Zimbabwe: Why Zimbabweans Feel Betrayed

Source from:  The Herald (Harare) 20 August 2008 08/22/2008

After the anger has subsided, the decision by Morgan Tsvangirai not to sign the draft agreement is quite disappointing. It is disappointing to the school headmaster I talk with occasionally out there on the farms in Centenary. He stopped me last week, mumbled the word politics and walked away, shaking his head. Although we had not talked, I knew what he was disappointed over. The disappointment was there in the tired limp of the old woman I passed on the road somewhere in Chiweshe on my way to a funeral in Harare. The disappointment was evident in the silence of the group of people sitting round a fire at the funeral in Highfield. I also detected the disappointment behind the boisterous voice of my nephew, Godfrey, an avowed opposition supporter. As we drove to Warren Hills Cemetery in the funeral cortege, he suddenly burst out: "Itongei tione mega nyika yacho vanasekuru. "I say try doing it alone and see if it works," he repeated as if somebody in the car had disagreed with him. It seemed he was no longer as certain and he wanted to reassure himself. He was another disappointed person although he tried to hide it. From anger to brinkmanship is a deep underlying current of disappointment. But perhaps the most disappointed man is South African President Thabo Mbeki. For four days, he had stayed in Harare for the agreement to be hammered out and signed. A foreign Head of State spending such a long time in a foreign country for the sake of the people of that country? Such selflessness and commitment is not measurable. He must feel betrayed. And yet we need resolution of our problem more than Thabo Mbeki. Sanctions have turned everyone's life upside down. An upcoming businessman and a colleague told me he had to pay his workers an assortment of allowances above their salaries to enable them to come to work. Now his business was in the red and he had no option but to close. The tobacco auction floors are teeming with stranded farmers holding cheques worth billions of dollars but unable to raise bus fare to return home. That is why many people have developed an unsettling cynicism about the situation. "I knew nothing would come out of the talks," said a young man at the funeral in Highfield. "I dreamt the shelves in the shops had filled and you could choose what you wanted," another young man said and everyone around laughed. "I can't afford to send my children to boarding school and I am ashamed to admit it even to myself," the headmaster in Centenary had said recently, looking away from me. "I want to get out of this place," said a young man sipping a lager. Someone later told me the young man had recently graduated from university. All along, I have been trying to avoid being personal, but can you imagine that all the proceeds from my 15 hectares of tobacco this season, minus costs, will not be enough to buy two rear tyres for my 80-horsepower tractor! And Morgan Tsvangirai refuses to sign the agreement at the last minute to help the country get out of such a mess? In his 2008 Mid-Term Monetary Policy Statement, the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Dr Gideon Gono, said there was no way his cocktail of measures can permanently fix the economy without a political solution. The sanctions slapped on the country by the West are a political instrument intended to achieve a political objective -- to change Government and reverse the Land Reform Programme. But that is not what is being publicly said. What are being publicly given as the reasons for the sanctions are alleged human rights violations, and the people alleging those human rights violations are members of the opposition parties. A political agreement between the ruling party and the opposition parties would remove the reason that is publicly given to justify sanctions. It's a mind game with the West that people like Thabo Mbeki saw a long time ago. That is why he called for political dialogue between the country's major political parties several years ago. Morgan Tsvangirai's refusal to sign the agreement at the last minute would seem to suggest that (a) someone somewhere is using him and (b) that real reason for sanctions has nothing to do with human rights violations and democracy. "What does he want anyway?" asked my brother's wife with resignation. If he could answer that question honestly and sincerely he would not have refused to sign the agreement that he had helped to co-author. Someone with the answer to my sister-in-law's question must have persuaded him not to sign. It's a mind game that those amongst us who believed in smart and targeted sanctions have begun to see through. The perception that Zimbabwe is vehemently anti-British is exaggerated. How can we be regarded so when our institutions, systems and even culture are so British? It would be like rejecting a big part of ourselves. Take our judiciary for instance; the judges, their white wigs and red ankle-length robes. The outlook is so British it must leave the British establishment blushing. The other day I was watching live coverage of events at the National Heroes' Acre. There again, the proceedings were so British, down to the Last Post, the sorrowful tune the army band trumpets before the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. That is the tune the British play to honour their dead soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. In spite of his anger, Nathaniel Manheru, the columnist in the Herald on Saturday, writes his Other Side in such breathtaking English the British must secretly envy him. The rest of English-speaking Africa laughs at us for speaking English better than the British, as if the entire nation went through Oxford. The young man who wanted to get out of the country was most probably dreaming of going to London. Our connection with the British is so intrinsic it cannot be wished away. I think the real problem between us is too much liking of each other. There are moments when the British and ourselves cannot understand how disagreement over a commitment made at Lancaster House 30 years ago over the land issue could be allowed to degenerate into such a mess. Only recently, I stumbled upon an old tape from the 60s where James Chikerema, flanked by George Nyandoro and other nationalists was pleading with the British to dislodge Ian Smith and give us our land. Knowing we had to go through a bloody war to get the land, I laughed inwardly at the nationalist simplicity. But technically, that position never changed though right to the Lancaster House conference in 1979. We were fighting Ian Smith and the British were on our side. The appointment of Lord Soames as Governor was to return the country to colonial status and Prince Charles would come on April 18, 1980 to lower the Union Jack and officially give the country to us. Even now, at the height of the acrimony, President Mugabe speaks about his special personal relationship with Queen Elizabeth II and the rest of the Royal Family. You are left with a sense of something strong, something like love that has survived the acrimony. The disagreement with the British over the issue of the land that had assumed the scale of a full-blown war has to be resolved and concluded in a manner that leaves the two sides able to talk to each other. All wars are eventually concluded around tables. Thabo Mbeki's gallant effort was intended to secure the deal that would have ended that war. Then Tsvangirai refused to sign. It is logical to assume that what Morgan Tsvangirai wants must be located within what all other Zimbabweans want. If, however, it is found outside what others want, it becomes a tragedy. Perhaps he needs a little reminding: you are Zimbabwean, you are Zimbabwean, you are Zimbabwean. But as my old mother keeps saying: no one believed the war (meaning the liberation war) would one day come to an end, but it did. We may be disappointed, but life has to go on. Enditem