimbabwe got its independence in 1980 but the promise of a genuine majority rule had been betrayed. The White Zimbabweans were given special rights and guarantees whereby a certain number of parliamentary seats could not be contested by the Native Zimbabweans and more than 80% of the land was reserved for a mere 3% of the population (the White Zimbabweans). The White Zimbabweans had it both ways i.e. they could chew gum and walk at the same time.
What Lord Carrington referred to as the solution to the cause of war became a residual cause of a future unstable Zimbabwe. It’s well known that Mr. Mugabe did not particularly want to sign the Lancaster House Agreement without some concrete guarantees on the land for his people. He was pressured into signing it. To this day he continues to be irked by it. To help you understand the pressure, let’s consider the composition of the delegates. There were three delegations to the Lancaster House i.e. Lord Carrington and his British delegation, Dr. Nkomo and Mr. Mugabe and their the Patriotic Front delegation and Bishop Muzorewa and his delegation which consisted of the former Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith and others. Bishop Muzorewa’s delegation was mostly dominated by the White Zimbabweans.
There were a total of 64 delegates. Interestingly the British and the Bishop Muzorewa delegations were equally represented at 22 delegates each whereas the Nkomo/Mugabe delegation was only 20 delegates. Since Bishop Muzorewa was on the side of the British for all intents and purposes it stands to reason that the Nkomo/Mugabe delegation was outnumbered by more than 2 to 1. So the pressure to accept the unacceptable was an inevitability that proved detrimental to the long term interests of the Nkomo/Mugabe delegation and thus the people of Zimbabwe. Mr. Mugabe was to be later rewarded with a knighthood by the British for signing the accord and also to keep him on side and not make too many waves on the land issue. We know today that the knighthood has since been revoked as of June 25 of 2008.
Contentious Points of the Conference
The contentious points included the blocking power given to the White minority with respect to a variety of legislative powers, the civil service, commissions and the land distribution. In plain English it meant the jobs of White civil servants were guaranteed to the exclusion of the Africans on the basis of race and that the White minority who only formed a 3% of the Zimbabwe population were allowed to own more than 80% of the land which they had gotten for free under colonial rule. Amazingly, this also meant that some British citizens were allowed to own a piece of Zimbabwe even the though they didn’t live in Zimbabwe while the native Zimbabweans remained landless.
This is what infuriated Mr. Mugabe when he frequently referred to it as absentee landlords. Despite the British and American promises through President Jimmy Carter’s Ambassador Mr. Andrew Young to financially assist the new country with land distribution using the above mentioned principle of “willing buyer, willing seller” under the Anglo-American Proposals in the UN, very little changed. Needless to say both Britain and America eventually reneged on that commitment and Zimbabwe was left to fend for herself in the cruel jungle of landlessness which only led to the deterioration of what is otherwise an extremely beautiful motherland with the most industrious people I have met in my life. This flies in the face of Britain having been warned by the late President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania against trying to have it both ways i.e. denying land to the Africans while at the same taking away from the landless people of Zimbabwe to compensate the White colonial settlers who had taken the land under the barrel of the “gun” in the first place.
Who can help shed more light on why Britain reneged on her promise to Zimbabwe? Ms. Clare Short is a seemingly straightforward and credible individual who parted ways with Prime Minister Tony Blair over Iraq. She would be the right person to give us more input with respect to Britain’s failure to honour its commitment to resolving the land issue of Zimbabwe. I continue to be puzzled by the letter she wrote to Zimbabwe in 1997 disavowing any colonial responsibility towards Zimbabwe with respect to land redistribution. Ms. Short even went so far as to say she was Irish and since the Irish were the colonized and not the colonizers she was not going to have anything to do with this issue of the land in Zimbabwe. I don’t believe this was her intention. She would have been pressured by Tony Blair whom she later accuses of a dictatorial and presidential style of leadership. I still consider her worthy of a credible input in this matter. The Irish are great people whom I respect greatly. This lady was a Sinn Fein’s cadre prior to joining the Government.
Dr. Kenneth Kaunda is another important person that could help us understand and come up with fresh ideas because he is the one who persuaded Margaret Thatcher to hold a constitutional conference on the Zimbabwe independence. Another would have been Dr. Nkomo. Unfortunately Dr. Nkomo is no more and I still fondly remember him when I translated for him in Botswana as published in my book A Goodbye To My Little Troubles. He would be steering us in the right direction on this matter as well.
In the eyes of ordinary Zimbabweans Britain and America had betrayed them. Thus the West had lost credibility in Zimbabwe. Today any country including our beloved great Canada becomes guilty by association and will not have a credible influence in Zimbabwe. Canada will need a fresh start and a point of departure from her allies in order to add her credible voice in the resolution of Zimbabwe’s crisis. Canada could be the most important partner of Zimbabwe if she chose to address the issue in a more original and respectful manner towards the people of Zimbabwe and not walk down the same failed path as done by those who have gone before her. Additionally, Canada has a natural interface on this crisis by virtue of the fact that the honourable Ms. Clare Martin is a cousin of a famous Canadian.
The Current Stalemate
Mr. Mugabe, despite his legitimate basis for discontent, has gone about this whole situation in a self-destructing fashion. He should have shown some finesse as exhibited by the living legend Mr. Nelson Mandela in the face of impossible odds. As if this is not bad enough, Mr. Mugabe went on to alienate, while still alive, one of the greatest human beings on the face of the planet Dr. Joshua Nkomo. When Mr. Mugabe unleashed his killer machine upon the family of Dr. Nkomo this was the last straw that broke the camel’s back in terms of maintaining any personal credibility with the moderate voices.
The Fifth Brigade, also known by the Shona name Gukurahundi meaning “the rain that washes away the chaff” before the advent of spring, committed war crimes against the Ndebele speaking people where around 20 000 unarmed people were slaughtered. It’s incredible that the Queen of England bestowed the rare honour of knighthood upon Mr. Mugabe despite this dark chapter in history. The only reason why the knighthood has been revoked is because of Mr. Mugabe’s rocking of the boat with respect to the land issue. Otherwise the Queen seemingly had no problem with the massacres of the Ndebeles. Shouldn’t it be that the sanctity of human life is more of a priority than protecting the economic interests of a White minority in Zimbabwe? Not according to the Queen. At least she wouldn’t have bestowed the honour if she upheld the sanctity of Ndebele lives.
Don’t expect the African leaders to take radical action against Mr. Mugabe. He started off on the right footing but strayed along the way. Just like a great athlete who did well since entering the grueling marathon but now began to slow down and careen in a misguided blitz of frustration when nearing the finish line, Mr. Mugabe is now headed in the wrong direction. The crucial thing about the finish line is that it’s where the sorcerers and voodoo powers converge to spook the finish line and powerfully inject venomous doubts and derailment in the heart of the front running athlete. Only the chosen one fortified with special Zulu powers can break through the arresting wizardry.
The lack of credibility on the part of the West makes it nearly impossible to make progress in the current stalemate. The first line of attack in breaking the stalemate is to reestablish credibility.
Conclusion
We have shown that Britain’s harsh condition of muzzling discussion on the land issue as part of the independence package was a fundamental cause of future instability in Zimbabwe. The elder statesman and former President of Zambia Dr. Kenneth Kaunda and Ms. Clare Short hold some keys in terms of helping move the crisis in Zimbabwe towards a more credible and lasting solution.
About the Author
Vusi Moloi is a published author of a contextual poetry book A Goodbye To My Little Troubles and a former South African Television Journalist. He was the translator for the former Vice-President of Zimbabwe Dr. Joshua Nkomo as well as the former Minister of State Security of Zimbabwe Mr. Emmerson Mnangagwa in Botswana in 1988. You can learn more about the author by reading his book.
A genius musician composes a hit song in a matter of minutes. A political leader is more schooled and astute than an average musician. He thinks quickly on his feet in a shortest space of time. It’s a primal instinct of his political animal. In this article we take an analytical look at the Constitutional Conference at Lancaster House, the single most important factor, the treachery of self-interest, the advent of Tony Blair, the promise of majority rule and the contentious points of the conference and why the current stalemate in Zimbabwe.
Convening of the Lancaster House
The Lancaster House Constitutional Conference in London England, headed by the highly respected British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Lord Carrington, convened for 99 days where 47 plenary sessions were conducted. The Conference began on September 10 and concluded on December 15 of 1979. If we were to convert the time to hours it works out at 2 376 hours and if you prefer minutes we are looking at a whopping 142 560 minutes! Following our musician analogy with respect to the Lancaster House Constitutional Conference such a musician would have had nearly 30 000 chances of coming up with a ground-breaking masterpiece assuming an ability to compose a song in 5 minutes. This is huge because in the jungle you only have one chance.
Single Most Important Factor
In the sessions while architecting independence for Zimbabwe there was one single most important factor that remained pivotal (for better or for worse) in the future stability of an independent Zimbabwe and that was a guarantee of a genuine majority rule. Dr. Joshua Nkomo addressed this issue to Lord Carrington in the Lancaster House Constitutional Conference when he said "Zimbabwe must be a sovereign Republic in which the sovereign nation pursues its own destiny, totally unshackled by any fetters or constraints." The italics are mine.
Lord Carrington seemed to resonate with Dr. Nkomo’s impassioned plea for the concept of a genuine majority rule when he referred to the assurances made prior by the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Lusaka during the Commonwealth meeting there. Lord Carrington said "Agreement has been reached on an Independence Constitution providing for genuine majority rule and thereby removing the fundamental cause of the war”. The italics are mine. Now keep in mind that the Nkomo/Mugabe team had no input in formulating and drafting the constitutional outline now put before them. Their role was to react to what was put before them. They only had four weeks to consider the constitutional proposals for a new country prior to the convening of the Lancaster House Constitutional Conference.
The Treachery of Self-Interest
Lord Carrington had underscored the vital fact of a genuine majority rule which injected good vibes into the conference. Nonetheless by the time everything was said and done the Annex D of the Lancaster House Agreement was thus written “The Constitution gives full effect to the principle of genuine majority rule and will give the government of independent Zimbabwe the powers it needs to carry out the policies on the basis of which it is elected."
Note my italics! If you are new to the subtleties of the English language you would be fooled into thinking that the wishes of Dr. Joshua Nkomo and Mr. Robert Mugabe had been fulfilled by the above entry in the agreement. Don’t touch that down because you are in for a rude awakening. If an English man says he agrees with you in principle that does not imply an agreement per se. It’s one form of reasoning that guarantees to fail the fundamental objective unless the “principled” person is persuaded otherwise.
In my contextual poetry book A Goodbye To My Little Troubles I wrote a piece “Mystery Love” where the contextual commentary refers to the juxtaposition of “intellectual honesty” and “deceptive reasoning”. The highly respected Lord Carrington had an opportunity to steer Zimbabwe in the direction of a genuine majority rule but it was not to be. I can only think of one reason why a politician would not exercise his superior fluency in problem solving and that is when he is motivated by an instinctive need to protect some self-interest.
Moreover, the independence to Zimbabwe was granted under one harsh precondition that stipulated the exclusion from discussion of the land issue. Dr. Kenneth Kaunda who had persuaded both Dr. Nkomo and Mr. Mugabe to hold talks with Britain by virtue of his friendship with Margaret Thatcher, his dance floor partner at the time, would later refer to Britain’s betrayal.
The British Prime Minister had consistently insisted on Zimbabwe becoming independent but leaving the land issue to the British Government on the promise that the land issue would be dealt with after 10 years during which time Britain would find money to fund the land redistribution on a “willing seller, willing buyer” basis. Ten years later this issue was not dealt with and Britain was not forthcoming on the land issue. The Zimbabwe people at this point had become frustrated with the dubious and acrobatic answers on the question of land distribution. Zimbabwe’s repertoire of answers on why people had to wait more than ten years without land had overreached itself. Interestingly, the neighbouring South Africa did not take a page from Zimbabwe’s paradox because South Africa went down the same failed road of “willing seller, willing buyer” when they achieved their own independence in 1994. Coincidentally, this is the same year that the British Prime Minister John Major successfully recommended to the Queen the knighthood for Mr. Mugabe, making him a British knight on shining armour! The shine on the armour was not bright enough to eclipse the people’s rumblings on the ground about the land.
The Advent of Tony Blair
After many years of inaction on the land issue, the new Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1997 created a new department International Development headed by a very young and impressive Irish young lady Ms. Clare Short cousin to the famous Canadian Hollywood star Martin Short of Hamilton, Ontario. This is what used to be the old colonial office but with a new and catchy name. Everybody had a good feeling about Prime Minister Blair even Dr. Kaunda wrote a praise poem in Tony Blair’s honour. Something strange followed his arrival. The already weak pulse of the land issue suddenly stopped. Dr. Kaunda would later blame Ms. Clare Short for dropping the ball on the Zimbabwe land issue.
The Promise of Genuine Majority
In the final analysis Zimbabwe got its independence in 1980 but the promise of a genuine majority rule had been betrayed. The White Zimbabweans were given special rights and guarantees whereby a certain number of parliamentary seats could not be contested by the Native Zimbabweans and more than 80% of the land was reserved for a mere 3% of the population (the White Zimbabweans). The White Zimbabweans had it both ways i.e. they could chew gum and walk at the same time.
What Lord Carrington referred to as the solution to the cause of war became a residual cause of a future unstable Zimbabwe. It’s well known that Mr. Mugabe did not particularly want to sign the Lancaster House Agreement without some concrete guarantees on the land for his people. He was pressured into signing it. To this day he continues to be irked by it. To help you understand the pressure, let’s consider the composition of the delegates. There were three delegations to the Lancaster House i.e. Lord Carrington and his British delegation, Dr. Nkomo and Mr. Mugabe and their the Patriotic Front delegation and Bishop Muzorewa and his delegation which consisted of the former Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith and others. Bishop Muzorewa’s delegation was mostly dominated by the White Zimbabweans.
There were a total of 64 delegates. Interestingly the British and the Bishop Muzorewa delegations were equally represented at 22 delegates each whereas the Nkomo/Mugabe delegation was only 20 delegates. Since Bishop Muzorewa was on the side of the British for all intents and purposes it stands to reason that the Nkomo/Mugabe delegation was outnumbered by more than 2 to 1. So the pressure to accept the unacceptable was an inevitability that proved detrimental to the long term interests of the Nkomo/Mugabe delegation and thus the people of Zimbabwe. Mr. Mugabe was to be later rewarded with a knighthood by the British for signing the accord and also to keep him on side and not make too many waves on the land issue. We know today that the knighthood has since been revoked as of June 25 of 2008.
Contentious Points of the Conference
The contentious points included the blocking power given to the White minority with respect to a variety of legislative powers, the civil service, commissions and the land distribution. In plain English it meant the jobs of White civil servants were guaranteed to the exclusion of the Africans on the basis of race and that the White minority who only formed a 3% of the Zimbabwe population were allowed to own more than 80% of the land which they had gotten for free under colonial rule. Amazingly, this also meant that some British citizens were allowed to own a piece of Zimbabwe even the though they didn’t live in Zimbabwe while the native Zimbabweans remained landless.
This is what infuriated Mr. Mugabe when he frequently referred to it as absentee landlords. Despite the British and American promises through President Jimmy Carter’s Ambassador Mr. Andrew Young to financially assist the new country with land distribution using the above mentioned principle of “willing buyer, willing seller” under the Anglo-American Proposals in the UN, very little changed. Needless to say both Britain and America eventually reneged on that commitment and Zimbabwe was left to fend for herself in the cruel jungle of landlessness which only led to the deterioration of what is otherwise an extremely beautiful motherland with the most industrious people I have met in my life. This flies in the face of Britain having been warned by the late President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania against trying to have it both ways i.e. denying land to the Africans while at the same taking away from the landless people of Zimbabwe to compensate the White colonial settlers who had taken the land under the barrel of the “gun” in the first place.
Who can help shed more light on why Britain reneged on her promise to Zimbabwe? Ms. Clare Short is a seemingly straightforward and credible individual who parted ways with Prime Minister Tony Blair over Iraq. She would be the right person to give us more input with respect to Britain’s failure to honour its commitment to resolving the land issue of Zimbabwe. I continue to be puzzled by the letter she wrote to Zimbabwe in 1997 disavowing any colonial responsibility towards Zimbabwe with respect to land redistribution. Ms. Short even went so far as to say she was Irish and since the Irish were the colonized and not the colonizers she was not going to have anything to do with this issue of the land in Zimbabwe. I don’t believe this was her intention. She would have been pressured by Tony Blair whom she later accuses of a dictatorial and presidential style of leadership. I still consider her worthy of a credible input in this matter. The Irish are great people whom I respect greatly. This lady was a Sinn Fein’s cadre prior to joining the Government.
Dr. Kenneth Kaunda is another important person that could help us understand and come up with fresh ideas because he is the one who persuaded Margaret Thatcher to hold a constitutional conference on the Zimbabwe independence. Another would have been Dr. Nkomo. Unfortunately Dr. Nkomo is no more and I still fondly remember him when I translated for him in Botswana as published in my book A Goodbye To My Little Troubles. He would be steering us in the right direction on this matter as well.
In the eyes of ordinary Zimbabweans Britain and America had betrayed them. Thus the West had lost credibility in Zimbabwe. Today any country including our beloved great Canada becomes guilty by association and will not have a credible influence in Zimbabwe. Canada will need a fresh start and a point of departure from her allies in order to add her credible voice in the resolution of Zimbabwe’s crisis. Canada could be the most important partner of Zimbabwe if she chose to address the issue in a more original and respectful manner towards the people of Zimbabwe and not walk down the same failed path as done by those who have gone before her. Additionally, Canada has a natural interface on this crisis by virtue of the fact that the honourable Ms. Clare Martin is a cousin of a famous Canadian.
The Current Stalemate
Mr. Mugabe, despite his legitimate basis for discontent, has gone about this whole situation in a self-destructing fashion. He should have shown some finesse as exhibited by the living legend Mr. Nelson Mandela in the face of impossible odds. As if this is not bad enough, Mr. Mugabe went on to alienate, while still alive, one of the greatest human beings on the face of the planet Dr. Joshua Nkomo. When Mr. Mugabe unleashed his killer machine upon the family of Dr. Nkomo this was the last straw that broke the camel’s back in terms of maintaining any personal credibility with the moderate voices.
The Fifth Brigade, also known by the Shona name Gukurahundi meaning “the rain that washes away the chaff” before the advent of spring, committed war crimes against the Ndebele speaking people where around 20 000 unarmed people were slaughtered. It’s incredible that the Queen of England bestowed the rare honour of knighthood upon Mr. Mugabe despite this dark chapter in history. The only reason why the knighthood has been revoked is because of Mr. Mugabe’s rocking of the boat with respect to the land issue. Otherwise the Queen seemingly had no problem with the massacres of the Ndebeles. Shouldn’t it be that the sanctity of human life is more of a priority than protecting the economic interests of a White minority in Zimbabwe? Not according to the Queen. At least she wouldn’t have bestowed the honour if she upheld the sanctity of Ndebele lives.
Don’t expect the African leaders to take radical action against Mr. Mugabe. He started off on the right footing but strayed along the way. Just like a great athlete who did well since entering the grueling marathon but now began to slow down and careen in a misguided blitz of frustration when nearing the finish line, Mr. Mugabe is now headed in the wrong direction. The crucial thing about the finish line is that it’s where the sorcerers and voodoo powers converge to spook the finish line and powerfully inject venomous doubts and derailment in the heart of the front running athlete. Only the chosen one fortified with special Zulu powers can break through the arresting wizardry.
The lack of credibility on the part of the West makes it nearly impossible to make progress in the current stalemate. The first line of attack in breaking the stalemate is to reestablish credibility.
Conclusion
We have shown that Britain’s harsh condition of muzzling discussion on the land issue as part of the independence package was a fundamental cause of future instability in Zimbabwe. The elder statesman and former President of Zambia Dr. Kenneth Kaunda and Ms. Clare Short hold some keys in terms of helping move the crisis in Zimbabwe towards a more credible and lasting solution.
About the Author
Vusi Moloi is a published author of a contextual poetry book A Goodbye To My Little Troubles and a former South African Television Journalist. He was the translator for the former Vice-President of Zimbabwe Dr. Joshua Nkomo as well as the former Minister of State Security of Zimbabwe Mr. Emmerson Mnangagwa in Botswana in 1988. You can learn more about the author by reading his book.
posted by Vusi Moloi at
1:28 PM
2 Comments:
Zimbabwean land allocations and rights as well as parliamentary allocations mean nothing because Robert Mugabe and the Shona MLAs controlled the government. Robert Mugabe's mandate was to bring economic control and prosperity to the people in proportion to their representation in either parliament or population. (Either would have been a great improvement). Using the excuse of western treaties or deals is irrelevant to Mugabe's failure. He did not deliver on the mandate.
Like a good Marxist, he took the doughnut, made the hole bigger the doughnut smaller, and then distributed the doughnut to his friends and the hole to the people. Shonas, Ndebeles and others are not stupid, and that is why they are voting against him.
Mugabe should have and could have distributed the wealth better if he had kept up the economic productivity of the 3% of people that controlled 80% of the resources. He sacrificed prosperity for control, where now they control 90 percent of a fraction of the output of previous years. They could have slowed the transfer of control so that they controlled 30% of the output of previous years, to the benefit of more Shonas & Ndebeles. However, he did not do that, and I don't even think he tried. All Zimbabweans are paying, especially the black African ones.
Your line of reasoning is understandable but I would not outright dismiss "land allocations and rights as well as parliamentary allocations” as nothing. It's difficult to appreciate a situation that is far removed as Zimbabwe is. Living in such a privileged society of North America makes it harder to understand. Our media does not help because they it relies on the politicians for input and the politicians only pursue a certain line that agrees with officialdom (whatever that may be). Thus it's not entirely the fault of the media. Politicians are not at fault either because they are married to this straightjacket thinking of officialdom and so it becomes a no-win situation. In this case that reconfigures the historical perspective and manipulates its meaning it becomes impossible to get at the original truth, and even if you could get at it, there is not much appetite for it. So we are stuck and life goes on while we bury our heads in the sand.
In the case of Zimbabwe there are two issues (1) the land and (2) the democracy. What you hear on the media is about democracy but on the fundamental question of the land no one wants to touch it with a ten foot pole. Why? Because there is a long and disheartening list of broken promises and bruised hearts which the British psyche is not quite ready to fess up to. In a capitalist society it is a natural tendency to be risk averse and only walk the path of least resistance with respect to one’s return on investment. What would you do in that case? I have no answers in terms of what I would do.
Mugabe is not a Marxist, at least not a practising one. You could compare him to a non-practising Catholic. What difference does that make? The land issue is at the core of emancipation. The basis of colonial conquest was the land grab. The reversal of that is the land emancipation or redistribution. The doughnut analogy is brilliant but since we are not dealing with a socialist system it does not apply. When they achieved their independence of 1980 there was no form of doughnut given i.e. no land was given. The land was not even on the agenda. The doughnut was promised to land in 10 years time but then at that time no helicopter dropped even a timbit (tiny doughnut from Tim Hortons for those not unfamiliar with the lingo). Also we needn't tell the Zimbabweans how to solve their problems but rather help them regain what is rightfully theirs and let them determine their own destiny.
A good example of determining your destiny is China. In 1949 Mao Tse-Tung conquered the KMT (Kuomintang) and Chiang Kai-Shek fled to what was Formosa (now Taiwan) the Chinese people wrote their own constitution. They emancipated the land. They embarked on their own programme of permanent emancipation and by 1988 China's economy rivalled that of USA in a period of 30 years between 1958 and 1988 (Americans took more than 200 years to reach the superpower status). Today China's GDP is the second only to USA at $10 trillion compared to $12 trillion. You will find that any country that writes its own constitution and liberates its own land does well economically. Another good example is Russia whose GDP is strongest in a long time. The moral of the story? Zimbabwe must emancipate the land and write their own constitution otherwise they remain stuck in perpetual foreign manipulation. Actually this is a good thing because if they fail they have themselves to blame and not anyone else. Maybe Mugabe should never have signed the Lancaster Agreement? Where would we be today? Keeping in mind that Zimbabweans are among the most industrious and enterprising given the right environment.
Moreover in a capitalist society you must be capitalized in order to exploit or take advantage of the available opportunities. It's a prerequisite to achieving wealth. To expect an uncapitalized entrepreneur to fully exploit opportunities available to him or her is like depending on rain for water. He will be struck by a lightening a few times more while his economic liberation remains a pipe dream. Actually someone in Toronto got struck by lightening yesterday and fortunately I had taken cover in a dark basement. Unless off course you win 649 lotto in which case you become instantly capitalized and you can now begin to exploit business opportunities.
With respect to the land, it would help to know what are the current figures with respect to the land distribution. It would be even more interesting to learn how much it cost for Britain to knight Mugabe? Any ideas on that? Maybe a few more hectares of land could have been acquired that way? Who knows!
Your feedback is appreciated.
Cheers
Vusi
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