Zimbabwe is Burning

The world knows Zimbabwe is burning.

It knows its refugees dare crocodiles to survive its hardships by seeking work elsewhere.

It knows its money, hyperinflated into near useless ink and paper, represents not more than a dictator, his cronies, and their thugs.

And it knows, this most important of all, that protests and sanctions send a message to aged, deafened, and hardened ears.

As most do who have nothing to offer their countrymen apart from thievery, fingers point always to the most convenient and toothless scapegoat: in Zimbabwe, that would be white farmers.

Reuters reports three white farmers "abducted, assaulted, and thrown off a moving vehicle" in a district 62 miles west of Harare. [1]

In Zimbabwe, there is no justice, for not only does the state care not for its white farmers, it presents itself as blind and immune to the desparation and hunger of the tens upon tens of thousands of its citizens fleeing its burnt fields for greener ones better managed elsewhere.

Backwardness prevails where despots rule.

Despots prevail where courage fails.

In Zimbabwe, no white farmer, MDC opposition leader or follower, or job seeker, the kind who braves crocodiles on the long walk to work, has ever lacked for courage.

From some African countries, one may expect agreable noise and purposeful inaction. [2]

From continental Europe, Great Britain, and the United States one may similarly expect agreable noise and, so it would seem to this point, token actions (in the form of gummy sanctions).

From South Africa, which bears its share of Zimbabwean refugees, comes this caution: "South African President Thabo Mbeki on Wednesday rejected an EU position that it will only accept a Zimbabwean government led by opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai" [3]. In the article cited, President Mbeki is quoted as having said earlier today (Wednesday), ""So we are fully supportive of the cooperation and dialogue among political parties to find a solution to the challenges they face."

Having for some time witnessed through the news the marvel of Zimbabwean political cooperation, one may only wonder what a truly earnest disinterest in accommodation on the part of the Mugabe government might look like.

I'll grant you this: knowing where misery lives may not mean fully knowing how it works, and that, I think, the message where not even the most aggrieved and refugee-hosting neighbor cares to look too closely, honestly, or coureagously over the fence--or if having looked, talk about it.

Let Zimbabwe be Zimbabwe!

Whatever that may be, credit President Robert Mugabe, for no one else would wish to be responsible.

# # #

---

1. Banya, Nelson.  "White farmers attacked and wounded in Zimbabwe."  Reuters, July 1, 2008.

2. Hughes, Dana. "Some African Leaders Call for Free Elections in Zimbabwe, But Not In Their Countries. ABC News, June 26, 2008.

3. IC Publications, 24-Hour News. "SAfrica's Mbeki rejects EU demand on Zimbabwe govt."

---

Correspondence: James S. Oppenheim

---

Comments

[James]

For those who may have missed my earlier comments on Zimbabwe, the inspiration for interest was this book:

Godwin, Peter. When A Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa." Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2007.

A note on the book appears at "Zimbabwe: Peter Godwin's Book & How a Country Deconstructs": http://commart.typepad.com/oppenheim_arts_letters/2008/02/zimbabwe-peter.html.

Zimbabwe has plainly been a coup wrapped in socialist rhetoric and delivered with and sustained by state-sponsored violence.

Standing up to it, among others: Michael Campbell. You may read about him in "Zimbabwe: white farmer Mike Campbell mounts last stand over land grab", Times Online, March 23, 2008:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article3602711.ece

That piece starts this way:

"The names on the court affidavit are stark; William Michael Campbell vs Robert Gabriel Mugabe.

"While 4,000 white farmers have been thrown off their land in Zimbabwe, Mike Campbell is the first to take the president himself to an international court. On Tuesday his case will open at the new tribunal of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in the Namibian capital of Windhoek.

“It took some guts to sign my name to that,” said 73-year-old Campbell, glancing at the court papers. “But then I thought, what have I got to lose? My life I suppose . . .”

Michael Campbell, I believe, was one of the three white farmers abducted, beaten, and thrown off a moving truck by a gang of 50--it takes a lot of real men, and armed, one may suppose, to properly whup a 73-year-old farmer.

[tammy swofford]

Let Zimbabwe be Zimbabwe! And let Africa be Africa! In looking at the Transparency International Corruption Index, nations of the African continent remain in the bottom percentiles from year to year. Integrity and leadership do not appear to be a match. Cronyism and despotic greed abound. While the increasingly distant years of British Colonialism are the toothless scapegoat, the economic bull and heifer have escaped the barn along with the driving off of Western technology and ingenuity in agricultural management.

http://www.infoplease.com/world/statistics/2007-transparency-international-corruption-perceptions.html

Tammy Swofford