Sitting on a branch outside the windows of the great bedchamber in the presidential residence the other day, GoWayBird overheard something very disturbing.
He heard Grasping Grace refer to Robert Junior as “the future President”.
What!!! GoWayBird flew away shocked and frightened, to think. He sat on the roof of the gutterpress (Herald House), looking down at the masses of jacaranda blossoms in the square below. And thought these thoughts:
We all know that African leaders have a penchant for royalty - particularly when applied to themselves. It’s traditional.
We also know that Robert Mugabe has been hailed by his clan, the Zezuru, as their new king (and, shudderingly, Grasping Grace as their queen). This acclamation can hardly have been overlooked by the man with the biggest ego in Africa. We also know that Mugabe is violently opposed to the idea of giving up his presidency.
GoWayBird concluded that Mugabe thinks of himself as Zimbabwe’s rightful monarch, as well as a military genius who has the right of conquest on his side. More clues, you ask?
In the early eighties he laid claim to the Great Zimbabwe ruins, re-naming them a Monument and having the brochures re written to say it was founded by ‘the Great Mugabe Dynasty’.
He then got some practice in a real game of dynasty when his fellow Marxist tyrant, Laurent Kabila of the DRC, was assassinated in 2001. Loathsome Laurent had a plan for his son Joseph to succeed him should he die in office. Robert Mugabe actively assisted in implementing the succession, by managing the tyrant's death - in cahoots with the DRC military, he abducted the body and stalled for time until Kabila jnr. was secure in his claim to the presidency. Thus Mugabe has actually participated in a trial run... (and profited mightily as a result).
We all know that Robert Mugabe is obsessed with staying in power, and why should we think his obession will vanish? How often has he signed concessions, made agreements, expressed support, promised change, or shaken hands on a deal? Only to show the world a middle finger later. He encourages a ‘succession debate’ and publicly anoints successors to keep both his opponents and his rivals distracted, and the illusion of democracy intact. But the true anointed one is kept a secret.
Mugabe clearly intends to steal the 2008 election as he has done before (practise makes perfect), then, with a fresh five year term, he will start preparing his son, Robert Junior, to take over the Mugabe dynasty’s kingdom. That’s when the boy comes of age, and that is when Mugabe intends to step down. And if he wants to go a little early then, no problem - he has organised a constitutional amendment that gives him the right to name a successor - perhaps Grace could be regent for a while?
All Robert Mugabe needs for this plan to work, is just one more five year term. Let’s not give him that extra time.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Monday, November 19, 2007
Let’s get Some Respect.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T, sang Aretha Franklin in the sixties. The song became an anthem for Black America.
But shame on Black America, which while insisting on respect for its race from the rest of the world, has failed Africa badly. The NAACP should remember that democracy brings the very tools that allow dissent, that allows it to exist and to express its outrage. But the fact that this same democratic freedom is completely denied to the average African citizen does not seem to count.
That the NAACP, the official voice of Black America sees nothing wrong in cheering in support of tyrants such as Robert Mugabe speaks volumes for their collective morals. And makes a mockery of their claims to respectability.
Most of the African Union leaders are stuck in the same mindset. They are the old ones, who are still in Liberation Struggle mode. They refuse to acknowledge that African citizens are now fighting a new struggle - the one for real democracy. It’s a struggle that is being fought without the blessing of the old ones. It’s also a struggle that the new generation in the rest of the world also share, as their rights are eroded and their governments regulate more and more of their lives.
All of us want a new world order - one of peace, prosperity, cooperation and humanity.
It’s not going to happen if we leave the Old Ones in charge.
But shame on Black America, which while insisting on respect for its race from the rest of the world, has failed Africa badly. The NAACP should remember that democracy brings the very tools that allow dissent, that allows it to exist and to express its outrage. But the fact that this same democratic freedom is completely denied to the average African citizen does not seem to count.
That the NAACP, the official voice of Black America sees nothing wrong in cheering in support of tyrants such as Robert Mugabe speaks volumes for their collective morals. And makes a mockery of their claims to respectability.
Most of the African Union leaders are stuck in the same mindset. They are the old ones, who are still in Liberation Struggle mode. They refuse to acknowledge that African citizens are now fighting a new struggle - the one for real democracy. It’s a struggle that is being fought without the blessing of the old ones. It’s also a struggle that the new generation in the rest of the world also share, as their rights are eroded and their governments regulate more and more of their lives.
All of us want a new world order - one of peace, prosperity, cooperation and humanity.
It’s not going to happen if we leave the Old Ones in charge.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Jokes from the Petrol Queue
- Wry jokes have always been a feature of life in Zim. When not talking about prices and who got what where at what price (the national topic), we tell each other jokes. Here are a few that the GoWayBird heard today while perching in an acacia tree near a filling station.
- What does SADC stand for?
- "South African Dictators Conference"
- Where is the capital of Zimbabwe?
- In a numbered Swiss bank account.
.
.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Ants and Elephants
The world looks on amazed as more and more Zimbabweans start to vote with their feet.
They are not able to wait for the elections in March 2008, because by then they will be dead. Neighbouring Zambia, Botswana and South Africa are now facing a ‘tsunami’ of starving, desperate Zimbabweans as their borders are breached and overrun by illegal immigrants.
These hopeless, hungry people are running away from death. They are economic, not political refugees, but the countries on the receiving end are under pressure not to acknowledge them. For if these thousands of self-evacuees are recognised as refugees, it means that Zimbabwe is officially in a conflict situation and there is a real humanitarian emergency. It would mean that Robert Mugabe and his government have officially failed, and the United Nations, the Red Cross and all the other world mechanisms could be mobilised in a glare of international publicity, to rescue the innocent families fleeing Mugabe’s African paradise.
Everyone knows that it is time for the evil oppression of Zimbabwe to end. It is time for Mugabe and his attack dogs to go. Mugabe is too old to understand what inflation is and how it is created. He and his party, like swarms of locusts, have eaten or broken everything in the land, leaving nothing behind but starvation and despair.
What is ZanuPF doing that is constructive or productive? Nothing. Is Mugabe doing anything that is useful or good for the people? No. The party knows only how to take, take and take, and they arrest, beat, and torture anyone who tries to stop them, just like a nightmare version of the simple-minded bullies we all knew at school. And now that they have destroyed everything, like those hated little bullies, they don’t know how to fix it.
One of Africa’s most beautiful countries has been raped and looted while the world stood by and watched.
As we are so frequently reminded by our ‘brothers’ in the African Union, Zimbabweans must find their own solutions. So what can the people do?
Perhaps they should consider the old Ndebele saying:
"Indlovu ibulawa yibunyonyo."
... which means that an elephant can be brought down by many ants - in other words, many small things and actions can overwhelm and defeat even the largest giant. We just have to act in unison!
“Let’s all join together and vote him out!,” shout the opposition parties. And they point to historical examples where evil regimes were overthrown by peaceful mass action.
But in those countries there was still food in the shops and water in the pipes. Zimbabwe has run out of both. Families are reaching the point where they look about and calculate that they have just enough energy and resources to get themselves over the border to a land where there is food. They are unarmed, defenceless and without hope in their own homes. They know there can be no violent overthrow of the hated dictator, and so they are acting with their last reserves of courage and dignity. They have hung on for years hoping for change, but now they are forced to leave.
This is mass action, and it is unprecedented in a country not at war.
What if it went further? What if everyone deserted, and in the words of poet Leonard Cohen, “There’s no one left to torture’? Mugabe has already started to “Drive out the Filth”. Maybe we the citizens, should take it much further.
It would be an extraordinary thing if one day, he and his cronies woke up to a silent city, one where no servants, no bodyguards, no drivers would come when summoned. The streets outside the Presidential palace in Harare would be deserted, everyone gone and no one left to do the bidding of the crazed old man. Would his jewel-encrusted wife Grace know how to make breakfast without water, food or electricity? I would love to see her try.
Meanwhile, the once-proud population of Zimbabwe may soon form a ring of shame round their country’s borders, massing in their millions in refugee camps, and at last, visible to the world.
The world looks on amazed as more and more Zimbabweans start to vote with their feet.
They are not able to wait for the elections in March 2008, because by then they will be dead. Neighbouring Zambia, Botswana and South Africa are now facing a ‘tsunami’ of starving, desperate Zimbabweans as their borders are breached and overrun by illegal immigrants.
These hopeless, hungry people are running away from death. They are economic, not political refugees, but the countries on the receiving end are under pressure not to acknowledge them. For if these thousands of self-evacuees are recognised as refugees, it means that Zimbabwe is officially in a conflict situation and there is a real humanitarian emergency. It would mean that Robert Mugabe and his government have officially failed, and the United Nations, the Red Cross and all the other world mechanisms could be mobilised in a glare of international publicity, to rescue the innocent families fleeing Mugabe’s African paradise.
Everyone knows that it is time for the evil oppression of Zimbabwe to end. It is time for Mugabe and his attack dogs to go. Mugabe is too old to understand what inflation is and how it is created. He and his party, like swarms of locusts, have eaten or broken everything in the land, leaving nothing behind but starvation and despair.
What is ZanuPF doing that is constructive or productive? Nothing. Is Mugabe doing anything that is useful or good for the people? No. The party knows only how to take, take and take, and they arrest, beat, and torture anyone who tries to stop them, just like a nightmare version of the simple-minded bullies we all knew at school. And now that they have destroyed everything, like those hated little bullies, they don’t know how to fix it.
One of Africa’s most beautiful countries has been raped and looted while the world stood by and watched.
As we are so frequently reminded by our ‘brothers’ in the African Union, Zimbabweans must find their own solutions. So what can the people do?
Perhaps they should consider the old Ndebele saying:
"Indlovu ibulawa yibunyonyo."
... which means that an elephant can be brought down by many ants - in other words, many small things and actions can overwhelm and defeat even the largest giant. We just have to act in unison!
“Let’s all join together and vote him out!,” shout the opposition parties. And they point to historical examples where evil regimes were overthrown by peaceful mass action.
But in those countries there was still food in the shops and water in the pipes. Zimbabwe has run out of both. Families are reaching the point where they look about and calculate that they have just enough energy and resources to get themselves over the border to a land where there is food. They are unarmed, defenceless and without hope in their own homes. They know there can be no violent overthrow of the hated dictator, and so they are acting with their last reserves of courage and dignity. They have hung on for years hoping for change, but now they are forced to leave.
This is mass action, and it is unprecedented in a country not at war.
What if it went further? What if everyone deserted, and in the words of poet Leonard Cohen, “There’s no one left to torture’? Mugabe has already started to “Drive out the Filth”. Maybe we the citizens, should take it much further.
It would be an extraordinary thing if one day, he and his cronies woke up to a silent city, one where no servants, no bodyguards, no drivers would come when summoned. The streets outside the Presidential palace in Harare would be deserted, everyone gone and no one left to do the bidding of the crazed old man. Would his jewel-encrusted wife Grace know how to make breakfast without water, food or electricity? I would love to see her try.
Meanwhile, the once-proud population of Zimbabwe may soon form a ring of shame round their country’s borders, massing in their millions in refugee camps, and at last, visible to the world.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Zimbabwe's Economics of Survival
Africa’s lauded despot, Robert Mugabe, seeks another 5 year term as president. He will cheat at the 2008 election as he has done each time since 1980, then - when his bolt hole is good and ready - he will hand over the reins to a trustee. He intends to amend Zimbabwe’s mutant constitution once again to allow this, and although courageous activists from the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) are trying to challenge the Bill in public, it will be privately rubber-stamped by Mugabe’s lapdogs in Parliament.
The SADC states will look on with approval - in particular South Africa. The current ANC regime profited well by just such a provision in their own constitution, when Nelson Mandela stepped down and Thabo Mbeki, all unelected, stepped in to fill those giant shoes with his neat little size sixes. It’s possible that Mbeki suggested this dodge to Mugabe - it’s a handy and trouble-free way for a ruling party to ensure a handpicked successor. However, Mbeki went on to face - and win - a free and fair election, whereas Mugabe dares not. Real elections for the people of Zimbabwe are not in Mugabe’s self-preservation plan.
Mugabe’s dirty tricks campaign is getting into gear: the leader of the opposition bludgeoned; a turbulent priest publicly shamed. As per the last election, he has siezed upon something to entice the rural povo and the party faithful. Having done the white farm thing, the only morsel left to offer is the remnant of Zimbabwe’s industrial and mining sectors. So the teflon dictator tables his ‘indigenisation’ bill, hoping to reward the remaining few ZPF voters with a slice of Anglo American or Lever Brothers.
It’s ironic that only when the ruined economy is portrayed as a threat to his rule, does Mugabe bother to turn his poisonous gaze upon it. And as usual, instead of taking steps to mend the economy (his tax base and feeding trough), he bashes. The man has never understood economics, let alone the concept of inflation - and at 83 he is unable to try. Instead, he betrays his ignorance in characteristic fashion: use force! Make them halve their prices! That should fix it! And he appoints yet another dangerous fool to implement his solution - Obert Mpofu: Government minister, murderer and practised extortionist.
However, while the world’s media boggles in wonder at the +10,000% inflation figures, what they fail to realise is that Mugabe and the band of underqualified sycophants he calls a Cabinet, cannot actually have much effect on Zim's economy now. They lost control of it some time ago. Zimbabwe is already a failed state and the country operates an alternative, informal economy - and will simply continue to do so no matter what Zanu-PF tries next. Like water finding its way past an obstacle, Zimbabwe’s people are so used to 'making a plan' that situations such as being ordered to halve your prices are seen as just another setback. And the ruling party’s robber-barons simply keep their heads down for a while, pledge extra loyalty, then return to business as usual. “One hand washes the other” is a well-known saying in Zimbabwe. Mugabe needs his band of villains, and they need him.
For the economists, it’s a field day. Zimbabwe is so way past any economics textbook that it is setting precedents and making case history every day it continues to function. Fundamental theories and assumptions are being challenged: exactly in what proportion does printing money create inflation - does it obey its own supply-demand cycle (and is it our fault for abandoning the gold standard)? At what point does an economy become ‘Failed’, and who decides when it is? If most of the population is now trading goods and services instead of using money, at what point does the currency become worthless? And other fascinating Tipping-Point questions.
Prof. Tony Hawkins, Eric Bloch and John Robertson are the Three Tenors in Zim economics, and will no doubt each produce a dramatic soap-opera of a textbook when it’s all over. They may as well combine their efforts and write alternate chapters - perhaps a good title would be ‘When Zimbabwe’s Fat Lady Sang’. Joice Mujuru and the other well-larded ruling party women might vie for the cover picture honours.
The entire government of Zanu-PF have already assured themselves a place of infamy in history. But will there be a place in history for the mothers who endure the agony of watching their children die of starvation? For the squandered wildlife and devastated eco-systems? For the millions of broken families and the thousands of murdered citizens whose only crime was to wish for their rights as human beings?
Another place in the history books will belong to the organisations and politicians who could have helped, but looked the other way. If these are our leaders, dear world citizen, who needs enemies?
Africa’s lauded despot, Robert Mugabe, seeks another 5 year term as president. He will cheat at the 2008 election as he has done each time since 1980, then - when his bolt hole is good and ready - he will hand over the reins to a trustee. He intends to amend Zimbabwe’s mutant constitution once again to allow this, and although courageous activists from the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) are trying to challenge the Bill in public, it will be privately rubber-stamped by Mugabe’s lapdogs in Parliament.
The SADC states will look on with approval - in particular South Africa. The current ANC regime profited well by just such a provision in their own constitution, when Nelson Mandela stepped down and Thabo Mbeki, all unelected, stepped in to fill those giant shoes with his neat little size sixes. It’s possible that Mbeki suggested this dodge to Mugabe - it’s a handy and trouble-free way for a ruling party to ensure a handpicked successor. However, Mbeki went on to face - and win - a free and fair election, whereas Mugabe dares not. Real elections for the people of Zimbabwe are not in Mugabe’s self-preservation plan.
Mugabe’s dirty tricks campaign is getting into gear: the leader of the opposition bludgeoned; a turbulent priest publicly shamed. As per the last election, he has siezed upon something to entice the rural povo and the party faithful. Having done the white farm thing, the only morsel left to offer is the remnant of Zimbabwe’s industrial and mining sectors. So the teflon dictator tables his ‘indigenisation’ bill, hoping to reward the remaining few ZPF voters with a slice of Anglo American or Lever Brothers.
It’s ironic that only when the ruined economy is portrayed as a threat to his rule, does Mugabe bother to turn his poisonous gaze upon it. And as usual, instead of taking steps to mend the economy (his tax base and feeding trough), he bashes. The man has never understood economics, let alone the concept of inflation - and at 83 he is unable to try. Instead, he betrays his ignorance in characteristic fashion: use force! Make them halve their prices! That should fix it! And he appoints yet another dangerous fool to implement his solution - Obert Mpofu: Government minister, murderer and practised extortionist.
However, while the world’s media boggles in wonder at the +10,000% inflation figures, what they fail to realise is that Mugabe and the band of underqualified sycophants he calls a Cabinet, cannot actually have much effect on Zim's economy now. They lost control of it some time ago. Zimbabwe is already a failed state and the country operates an alternative, informal economy - and will simply continue to do so no matter what Zanu-PF tries next. Like water finding its way past an obstacle, Zimbabwe’s people are so used to 'making a plan' that situations such as being ordered to halve your prices are seen as just another setback. And the ruling party’s robber-barons simply keep their heads down for a while, pledge extra loyalty, then return to business as usual. “One hand washes the other” is a well-known saying in Zimbabwe. Mugabe needs his band of villains, and they need him.
For the economists, it’s a field day. Zimbabwe is so way past any economics textbook that it is setting precedents and making case history every day it continues to function. Fundamental theories and assumptions are being challenged: exactly in what proportion does printing money create inflation - does it obey its own supply-demand cycle (and is it our fault for abandoning the gold standard)? At what point does an economy become ‘Failed’, and who decides when it is? If most of the population is now trading goods and services instead of using money, at what point does the currency become worthless? And other fascinating Tipping-Point questions.
Prof. Tony Hawkins, Eric Bloch and John Robertson are the Three Tenors in Zim economics, and will no doubt each produce a dramatic soap-opera of a textbook when it’s all over. They may as well combine their efforts and write alternate chapters - perhaps a good title would be ‘When Zimbabwe’s Fat Lady Sang’. Joice Mujuru and the other well-larded ruling party women might vie for the cover picture honours.
The entire government of Zanu-PF have already assured themselves a place of infamy in history. But will there be a place in history for the mothers who endure the agony of watching their children die of starvation? For the squandered wildlife and devastated eco-systems? For the millions of broken families and the thousands of murdered citizens whose only crime was to wish for their rights as human beings?
Another place in the history books will belong to the organisations and politicians who could have helped, but looked the other way. If these are our leaders, dear world citizen, who needs enemies?
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