Zimbabwe: Queues of Despair

If a Martian landed in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital today, he would certainly be taken aback by the length and number of human queues.

Like garden worms, the human queues twist and turn throughout the city, blocking traffic as people wait to get a chance to get money from their bank accounts.

The queues start early in the morning and last well into the night. As long as people think there is a faint chance to get a hold of their cash, they remain huddled in the queue.

If anything, human queues have become an additional indicator of the collapse of the Zimbabwean nation state, in particular, the financial system.

Due to a multi-billion percent inflation, the Zimbabwean government is no longer able to meet the paper money needs of its citizenry.

Zimbabwe’s Hungry Stomach Politics

In the run-up to the June presidential run-off elections in Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe’s government banned the distribution of food to poor people by NGOs. The government accused NGOs of using food to campaign on behalf of the political opposition.

More than anything else the government ban on food distribution is a revelation of how much the stomach has influenced political developments in the country.

Zimbabwe is a nation-state that has been increasingly built on the politics of empty stomachs since it attained independence from British rule in 1980.

A combination of widespread rural poverty and a legacy of the liberation war have in many ways nourished President Robert Mugabe’s rule since 1980.

Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Unity-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) has mastered the art of handing out Lazaric crumbs to the majority of the people, particularly in the rural areas, in exchange for political gain and control.

Quote of the Day

“No, we will not allow him to fool the people of Zimbabwe and the international community that he’s holding an election. No, we will not play the game of Mugabe.”

~ Morgan Tsvangirai, MDC President

Mugabe’s Wrath of the State

President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zimbabwe African National Union has, in recent days, embarked on a warpath against civil society organizations.

 

 President Robert Mugabe: Africa’s strongman

Ordinary citizens with political views that favor the opposition political party, Movement for Democratic Change, have also not escaped the wrath of the state.

 Mugabe’s government accuses civil society organizations of both working in cahoots with the MDC and being funded by Western countries.

In Zimbabwe today, the venom of the state machinery, including the military, the police and the state-owned media, is being unleashed against anyone perceived to be connected to the opposition, which won the parliamentary elections in March — a first in Zimbabwe since it attained independence from British rule in 1980.

Since 1980, ZANU-PF has won all the parliamentary and presidential elections by any means possible — fair, foul or murderous.

Incumbent President Mugabe, who narrowly lost to opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai 43.2 percent to 47.9 percent in the March election, blames Western forces (as he has glibly done for the past eight years) for his loss of popularity.

Ahead of a runoff election scheduled for June 27, Mugabe has invoked all the state machinery’s hell against his people, and is determined to win by any means necessary.

Throughout the country, opposition supporters have been abducted and discovered with limbs, private parts, ears and tongues chopped off in scenes reminiscent of ritual killings.

“It’s a desperate situation,” said Keith Mazonde, a Harare-based nongovernmental organization worker in a Skype interview, “But the old man [Mugabe] is going nowhere.”

“I think he will win, but if you get me right, it’s a different kind from the win we know,” added Mazonde.

The clampdown of civil society organizations by Mugabe’s government comes in the wake of an order barring humanitarian aid organizations from distributing food and agricultural aid to impoverished Zimbabweans.

Mugabe has accused humanitarian aid organizations of using food handouts to campaign in favor of the opposition. NGOs have been ordered to re-apply for operating licenses.

According to Zimbabwe’s National Association of Nongovernmental Organizations, HIV patients will likely die as a result of the ban on food aid because they rely on NGOs for home-based care and antiretroviral medical assistance.

“The country has become a bedlam for people seeking an honest means of living. It looks like it will get better if only Mugabe goes, and a government of national unity is the way forward,” said Obert Sherera, an NGO worker.

UNICEF estimates that a total of 185,000 children are likely to miss the essential support they need, including healthcare and nutrition, and labels the government ban against NGOs a “human rights violation.”

“One day it will all come to an end but for now people are living in fear,” said Nornia Dumare, a political activist in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital city.

Already, political analysts are saying that under the current circumstances it will be impossible for Zimbabwe to hold a free and fair presidential election.

According to a Human Rights Watch report, the Zimbabwean government’s campaign of violence and intimidation against the opposition MDC has extinguished any chance of a free and fair presidential runoff on June 27.

The report titled “‘Bullets for Each of You’: State-Sponsored Violence Since Zimbabwe’s March 29 Elections,” said that 36 politically motivated deaths and 2,000 victims of violence have been recorded in the run-up to the June runoff election.

“Since the runoff was announced the violence in Zimbabwe has gotten even worse,” said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Zimbabweans can’t vote freely if they fear their vote may get them killed.” 

Bob’s Zimbabwe

 ‘So arm in arms, with arms, we’ll fight this little struggle’    

On April 18, 1980, Jamaican musical maestro Bob Marley joined millions of Zimbabweans to celebrate a hard-won independence from oppression.  

As part of his tribute he performed the song “Zimbabwe” live in Harare, the capital city. April 18 marked the day on which Zimbabwe’s incumbent leader Robert Mugabe was sworn in as the first prime minister of a people that took over a hundred years to reclaim their freedom from British colonial rule.  

Twenty-eight years later Marley’s words in “Zimbabwe” ring with an amazingly prophetic tone. More than anything they speak to his inspired genius and to his ability to understand humanity.

But greater still, they speak to the struggle of how to build a nation from the ashes of oppression in which every human being must be granted a right to decide their own destiny.  

“Bob’s story is that of an archetype, which is why it continues to have such a powerful and ever-growing resonance: it embodies political repression, metaphysical and artistic insights, gangland warfare and various periods of mystical wilderness,” states the official Marley Web site.

I couldn’t have put it better.  

It was the ability of Marley’s music to tear into the fabric of the sociopolitical establishment of his time that won him so many fans.  

With his words Bob Marley was able to open up new human awakenings and, fused into rhythmic yet soothing Jamaican reggae melody, the power of his words went on to inspire millions of people around the world.  

The fact that Bob Marley penned a song for Zimbabwe can only mean that he had a special regard for the country in his heart.

By the power of his words, he managed to capture the dream of the people of Zimbabwe and project it onto the world map.  

More amazingly his words are so true to the reality in Zimbabwe today. As a Zimbabwean it’s both nostalgic and frightening for me to listen to the words of Marley’s “Zimbabwe.” 

Every man got to decide his own destiny

And in this judgement there is no partiality

So arm in arm with arms we’ll fight this little struggle ‘

‘Cause that’s the only way we can over come our little trouble

Brother you’re right.

You’re right.

You’re so right.

You’re right  

We go fight (We go fight)  

We’ll have to fight (We go fight)

We’re gonna fight (We go fight)

Fight for your rights

Natty dread it in a Zimbabwe

Set it up in Zimbabwe

Mash it up in a Zimbabwe  

Africans a liberate Zimbabwe …

Divide and rule could only tear us apart

In every man chest there beats a heart

So soon we’ll find out who is the real revolutionaries

And I don’t want my people to be tricked by mercenaries 

On the one hand Bob Marley’s song arouses the joyous reminisces of a newly independent Zimbabwe with a promise of a future of hope, development, democracy and opportunity. On the other hand it mirrors the disintegration of the state of Zimbabwe today.  

For me it’s indeed like a surreal paradox. Marley’s song in the current Zimbabwe is no longer a song of liberation but a call to a united front that can confront the dark powers of black-on-black oppression camouflaged in pan-African ideology.

More than just a gifted songwriter and musician, Marley was indeed an inspirational prophet who wanted truth to be told and injustices to stop.  

Ironically Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe has ushered a dispensation that is akin to a silent genocide against his own people.  Marley must be cringing wherever he is living now with the gods of music.

Presently Zimbabwe has come down to devouring its own people because of the selfishness and greed of its political leaders.  

The political leaders care little about the people that they claim to represent. Poverty and suffering have become the order of the day in that beloved nation. All because of the beliefs held by its political leaders.  

The belief that we must revenge the evils of the colonial past has killed the country of Zimbabwe. Belief shows itself in action and, if its root is coated with evil, shows itself with an ugly face.  

Revenge, oppression and hatred are the currencies turning the wheels in the ramshackle state of Zimbabwe. And as a result many people in the country are dying, like donkeys drinking water at a poisoned well.  

Marley asked in one his songs: What happens to a man that kills to save his own belief? That very question is what Zimbabwe’s political leaders need to ask themselves today. The political leaders’ divide-and-rule tactics against the population have made Zimbabwe a laughingstock around the world.  

The nation itself is like a house cracking at its foundation. Not many in Zimbabwe today have a right to choose their own destiny. Partiality and cronyism is what the politicians practice.  Increasingly it is becoming apparent that ordinary people need to join “arm in arms” to fight for freedom; otherwise, there will be no guarantee of a future of promise.

Only a united Zimbabwe can fight the trouble the nation is facing.   But the truth is that the country today lacks true revolutionaries: people who are willing to give up their lives for the cause of freedom, but who will not kill innocent beings for the cause of freedom.  

True revolutionaries who dare to dissent at the risk of having their voices cut off. Mugabe’s government has become like a mercenary against the people. But in every Zimbabwean’s heart, the quest of freedom beats constantly.

It’s probably the only right thing about the country today.  If the people of Zimbabwe can believe more in the sound of that heartbeat, Marley’s song will reverberate again like a joyful sound.

Freedom must free not just the freedom seeker but those around him.  Real revolutionaries, in Marley’s words, are people who do not tolerate any form of injustice or oppression. That message rings true throughout his music, touching the hearts of many freedom fighters around the world.  

And in Zimbabwe, Marley’s words could never sound better as a call to progressive action.