Reflections On Zimbabwe
Wrapping up my time in Zimbabwe now, and back to the road. The road’s not even fucking around this time: 3 day bus ride to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. That includes a 7-hour lay-over in Lusaka, Zambia, and, I’m predicting, 3 hours at each border. Trying not to think about that right now…
Probably couldn’t have picked a better week to be in Zimbabwe, just ask Robert Mugabe: Independence Day was Tuesday, no fuel shortages, grocery stores stocked, great weather that included the last rains of a very wet season, and general alcohol-induced jubilation felt by all (in Harare at least). Of course, this is just the face of it, and beneath each of these features is a contradiction and a conflict. At the same time, I’m not here to participate in typical Western Robert Mugabe bashing, because even the contradictions have caveats here and the landscape of Zimbabwe, which I think I’ve seen a great deal of in only 9 days, is an extremely confounding space.
I lived in Harare for six months in 2000 and things then seemed pretty clear: change is in the air, the youth will turn this country around, Mugabe will be out in a year. Supporting the MDC was like Miles Davis, too cool to argue with, and there was little to prove that ZANU-PF’s campaign was progressive, or even sane for that matter. This trip? As confused as I am about this place, I’m sure the MDC has nothing better to offer.
I’ve been a parasite for opinion this week, siphoning perspective from anyone who could speak English and reading everything I could. The simple question of “how are things?” elicits a few predictable responses: “oh, we are surviving;” “ah, Zimbabwe is struggling right now;” “mmm, the price of bread is 100,000 dollars!” All true. You dig a little deeper and people are split as to why they’re suffering: “Our government is crazy;” or “Our government has a plan.” For me, the latter is the biggest discernable change in six years. Many who are saying that truly believe it too, while for some it’s just wishful thinking because they have absolutely no faith in the opposition at this point.
Meanwhile, chatter in the blogosphere of mass-protests and armed-conflict between parties has surfaced. According to MDC mouthpieces, their support is at an all-time high and the tide on the street is about to turn against Mugabe. I honestly don’t see it. And today, I hope it’s not true as well.
Many here are beginning to see that the government has laid the ground work for real independence and wealth for Zimbabweans. Potential hazards include continued economic short-falls; mass-corruption; and the allure of new neo-colonialists, but many here believe (and I share the sentiment) that the course has been set and a new Zimbabwe is possible without the work of the MDC or whites (and they are synonymous to some degree at this point).
I don’t mean to paint ZANU-PF as revolutionaries here. If anything, they have been reactionaries acting to please influential, and at times violent, constituencies in the face of opposition from the MDC. They acted to secure the voting blocks of the peasants, the military, intellectuals from the generation that gained independence, and even the urban middle-class who are being granted new land in growing numbers. This is progress and democracy at work, and I see it continuing as recent policy maneuvers by the administration have taken aim at the urban working-class, entrepreneurs, and the tourism industry through initiatives that aim to improve their respective economic sectors.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t severe pain amongst this progress. The crises around inflation, parallel markets, exorbitant prices, and food shortages are extreme. Harare is in real danger of becoming a city of gangsters driven by cravings for for-ex., lost confidence in banks, a black market on an unimaginable scale, and the political corruption that inevitably results from such circumstances. Strangely enough though, living here is like living on Wall Street. I’ve never encountered so many average citizens with such an in-depth knowledge of local economics, not to mention such skilled algebraists who have to deal with complex exchange rates and prices in the millions and billions on a daily basis.
All of this has a huge impact on productivity too. Queues at ATMs are a constant as they can’t re-fill the cash fast enough to keep up with the average withdrawal of around 2 million dollars. Also, Standard Chartered Bank is apparently the only local institution willing to keep up with this insanity, so only merchants who bank with them are able to provide credit card service to customers and SC’s ATMs are the only ones that function for many citizens (definitely true for foreign citizens). Lines at grocery stores are also miles long due to the fact that the customer must count out currency in the millions, then the cashier does the same, and everyone is careful to watch for scams on both ends. Forex. Is being accepted straight away by more and more places, which is dangerous for the economy and, currently, illegal. Also of note: no one tips anymore, I’m not sure how waiters are making any money.
This all makes for an urban economy that is hectic at best: a big soccer match on national TV on a holiday Monday apparently drove the price of beer up by 25% for the morning rush at the bottle stores. However, money is definitely flowing, especially at the top, and this is keeping the place afloat for now. I expected to see all the familiar shops and restaurants shut, but like the people, they survive.
I had also expected to see a people miserably discontent, a press not publishing their opinions, and a government ignoring them. While the government does manage to push their propaganda through The Herald (state-sponsored print) and Ztv, there are plenty of alternative opinions on offer even with the absence of the Daily News. The Financial Gazette, The Mirror, The Independent, and countless imports like The Zimbabwean, The Mail & Guardian, BBC, and CNN make up the array of news sources available to many people. While more press-freedom does need to be granted here, it is not the crisis I expected. The real problem is journalists from both sides who don’t do their job. Those with a pro-government slant need to be watch dogs for that government and scrutinize corruption for example. Further, the government’s critics should be just that, and in a constructive nature that acknowledges revolutionary attempts by this administration to make change for Zimbabweans, rather than simply being a mouthpiece for the MDC and the West.
The contradictions in what I received from my press sources abroad and what I see on the ground here have been really shocking as well – who would have thought there are still white people here? Trust me, these people are filthy rich, they’ve moved to the cities and are doing just fine - I don’t mean to say that things aren’t bad here, but the sense of progress in the air and the foundation for potential achievement that I describe is not being conveyed by anyone. It amazes me that the American Left lauds so-called revolutionary efforts in Venezuela and Bolivia while continuing to vilify Mugabe. While I see plenty of villainy here, I also see a great deal that deserves applause, or at least tourist dollars and NGO money like they’re seeing in Latin America.
My hope for Zimbabwe in 2000 was literally youthful and basically ignorant. The current government has been able to negotiate an extremely complex political landscape on a path towards real independence. However, many of their maneuvers along the way have been ill-conceived despite having the nation’s long-term interests in mind. It’s a long path however, and I truly believe there are great things in Zimbabwe’s future thanks to what has been set-up and in a sense, torn-down (not alluding to ZANU-PF’s urban clean-up effort here, which is the height of their ill-conceptions), in the last six years. This is slow, painful progress. You can see an economy ready to take off though, and not just because it has no other direction to go.
Previously, the wealth of Zimbabwe flowered from white farms rooted in black land. Farmers and government alike are now climbing the learning-curve of land redistribution and that wealth will return with new ownership and when it does, there will be an extremely diversified economy functioning below it. I would encourage any foreign investor to bet on Zimbabwe, and I can now do so in good faith that that money will go to Zimbabweans.
So, the foundation is set and I believe it will be fairly easy to build on, actually. However, Zimbabweans must vigilantly guard against corruption. Like I’ve said, corruption in the form of the black market has kept this economy afloat in a sense, but this is obviously dangerous. There are signs that the president in waiting, Joyce Mujuru (c’mon supposedly-progressive-northerners, a woman), is eager to prevent higher level corruption – she’s currently touring re-distributed farms and chiding exploitation therein by government officials. However, efforts against corruption must be full-scale and focused on the aging statesmen who survive on skimmed dollars and not on transparency with their constituents and this vigilance must extend to the streets of Harare where I see a real danger of high-level organized crime developing. Further, freedoms of speech and press must be secured for all by the next president and issues surrounding affordable urban housing must be addressed.
I don’t see the MDC offering better leadership on the path I’ve described and people here definitely don’t have faith that the MDC wouldn’t dabble in corruption. Maybe I did just happen to be here during a perfect week for Robert Mugabe and don’t see the fomentations of coming upheaval on the streets, but there doesn’t seem to be the same support for the MDC today that there was six years ago. And even considering what I’ve seen, I still think that Mugabe needs to step down. There need not be a transitional government. Ms. Mujuru should take over and elections will proceed in 2010 while economic progress will continue and ZANU-PF’s path will be followed. The face of Zimbabwe must attract foreign investment. Mugabe has been the anti-diplomat. He has been a guerilla and an intellectual and achieved great things for Zimbabwe as a result, but unfortunately neither of those faces works for the North. All the positives from Zimbabwe must be conveyed to the rest of the world and soon.
I realize that Mugabe’s potential exit is complicated by the fact that he could face international prosecution for crimes against humanity. For me, the prospect of this is just as confounding as my last week in Zim. It will all be tackled though, and in the meantime I, like the people I met this week, can at least have real hope for the future of Zimbabwe.
Probably couldn’t have picked a better week to be in Zimbabwe, just ask Robert Mugabe: Independence Day was Tuesday, no fuel shortages, grocery stores stocked, great weather that included the last rains of a very wet season, and general alcohol-induced jubilation felt by all (in Harare at least). Of course, this is just the face of it, and beneath each of these features is a contradiction and a conflict. At the same time, I’m not here to participate in typical Western Robert Mugabe bashing, because even the contradictions have caveats here and the landscape of Zimbabwe, which I think I’ve seen a great deal of in only 9 days, is an extremely confounding space.
I lived in Harare for six months in 2000 and things then seemed pretty clear: change is in the air, the youth will turn this country around, Mugabe will be out in a year. Supporting the MDC was like Miles Davis, too cool to argue with, and there was little to prove that ZANU-PF’s campaign was progressive, or even sane for that matter. This trip? As confused as I am about this place, I’m sure the MDC has nothing better to offer.
I’ve been a parasite for opinion this week, siphoning perspective from anyone who could speak English and reading everything I could. The simple question of “how are things?” elicits a few predictable responses: “oh, we are surviving;” “ah, Zimbabwe is struggling right now;” “mmm, the price of bread is 100,000 dollars!” All true. You dig a little deeper and people are split as to why they’re suffering: “Our government is crazy;” or “Our government has a plan.” For me, the latter is the biggest discernable change in six years. Many who are saying that truly believe it too, while for some it’s just wishful thinking because they have absolutely no faith in the opposition at this point.
Meanwhile, chatter in the blogosphere of mass-protests and armed-conflict between parties has surfaced. According to MDC mouthpieces, their support is at an all-time high and the tide on the street is about to turn against Mugabe. I honestly don’t see it. And today, I hope it’s not true as well.
Many here are beginning to see that the government has laid the ground work for real independence and wealth for Zimbabweans. Potential hazards include continued economic short-falls; mass-corruption; and the allure of new neo-colonialists, but many here believe (and I share the sentiment) that the course has been set and a new Zimbabwe is possible without the work of the MDC or whites (and they are synonymous to some degree at this point).
I don’t mean to paint ZANU-PF as revolutionaries here. If anything, they have been reactionaries acting to please influential, and at times violent, constituencies in the face of opposition from the MDC. They acted to secure the voting blocks of the peasants, the military, intellectuals from the generation that gained independence, and even the urban middle-class who are being granted new land in growing numbers. This is progress and democracy at work, and I see it continuing as recent policy maneuvers by the administration have taken aim at the urban working-class, entrepreneurs, and the tourism industry through initiatives that aim to improve their respective economic sectors.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t severe pain amongst this progress. The crises around inflation, parallel markets, exorbitant prices, and food shortages are extreme. Harare is in real danger of becoming a city of gangsters driven by cravings for for-ex., lost confidence in banks, a black market on an unimaginable scale, and the political corruption that inevitably results from such circumstances. Strangely enough though, living here is like living on Wall Street. I’ve never encountered so many average citizens with such an in-depth knowledge of local economics, not to mention such skilled algebraists who have to deal with complex exchange rates and prices in the millions and billions on a daily basis.
All of this has a huge impact on productivity too. Queues at ATMs are a constant as they can’t re-fill the cash fast enough to keep up with the average withdrawal of around 2 million dollars. Also, Standard Chartered Bank is apparently the only local institution willing to keep up with this insanity, so only merchants who bank with them are able to provide credit card service to customers and SC’s ATMs are the only ones that function for many citizens (definitely true for foreign citizens). Lines at grocery stores are also miles long due to the fact that the customer must count out currency in the millions, then the cashier does the same, and everyone is careful to watch for scams on both ends. Forex. Is being accepted straight away by more and more places, which is dangerous for the economy and, currently, illegal. Also of note: no one tips anymore, I’m not sure how waiters are making any money.
This all makes for an urban economy that is hectic at best: a big soccer match on national TV on a holiday Monday apparently drove the price of beer up by 25% for the morning rush at the bottle stores. However, money is definitely flowing, especially at the top, and this is keeping the place afloat for now. I expected to see all the familiar shops and restaurants shut, but like the people, they survive.
I had also expected to see a people miserably discontent, a press not publishing their opinions, and a government ignoring them. While the government does manage to push their propaganda through The Herald (state-sponsored print) and Ztv, there are plenty of alternative opinions on offer even with the absence of the Daily News. The Financial Gazette, The Mirror, The Independent, and countless imports like The Zimbabwean, The Mail & Guardian, BBC, and CNN make up the array of news sources available to many people. While more press-freedom does need to be granted here, it is not the crisis I expected. The real problem is journalists from both sides who don’t do their job. Those with a pro-government slant need to be watch dogs for that government and scrutinize corruption for example. Further, the government’s critics should be just that, and in a constructive nature that acknowledges revolutionary attempts by this administration to make change for Zimbabweans, rather than simply being a mouthpiece for the MDC and the West.
The contradictions in what I received from my press sources abroad and what I see on the ground here have been really shocking as well – who would have thought there are still white people here? Trust me, these people are filthy rich, they’ve moved to the cities and are doing just fine - I don’t mean to say that things aren’t bad here, but the sense of progress in the air and the foundation for potential achievement that I describe is not being conveyed by anyone. It amazes me that the American Left lauds so-called revolutionary efforts in Venezuela and Bolivia while continuing to vilify Mugabe. While I see plenty of villainy here, I also see a great deal that deserves applause, or at least tourist dollars and NGO money like they’re seeing in Latin America.
My hope for Zimbabwe in 2000 was literally youthful and basically ignorant. The current government has been able to negotiate an extremely complex political landscape on a path towards real independence. However, many of their maneuvers along the way have been ill-conceived despite having the nation’s long-term interests in mind. It’s a long path however, and I truly believe there are great things in Zimbabwe’s future thanks to what has been set-up and in a sense, torn-down (not alluding to ZANU-PF’s urban clean-up effort here, which is the height of their ill-conceptions), in the last six years. This is slow, painful progress. You can see an economy ready to take off though, and not just because it has no other direction to go.
Previously, the wealth of Zimbabwe flowered from white farms rooted in black land. Farmers and government alike are now climbing the learning-curve of land redistribution and that wealth will return with new ownership and when it does, there will be an extremely diversified economy functioning below it. I would encourage any foreign investor to bet on Zimbabwe, and I can now do so in good faith that that money will go to Zimbabweans.
So, the foundation is set and I believe it will be fairly easy to build on, actually. However, Zimbabweans must vigilantly guard against corruption. Like I’ve said, corruption in the form of the black market has kept this economy afloat in a sense, but this is obviously dangerous. There are signs that the president in waiting, Joyce Mujuru (c’mon supposedly-progressive-northerners, a woman), is eager to prevent higher level corruption – she’s currently touring re-distributed farms and chiding exploitation therein by government officials. However, efforts against corruption must be full-scale and focused on the aging statesmen who survive on skimmed dollars and not on transparency with their constituents and this vigilance must extend to the streets of Harare where I see a real danger of high-level organized crime developing. Further, freedoms of speech and press must be secured for all by the next president and issues surrounding affordable urban housing must be addressed.
I don’t see the MDC offering better leadership on the path I’ve described and people here definitely don’t have faith that the MDC wouldn’t dabble in corruption. Maybe I did just happen to be here during a perfect week for Robert Mugabe and don’t see the fomentations of coming upheaval on the streets, but there doesn’t seem to be the same support for the MDC today that there was six years ago. And even considering what I’ve seen, I still think that Mugabe needs to step down. There need not be a transitional government. Ms. Mujuru should take over and elections will proceed in 2010 while economic progress will continue and ZANU-PF’s path will be followed. The face of Zimbabwe must attract foreign investment. Mugabe has been the anti-diplomat. He has been a guerilla and an intellectual and achieved great things for Zimbabwe as a result, but unfortunately neither of those faces works for the North. All the positives from Zimbabwe must be conveyed to the rest of the world and soon.
I realize that Mugabe’s potential exit is complicated by the fact that he could face international prosecution for crimes against humanity. For me, the prospect of this is just as confounding as my last week in Zim. It will all be tackled though, and in the meantime I, like the people I met this week, can at least have real hope for the future of Zimbabwe.
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