Zimbabwe's
election could mark
the decline of southern Africa
By
Jonathan
Power
March 12, 2002
LONDON - Only this weekend's election can save
Zimbabwe- once the star of black Africa- from total ruin.
And even that is uncertain. A country so mismanaged
requires more than a new leader and governing party. It
requires ten years of political calm and incorruptible
government to get back on its feet. And Zimbabwe for all
the intimidatatory tactics of President Robert Mugabe
remains a democracy and thus Mugabe, even if he loses the
poll, will live to fight another day, able to mobilize
the bitterness and resentment of the poor and unemployed
to undermine a new government, as he has worked to
undermine the opposition the last few years.
The trouble with Robert Mugabe is that his
single-minded, Marxist militancy that was a useful tool
in driving to defeat the white, racist, government of
Rhodesia (as it then was) and its British supporters in
the Conservative party is the same blinkered earnestness
that has destroyed the economy and undermined its one
time potential for becoming an oasis of racial
reconciliation and economic and social progress. Instead
of becoming an inspiration for its neighbour South
Africa, it is now a fearful warning for what could become
of South Africa itself if the spirit of Nelson Mandela,
its first black president, is crushed by the growing
number of serious policy mistakes of his successor, Thabo
Mbeki. Already in Mbeki, with his peculiar inability to
listen to his own medical advisors on the dangers of the
AIDS epidemic and his spending of a scarce $4 billion on
new submarines for the navy to be used against a
non-enemy, we see the early signs of the amalgam of
economic incompetence and political paranoia mixed with
defensive grandstanding that one could see starting to
develop in Zimbabwe two decades ago, a few years after it
won its independence.
Mugabe argues that the political imperative today is
to give the dispossessed land, taking from the white
farmers who were first settled by the great British
imperialist, Cecil Rhodes, 110 years ago. In this he is
as correct as the Palestinians today as they rail against
the imposed Israeli settlements on Arab soil. The
difference is that having made such a fuss about the land
issue during the war for majority rule Mugabe promptly
forgot about it once he came to office, only resurrecting
it three years ago when he realized how unpopular his
incompetent and corrupt government had become. Believing
he could play to the gallery of the landless and the
poverty stricken, he has allowed the storm troopers of
his political party to demoralise, intimidate and, on
occasion, to kill white farmers whilst, in fact, during
his 22 year term of office, doing little about providing
viable agricultural holdings (with good agricultural
advisors on call) to enable the poor to economically
progress. Indeed, over the years it has been the better
off blacks, politically well connected, that have done
best from the government's land policies.
While it is true that immediately after winning
independence Zimbabwe would not have been able to raise
the money to buy out white farmers from either Britain or
the U.S. (who did not deliver on what they had promised)
it could have raised the money from the World Bank, the
Scandinavians, the Dutch and other such countries that
had more liberal constituencies It was a well researched
fact at the time that 20% of the white farmers were
producing 80% of the output and the other 80% of the
farms could be made more productive under African small
scale management. But once it had achieved power the
Mugabe government simply lost interest in the issue, as
its black bourgeoisie comfortably inserted themselves
into the slots left empty by departing whites.
South Africa, it is to be profoundly hoped, will not
go the same way. Yet the pressures on it are formidable.
Like Zimbabwe before, it is finding its best efforts
cannot deliver a growth rate sufficient to give jobs to
every one and to start to lift the masses out of poverty.
The world economy has not been kind to South Africa.
Moreover, its workforce is undereducated and under
productive compared with its Asian competitors. Despite
many impressive achievements in building better housing
and extending the reach of basic health clinics and clean
water supplies, rank and file blacks well know that the
main beneficiaries of the end of white rule have been the
highly educated or well-connected blacks who have taken
plum jobs with conspicuous benefits. It is a country of
such gross income inequalities that its extraordinarily
high crime rate is one of the inevitable results. Another
is a seething political volatility that underneath the
seemingly dominating hand of the governing African
National Congress could erupt into land grabs in
emulation of Zimbabwe, encouraged by dissenting local
leaders. It would take only a few fatal shots by old
school white farmers to upset the delicately balanced
racial applecart. After that new foreign investment would
be even harder to attract than it is today.
But there is a more positive end to the story still
within reach. Mugabe may well lose the election. The new
government of Zimbabwe may learn how to make good use of
all the competent people, both black and white, just
waiting for the right lead, to put the country back on
its feet. And the South Africa government, watching the
Zimbabwean crisis unfurl, may learn the price of its own
skewed priorities before it is too late.
I can be reached by phone +44
7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
Copyright © 2002 By
JONATHAN POWER
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