Deep down in him, when all that acquired sophistry and urbanity is taken away, my father is a peasant. Like his father before him.
I spoke to him to-day. He was visiting Nyanga town to refill his medical prescription and he sounded happy as a boy let lose in a sweet shop. I could imagine the crystal clear air after the rains yesterday (the beginning of the rainy season) and the wispy clouds cascading up the mountains as they gather for another storm, the red loamy soils bursting with nutrition and waiting anxiously to receive seed.
And there he was, liberated in every sense as I asked him how his new life was going. In my mind it must be boring, albeit relaxing to be in the village waiting for the rains to fall and to start the job of preparing the fields, planting, weeding, harvesting and coming full circle to waiting again – all the time praying to the gods that the rains will fall starting at the right time, for the right amount of time and in just the right amounts. A peasant’s life hangs so much on the natural elements, on the many facets outside one’s controls it is no wonder that they have so many gods and ancestors to appease and pacify.
For my mother, newly arrived from the city, it must be even tougher. Because the great amount of work falls on her shoulders. Women and children are the driving engine of the peasant economy, while the men are away drinking or, my father’s case a teetotal for life, “organising” one thing or another. He is the great organiser with an endless list of tasks to be performed while he watches over. He is very busy, he tells me in response to my enquiries. He has had to “organise” the building of the outhouse to serve as a granary and the cattle kraal (for which purpose I am not quite clear because as far as I am aware, they do not own any cattle). But then maybe he has or is organising a herd.
And his truck (which was a retirement gift from us his children), is it on the road? Apparently not. And not for lack of money. It would appear that the fuel stations do not think they will have supplies for the next three months. More probably 6 months or 9 or 18, or however long it is going to take to get some sanity back on the sinking ship of sovereign Zimbabwe. But that is another story, the sinking ship with Captain Bob shouting, “Ahoy! Full steam ahead”!
My father is not alone in trying to go back to a romantic past of the peasant life of his youth. My mother is his willing partner and accomplice. Men and women who were professionals in the narrow and limited sense that colonial Rhodesia allowed them – teachers, nurses, police officers – who became the new urbanites in 1980 and bought houses in the former white areas (the low density suburbs as they became known; but how population density gradually increased as the economy started sliding and owners were forced to let out spare rooms and garden cottages) and brought us up going to former white schools and speaking with clipped BBC accents or pseudo-American drawl. They achieved much more than their fathers had done in the leap from peasants to professionals, and sadly, much more than their children after them. We now languish in foreign countries driven out by Captain Bob shouting “Ahoy! Land is the Economy, to hell with anybody else who thinks differently!”
So our parent’s generation in the early years of Independence had access to jobs that paid living wages, good health care and they could dream of a better future with their children looking after them in their old age. They didn’t reckon with the revolution becoming sour and driving many out of the country nor with the grim reaper of HIV/ AIDS which has reversed all these gains and turned them into carers.
Despite being urbanised they maintained rural homes which they visited regularly as a link with their past; others bought farms they would retreat to for working holidays in the rainy season and at Christmas and Easter.
But now the boom times are over. My father and his generation have realised that the urban life is too stressful, and decided to go back to the village. For my father, it is also to live out his last days among the familiar and to be buried, when he dies, among his people – not in the lonely and crowded anonymity of Harare’s fast-dwindling cemeteries.
In all this reminiscence about my father and Zimbabwe and that generation that has opened opportunities for us, I realise that perhaps deep down in me, strip away the acquired sophistry, urbanity and the white man’s ways, is really a peasant awaiting my time to go back to the land of my father and get my hands dirty “organizing” things on the village plot.
Post-script – Nov 2010.
I too am a peasant at heart and will live out my days in the village, and the red earth beneath my feet will become my resting place…
Monday, November 1, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
I am just outside Washington, and to-morrow, discounting any mishaps, I will be reunited with the wife and Paida and The Boy. I didn’t think I would miss them this much but I have been half the man I am without them, uncertain and emotional sometimes, lonely and angry even, bewildered and lost at other times.
The drive up from North Carolina was uneventful, almost five hours but it was smooth , no traffic congestion; a stretch of torrential rain with reduced visibility was the biggest challenge. That plus the constant fear of passing these huge articulated trucks, they are called semis here. In Zimbabwe the moniker “gonyet” is much more suited to these behemoths of metal which are more like caterpillars in length and manoevrability. And in Zimbabwe they account for high fatalities on the road. Here too apparently. I have seem nay of them barrel down the highway at 120 km / h (70 miles / h), the legal speed limit of a normal car. They seem to have no restriction of maximum speed here and so they overtake at will, compete with little cars, tailgating sometimes like caterpillars on steroids.
The road is wide but bumpy, pock-marked, corrugated. I have travelled better roads in South Africa and Botswana. But again it is the road infrastructure, the different place names one encounters on this trip which points to two things – America is no longer Newfoundland; it is now an old country and with the insatiable love of the motor vehicle it is easy to see why the roads are in such a state. A million cars and more move up and down these roads everyday – big trucks carrying small cars, goods etc, smaller trucks moving furniture, mini-vans (what we call commuter buses / taxis) carrying families, big buses, small cars, motorcycles….any road carrying such tones of weight would buckle too.
From the names and monuments, the history of this country is laid bare. For it was here in Virginia that the northern Federal armies and the breakaway Southern confederates fought fierce battles in defence of their beliefs and ideologies. The South was defending it’s independent statehood and with that the right to maintain slavery.
The Potomac River on which the modern city of Washington is built and which winds through Fredericksburg flowed with the blood of young men sent to battle for matters that could have been best negotiated over a cup of tea. As I once again reflected on the tragedy of those times, I think of the continuing tragedies of this time…300 years later. And the words of Wilfred Owen come to me….
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
--- My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.
The drive up from North Carolina was uneventful, almost five hours but it was smooth , no traffic congestion; a stretch of torrential rain with reduced visibility was the biggest challenge. That plus the constant fear of passing these huge articulated trucks, they are called semis here. In Zimbabwe the moniker “gonyet” is much more suited to these behemoths of metal which are more like caterpillars in length and manoevrability. And in Zimbabwe they account for high fatalities on the road. Here too apparently. I have seem nay of them barrel down the highway at 120 km / h (70 miles / h), the legal speed limit of a normal car. They seem to have no restriction of maximum speed here and so they overtake at will, compete with little cars, tailgating sometimes like caterpillars on steroids.
The road is wide but bumpy, pock-marked, corrugated. I have travelled better roads in South Africa and Botswana. But again it is the road infrastructure, the different place names one encounters on this trip which points to two things – America is no longer Newfoundland; it is now an old country and with the insatiable love of the motor vehicle it is easy to see why the roads are in such a state. A million cars and more move up and down these roads everyday – big trucks carrying small cars, goods etc, smaller trucks moving furniture, mini-vans (what we call commuter buses / taxis) carrying families, big buses, small cars, motorcycles….any road carrying such tones of weight would buckle too.
From the names and monuments, the history of this country is laid bare. For it was here in Virginia that the northern Federal armies and the breakaway Southern confederates fought fierce battles in defence of their beliefs and ideologies. The South was defending it’s independent statehood and with that the right to maintain slavery.
The Potomac River on which the modern city of Washington is built and which winds through Fredericksburg flowed with the blood of young men sent to battle for matters that could have been best negotiated over a cup of tea. As I once again reflected on the tragedy of those times, I think of the continuing tragedies of this time…300 years later. And the words of Wilfred Owen come to me….
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
--- My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Midnight Plane to Georgia
I have Georgia on my mind…
I am to report to Emory, Atlanta and then I will be on my way. Georgia invokes songstress Glady’s Knight’s ode to a lover gone back South in a midnight train. That song was played to death on Radio 3’s vintage afternoons back in the 1980’s, and I was captivated by it, a boy of 13 and knowing nothing at all about love. In more recent times, I hear Ray Charles crooning…
Georgia, Georgia,
The whole day through
Just an old sweet song
Keeps Georgia on my mind
But whether what’s on Ray’s mind is the deep south State of the United States which has seen it’s fair share of human (or perhaps inhuman) suffering, or maybe another lover gone away, I am not sure. But I am headed out there.
I board the flight from Washington Dulles, having arrived that morning from Cape Town. I sit next to a gentleman from Florida and soon we are engaged in pleasantries and a conversation. He tells me that he is in the military and has served with Africom in Kenya and the Congo. Africom is the US African Command Centre which Robert Mugabe has railed against in the past because it was to relocate to Botswana and was seen as part of the regime change moves by the Americans back in 2007. Then we talk about Africa and other things of no consequence.
The flight is going well enough when we are told that there is a storm coming in from Atlanta and that there will be a delay. A few minutes later the captain informs we will have to land at Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina and wait for the seemingly vicious storm to pass. Raleigh ironically will be my final destination but I have to report to my hosts first. We disembark and it soon becomes apparent that we may be there indefinitely. I am exhausted, now clocking over 24 hours since departing South Africa. I pace up and down, restless to get to my destination and a warm meal, a bath and a bed.
I sit down in the departure lounge and strike up a conversation. He is a young man, a boy actually, chubby and his skin is more orange than black. His eyes are a strange blue-green, a testimony to the diversity in his cultural gene pool. In America, black is less a racial hegemony and more a state of mind, perhaps. Obama has recently called the black race in America, a “mongrel race”, all shades of chocolate if you like – from shiny ebony black (count me there!) to dark all the way to light brown, caramel and almost white. Here be more colours to black than black!
The young man tells me that he is in the army, and I am taken aback. He has done the rotation to Afghanistan and will be back there later on in the year. I look at him, there tapping on his laptop and fiddling with is iphone, a normal young man not much unlike others ambling around pants drooping here in this airport. His gentle mien belies the things he has seen and done out there in the war fields. He is but a boy, 22 years of age with a girlfriend waiting at the airport for him to drive him home to his mother.
Are you not afraid when you are out there, I ask.
He shrugs the question off, and I feel awkward asking him something so personal. But I know he must shake in his boots when he is in Taliban country fighting a war he probably doesn’t understand or care too much about. But it’s the military code and bravado which keep him from answering. It’s a job with a high premium being in the American military.
As the year unfolds and I get more and more immersed in American society, I am hit by the staggering realization that this is in fact a country at war; and it has been at war for every decade since World War Two, having been bombed out of isolationism by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. Young men and women, many of then still unable to legally smoke, drink or drive, are sent to war where and given the licence to kill and / or die for America. I think there is a song about that from some anti-war pacifist rocker, but maybe I am wrong; perhaps there ought to be one.
As of July 2010, 4500 Americans have been killed in Iraq and 1200 in Afghanistan. Lest we forget, the number of civilian casualties in both wars is well over 1 million lives. Whatever the justification of the wars, the bloodletting goes on everyday and not one week passes without a reminder to the tragedy of war. On Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) news television (aka American ZBC but without the “Comrade X urged…” or sycophancy) once a week they have a silent memorial to the dead soldiers. Every one of them gets a final 15 seconds of fame with their photos, age and city of origin panned across the TV screen. They are mostly young men touching 20 or 21, white, Hispanic and black, and in their photos they are appear relaxed, clean cut and professionally attired in well-starched uniforms, a flag in the background – a picture of true patriotism.
Sometimes in that sad silence of flashing photographs of the dead, I think about that chubby, polite young man, blue-green eyes and near orange skin tone and I wonder if he is not this one or that one on the nightly newscast. Then I pray for his safety, because he is just a boy in the killing fields – a grist to the mill of war.
I am to report to Emory, Atlanta and then I will be on my way. Georgia invokes songstress Glady’s Knight’s ode to a lover gone back South in a midnight train. That song was played to death on Radio 3’s vintage afternoons back in the 1980’s, and I was captivated by it, a boy of 13 and knowing nothing at all about love. In more recent times, I hear Ray Charles crooning…
Georgia, Georgia,
The whole day through
Just an old sweet song
Keeps Georgia on my mind
But whether what’s on Ray’s mind is the deep south State of the United States which has seen it’s fair share of human (or perhaps inhuman) suffering, or maybe another lover gone away, I am not sure. But I am headed out there.
I board the flight from Washington Dulles, having arrived that morning from Cape Town. I sit next to a gentleman from Florida and soon we are engaged in pleasantries and a conversation. He tells me that he is in the military and has served with Africom in Kenya and the Congo. Africom is the US African Command Centre which Robert Mugabe has railed against in the past because it was to relocate to Botswana and was seen as part of the regime change moves by the Americans back in 2007. Then we talk about Africa and other things of no consequence.
The flight is going well enough when we are told that there is a storm coming in from Atlanta and that there will be a delay. A few minutes later the captain informs we will have to land at Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina and wait for the seemingly vicious storm to pass. Raleigh ironically will be my final destination but I have to report to my hosts first. We disembark and it soon becomes apparent that we may be there indefinitely. I am exhausted, now clocking over 24 hours since departing South Africa. I pace up and down, restless to get to my destination and a warm meal, a bath and a bed.
I sit down in the departure lounge and strike up a conversation. He is a young man, a boy actually, chubby and his skin is more orange than black. His eyes are a strange blue-green, a testimony to the diversity in his cultural gene pool. In America, black is less a racial hegemony and more a state of mind, perhaps. Obama has recently called the black race in America, a “mongrel race”, all shades of chocolate if you like – from shiny ebony black (count me there!) to dark all the way to light brown, caramel and almost white. Here be more colours to black than black!
The young man tells me that he is in the army, and I am taken aback. He has done the rotation to Afghanistan and will be back there later on in the year. I look at him, there tapping on his laptop and fiddling with is iphone, a normal young man not much unlike others ambling around pants drooping here in this airport. His gentle mien belies the things he has seen and done out there in the war fields. He is but a boy, 22 years of age with a girlfriend waiting at the airport for him to drive him home to his mother.
Are you not afraid when you are out there, I ask.
He shrugs the question off, and I feel awkward asking him something so personal. But I know he must shake in his boots when he is in Taliban country fighting a war he probably doesn’t understand or care too much about. But it’s the military code and bravado which keep him from answering. It’s a job with a high premium being in the American military.
As the year unfolds and I get more and more immersed in American society, I am hit by the staggering realization that this is in fact a country at war; and it has been at war for every decade since World War Two, having been bombed out of isolationism by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. Young men and women, many of then still unable to legally smoke, drink or drive, are sent to war where and given the licence to kill and / or die for America. I think there is a song about that from some anti-war pacifist rocker, but maybe I am wrong; perhaps there ought to be one.
As of July 2010, 4500 Americans have been killed in Iraq and 1200 in Afghanistan. Lest we forget, the number of civilian casualties in both wars is well over 1 million lives. Whatever the justification of the wars, the bloodletting goes on everyday and not one week passes without a reminder to the tragedy of war. On Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) news television (aka American ZBC but without the “Comrade X urged…” or sycophancy) once a week they have a silent memorial to the dead soldiers. Every one of them gets a final 15 seconds of fame with their photos, age and city of origin panned across the TV screen. They are mostly young men touching 20 or 21, white, Hispanic and black, and in their photos they are appear relaxed, clean cut and professionally attired in well-starched uniforms, a flag in the background – a picture of true patriotism.
Sometimes in that sad silence of flashing photographs of the dead, I think about that chubby, polite young man, blue-green eyes and near orange skin tone and I wonder if he is not this one or that one on the nightly newscast. Then I pray for his safety, because he is just a boy in the killing fields – a grist to the mill of war.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Coming to America...
We land in Washington on a cool Sunday morning, 6 o’clock. I saunter along to the exit of the plane – there is no real hurry because I am now familiar with what happens up at the clearing gates and I have adjusted my connecting flight schedule accordingly, or so I think.
The first time I was at Washington Dulles Airport, back in 2008, I was shocked to find that they don’t operate 24 hours a day; so we had to wait outside the gates grumbling. This time when we eventually make it to the arrivals hall, they are open and a rather long line is snaking forward slowly. My connecting flight is at noon or thereabouts so I am in no particular haste, just anxious to gain successful entry. I am anxious because, well I am black, and it’s about a month after that stupid Nigerian boy – now popular known as the Christmas Day Bomber – tried to blow himself out of the sky along with a planeload of innocent civilians. This has, of course, marked everybody with his profile for particular scrutiny. I have dutifully taken my wife’s advice and shaved off all facial hair (aka beard) to look less like a would-be terrorist, perhaps. I remember doing the same thing on a trip to the UK in the aftermath of the 7/7 London bombings. Growing a beard seems to be a crime in itself, it appears.
Beard or no beard, it didn’t help, I find out later…I am somewhat marked as high risk for whatever reason along with all other swarthy passengers and we are directed to room D for further screening. A case of racial profiling, I think, until I see whole families of apparently white people and women also squeezed in. I am somewhat comforted by that observation. In that room are people of the world, a young Indian couple with a young child running around with no care in the world ( a baby terrorist, perhaps), one black guy who appears to be from East Africa, many many Arab looking people and then Caucasians from God knows where. At least if I am sent back home, I won’t be alone…
Eventually my name is called by a young Japanese officer, a hyphenated American, as I call them – Japanese – American, Latino-American, Irish – American (not so obvious in a crowd perhaps), African – Americans (a rather amorphous hold all, because what do you call a white Zimbabwean who becomes an American citizen, or my friend Samanyika, newly arrived in America but now with a green card. And these people the two Zimbabweans share more together then they do with negro descendants of African slaves. But that’s a story for another time perhaps). The long and short of it is that all Americans are now hyphenated and lately the right-wing conservatives have been bandying around the moniker European-Americans, in opposition to Obama’s cosmopolitanism. This group believes that they are the true Americans (never mind the fact that these lands really belong to the “red” Indians who are now largely confined to the reserves and slowly being wiped out by alcohol and social dislocation. On a previous occasion I met a young Native American who was reading a book about the “journey of tears” which isan account of the driving out of Native Americans from their ancestral homes to the reservations and the disease and conditions which nearly led to their extinction as a people. In fact some of the smaller nations disappeared altogether).
Back to the Japanese-American officer. He represents the beauty of America i.e. you are American even if you are a mafikizolo (Johnny come-lately). Can you imagine being an African – British; nay, on the forms that I used to fill in all my time in the UK I had to tick the race box; a selection from white, Irish (as if that is not white), African Caribbean, African, Indian…or other! Or for that matter, can my son who is a South African citizen call himself a Zimbabwe – South African since he does not fit into any other category. Sadly, he will always be “that foreigner” despite having the same life and possibly cultural narrative as the child who was born in the next bed in Bellville clinic, Cape Town. So in that respect I would want to be American; Zimbabwean-American to be precise knowing fully well that I will be accepted as I am.
But I detract… The Japanese-American officer asks me the questions I was asked in Cape Town and earlier that morning at the gate. I give him the answers without embellishment. My sister Tendo always said that you should just answer such questions without giving unsolicited information and I never been given better advice in my life. I am handed my passport back and led to my bags; he wants to check them.
The officer rifles through the bags and comes across packets of Royco mix (I can’t live without my gravy mix). He double-checks with a colleague if this is an allowable item and he gets the green light. He asks me about my rooibos boxes (the only hot beverage I drink) and then he sees that I have an apple which I had picked up at Johannesburg Airport lounge. An apple it turns out is a very dangerous weapon because it can bring in all manner of plant disease into the country. I am given the option of eating it or throwing it away. I choose the former seeing as I am very hungry; I scoff it down in big bites and hand him the seed to dispose of.
With some satisfaction, he takes the seeds and waves me through, “You’all set then”.
And indeed I am. With a sigh of relief, I push my trolley towards the baggage counter for the connecting flight. It’s about 9.30 am. I am exhausted; I have been on the road since 13.00 of the previous day and I have flown seven hours back into time. Or perhaps, my journey actually has a further starting point back in time, I reflect. This journey started back in the 1970’s from the foothills of the Nyanga Mountains, where my earliest memories lie. The village boy has made good; or at least he is trying…
Feeling disoriented and hungry for something warm I wind my way into America, the land of opportunity and my home for the next 12 months.
The first time I was at Washington Dulles Airport, back in 2008, I was shocked to find that they don’t operate 24 hours a day; so we had to wait outside the gates grumbling. This time when we eventually make it to the arrivals hall, they are open and a rather long line is snaking forward slowly. My connecting flight is at noon or thereabouts so I am in no particular haste, just anxious to gain successful entry. I am anxious because, well I am black, and it’s about a month after that stupid Nigerian boy – now popular known as the Christmas Day Bomber – tried to blow himself out of the sky along with a planeload of innocent civilians. This has, of course, marked everybody with his profile for particular scrutiny. I have dutifully taken my wife’s advice and shaved off all facial hair (aka beard) to look less like a would-be terrorist, perhaps. I remember doing the same thing on a trip to the UK in the aftermath of the 7/7 London bombings. Growing a beard seems to be a crime in itself, it appears.
Beard or no beard, it didn’t help, I find out later…I am somewhat marked as high risk for whatever reason along with all other swarthy passengers and we are directed to room D for further screening. A case of racial profiling, I think, until I see whole families of apparently white people and women also squeezed in. I am somewhat comforted by that observation. In that room are people of the world, a young Indian couple with a young child running around with no care in the world ( a baby terrorist, perhaps), one black guy who appears to be from East Africa, many many Arab looking people and then Caucasians from God knows where. At least if I am sent back home, I won’t be alone…
Eventually my name is called by a young Japanese officer, a hyphenated American, as I call them – Japanese – American, Latino-American, Irish – American (not so obvious in a crowd perhaps), African – Americans (a rather amorphous hold all, because what do you call a white Zimbabwean who becomes an American citizen, or my friend Samanyika, newly arrived in America but now with a green card. And these people the two Zimbabweans share more together then they do with negro descendants of African slaves. But that’s a story for another time perhaps). The long and short of it is that all Americans are now hyphenated and lately the right-wing conservatives have been bandying around the moniker European-Americans, in opposition to Obama’s cosmopolitanism. This group believes that they are the true Americans (never mind the fact that these lands really belong to the “red” Indians who are now largely confined to the reserves and slowly being wiped out by alcohol and social dislocation. On a previous occasion I met a young Native American who was reading a book about the “journey of tears” which isan account of the driving out of Native Americans from their ancestral homes to the reservations and the disease and conditions which nearly led to their extinction as a people. In fact some of the smaller nations disappeared altogether).
Back to the Japanese-American officer. He represents the beauty of America i.e. you are American even if you are a mafikizolo (Johnny come-lately). Can you imagine being an African – British; nay, on the forms that I used to fill in all my time in the UK I had to tick the race box; a selection from white, Irish (as if that is not white), African Caribbean, African, Indian…or other! Or for that matter, can my son who is a South African citizen call himself a Zimbabwe – South African since he does not fit into any other category. Sadly, he will always be “that foreigner” despite having the same life and possibly cultural narrative as the child who was born in the next bed in Bellville clinic, Cape Town. So in that respect I would want to be American; Zimbabwean-American to be precise knowing fully well that I will be accepted as I am.
But I detract… The Japanese-American officer asks me the questions I was asked in Cape Town and earlier that morning at the gate. I give him the answers without embellishment. My sister Tendo always said that you should just answer such questions without giving unsolicited information and I never been given better advice in my life. I am handed my passport back and led to my bags; he wants to check them.
The officer rifles through the bags and comes across packets of Royco mix (I can’t live without my gravy mix). He double-checks with a colleague if this is an allowable item and he gets the green light. He asks me about my rooibos boxes (the only hot beverage I drink) and then he sees that I have an apple which I had picked up at Johannesburg Airport lounge. An apple it turns out is a very dangerous weapon because it can bring in all manner of plant disease into the country. I am given the option of eating it or throwing it away. I choose the former seeing as I am very hungry; I scoff it down in big bites and hand him the seed to dispose of.
With some satisfaction, he takes the seeds and waves me through, “You’all set then”.
And indeed I am. With a sigh of relief, I push my trolley towards the baggage counter for the connecting flight. It’s about 9.30 am. I am exhausted; I have been on the road since 13.00 of the previous day and I have flown seven hours back into time. Or perhaps, my journey actually has a further starting point back in time, I reflect. This journey started back in the 1970’s from the foothills of the Nyanga Mountains, where my earliest memories lie. The village boy has made good; or at least he is trying…
Feeling disoriented and hungry for something warm I wind my way into America, the land of opportunity and my home for the next 12 months.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Saving Zimbabwe – beyond politics - Part II
David R. Katerere
Part II – we discuss reconciliation and how national healing can be done differently in Zimbabwe and learn from Rwanda.
Bob Scott (BS) - One of the things I talk about with my Zimbabwean friends here in the US is why are Zimbabweans so communal? One of my friends made an astute observation when I asked about this. He said, “well we have to be communal, we can’t survive without other people”.
In American culture on the other hand we can be independently wealthy, which is why we have become fragmented. Everybody pursues jobs and individual happiness.
Therefore the communal culture is very natural to Zimbabwe which is why the Community of Reconciliation thrived because the locals understood it; it was natural to their way of life.
David Katerere (DK) - Are you going to meet with people involved in the reconciliation process?
BS - I would love to meet them. I have written to Minister Sekai Holland and shared some of my thoughts with her. One of the things I said was that I am not sure that reconciliation is something that can be legislated, it’s not something you can force people to do. Reconciliation is really a heart issue because it deals with things like forgiveness.
From what I have been reading it sounds like the reconciliation process in Zimbabwe is a lot about what are the wronged individuals going to get out of it - you did this bad thing to me, so I want that. It seems to be all about retribution and restitution and that concerns me because it is premature. Rwanda is a great example of how it can be done. One of the things that they realized there was that in order to bring about reconciliation people need to hear the words “I am sorry”. I think that these words “I am sorry” are the most powerful words in the human language.
In Zimbabwe everybody is trying to blame everybody else for what happened and my feeling is that the people in the process need to look at themselves and take personal responsibility – say to themselves, “what did I do wrong”?
I think when that spirit begins to grip people, when that heart attitude takes hold then the country can move forward.
DK – But the country is still stuck in that mode. We can’t move forward until after this transition, can we?
BS - In the book I talk about the great apostle Paul who said, “We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”. All three groups, the British, Shonas and Ndebeles, they have sinned against one another; they have done wrong to one another. They should look at each other and say “we are sorry, we take responsibility for our mistakes”. Then the next step is to say, well, we can only move forward if we forgive each other.
DK - But there has been no acknowledgement of wrong doing on the parts of the Rhodesians, or the for the Matabeleland massacres or the more recent election –related violence. Reports on what happened have been suppressed, so in that atmosphere it becomes difficult to move forward. When people ask for forgiveness, therefore, are they being sensitive or just being politically expedient?
BS - Well, there will be people like that and there is nothing you can do about that. But people who will have the courage to get into a room, look at each other in the eye and say “I am sorry” those people can move forward. Think about Rwanda – getting back to that example again, you have people in Rwanda living next door to people they know killed their family; how can that be possible? From a human dynamic, how is that even possible?
Well, it is because of forgiveness and there is a whole process they have used to get to that point. In the community, in every case, it’s about the perpetrator saying to the victim, “I am sorry, I wronged you, please forgive me” and the victim having to then make a decision about what they are going to do. Once they say, “I forgive you”, then it’s done, and restitution begins. The perpetrator because of the fact that he wants forgiveness then asks how he can make right. He is not being forced to do it, he is doing it out of his heart.
You see, forgiveness brings a brokenness to the human soul and that is what we don’t yet see in Zimbabwe. What you see is arrogance and pride and everyone digging in, something Jesus called “self-righteousness” and that’s what we need to deal with.
DK - Your message is about social justice?
What I am interested in is spiritual justice which plays itself out in the social environment.
DK - Social justice seems to be a dirty world in the US right now, so are you a communist?!!
BS - (Laughs). O God! It’s interesting to me because unfortunately what’s happening in my country (the US) right now is that Christianity is starting to be defined by political ideology. And that saddens me.
The issue I have with socialism as a political ideology is that I don’t think you can legislate generosity. I see justice as restorative and I write about that in the book. Justice is about balancing the scales. When Jesus healed a sick person, I think in my mind he saw it as justice – sin had come in, nature had come in and robbed somebody of their health. He used the power he had to restore that person to wholeness. That was justice done.
So in the scriptures, Jesus kept saying that those that have wealth must share with others. But in socialism you force people to give away their wealth when it should be a heart thing.
DK – You have set up an organization and called it Compassionate Justice, where does that name come from?
BS - When I first published the book some friends came to me and suggested that the book would create an opportunity to do some practical things and advised that I register a legal entity, an NGO. I didn’t know what to name the NGO and so I started asking myself, “what are the things I value the most in my life, in other words, what makes me me?”
I realized that since I was a child, I have been given a compassionate heart; I have always cared deeply about the plight of the poor; I hate oppression, it makes me angry, I want to see justice done.
So compassion and justice come naturally to me and hence the name was such an obvious choice. And I see that kind of justice as being divine rather than civil justice and that type of justice is about restoring. So whether it’s healing the sick, feeding the poor, empowering women in small businesses, rehabilitating land which has been abused – all that is compassionate justice. And that is the prophetic vision I have for Zimbabwe – restorative justice, compassionate justice.
http://www.savingzimbabwe.com/
http://www.compassionatejustice.com
Part II – we discuss reconciliation and how national healing can be done differently in Zimbabwe and learn from Rwanda.
Bob Scott (BS) - One of the things I talk about with my Zimbabwean friends here in the US is why are Zimbabweans so communal? One of my friends made an astute observation when I asked about this. He said, “well we have to be communal, we can’t survive without other people”.
In American culture on the other hand we can be independently wealthy, which is why we have become fragmented. Everybody pursues jobs and individual happiness.
Therefore the communal culture is very natural to Zimbabwe which is why the Community of Reconciliation thrived because the locals understood it; it was natural to their way of life.
David Katerere (DK) - Are you going to meet with people involved in the reconciliation process?
BS - I would love to meet them. I have written to Minister Sekai Holland and shared some of my thoughts with her. One of the things I said was that I am not sure that reconciliation is something that can be legislated, it’s not something you can force people to do. Reconciliation is really a heart issue because it deals with things like forgiveness.
From what I have been reading it sounds like the reconciliation process in Zimbabwe is a lot about what are the wronged individuals going to get out of it - you did this bad thing to me, so I want that. It seems to be all about retribution and restitution and that concerns me because it is premature. Rwanda is a great example of how it can be done. One of the things that they realized there was that in order to bring about reconciliation people need to hear the words “I am sorry”. I think that these words “I am sorry” are the most powerful words in the human language.
In Zimbabwe everybody is trying to blame everybody else for what happened and my feeling is that the people in the process need to look at themselves and take personal responsibility – say to themselves, “what did I do wrong”?
I think when that spirit begins to grip people, when that heart attitude takes hold then the country can move forward.
DK – But the country is still stuck in that mode. We can’t move forward until after this transition, can we?
BS - In the book I talk about the great apostle Paul who said, “We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”. All three groups, the British, Shonas and Ndebeles, they have sinned against one another; they have done wrong to one another. They should look at each other and say “we are sorry, we take responsibility for our mistakes”. Then the next step is to say, well, we can only move forward if we forgive each other.
DK - But there has been no acknowledgement of wrong doing on the parts of the Rhodesians, or the for the Matabeleland massacres or the more recent election –related violence. Reports on what happened have been suppressed, so in that atmosphere it becomes difficult to move forward. When people ask for forgiveness, therefore, are they being sensitive or just being politically expedient?
BS - Well, there will be people like that and there is nothing you can do about that. But people who will have the courage to get into a room, look at each other in the eye and say “I am sorry” those people can move forward. Think about Rwanda – getting back to that example again, you have people in Rwanda living next door to people they know killed their family; how can that be possible? From a human dynamic, how is that even possible?
Well, it is because of forgiveness and there is a whole process they have used to get to that point. In the community, in every case, it’s about the perpetrator saying to the victim, “I am sorry, I wronged you, please forgive me” and the victim having to then make a decision about what they are going to do. Once they say, “I forgive you”, then it’s done, and restitution begins. The perpetrator because of the fact that he wants forgiveness then asks how he can make right. He is not being forced to do it, he is doing it out of his heart.
You see, forgiveness brings a brokenness to the human soul and that is what we don’t yet see in Zimbabwe. What you see is arrogance and pride and everyone digging in, something Jesus called “self-righteousness” and that’s what we need to deal with.
DK - Your message is about social justice?
What I am interested in is spiritual justice which plays itself out in the social environment.
DK - Social justice seems to be a dirty world in the US right now, so are you a communist?!!
BS - (Laughs). O God! It’s interesting to me because unfortunately what’s happening in my country (the US) right now is that Christianity is starting to be defined by political ideology. And that saddens me.
The issue I have with socialism as a political ideology is that I don’t think you can legislate generosity. I see justice as restorative and I write about that in the book. Justice is about balancing the scales. When Jesus healed a sick person, I think in my mind he saw it as justice – sin had come in, nature had come in and robbed somebody of their health. He used the power he had to restore that person to wholeness. That was justice done.
So in the scriptures, Jesus kept saying that those that have wealth must share with others. But in socialism you force people to give away their wealth when it should be a heart thing.
DK – You have set up an organization and called it Compassionate Justice, where does that name come from?
BS - When I first published the book some friends came to me and suggested that the book would create an opportunity to do some practical things and advised that I register a legal entity, an NGO. I didn’t know what to name the NGO and so I started asking myself, “what are the things I value the most in my life, in other words, what makes me me?”
I realized that since I was a child, I have been given a compassionate heart; I have always cared deeply about the plight of the poor; I hate oppression, it makes me angry, I want to see justice done.
So compassion and justice come naturally to me and hence the name was such an obvious choice. And I see that kind of justice as being divine rather than civil justice and that type of justice is about restoring. So whether it’s healing the sick, feeding the poor, empowering women in small businesses, rehabilitating land which has been abused – all that is compassionate justice. And that is the prophetic vision I have for Zimbabwe – restorative justice, compassionate justice.
http://www.savingzimbabwe.com/
http://www.compassionatejustice.com
Saturday, April 24, 2010
"Saving Zimbabwe" - Bob Scott talks to me
David R. Katerere
I first met Bob Scott in South Africa in 2009 when he was feeling his way back to Africa after a 20 – year hiatus imposed by the events in narrates in his book, Saving Zimbabwe. Anne Bishop instructed me to meet him, and what Anne says I will do; she to be obeyed! But I had another motive, a more selfish one – to understand about the little-known massacre of Elim Pentecostal Church Emmanuel School – and the only hospital in that area in the far –flung corner of Zimbabwe , tucked into the armpit of Mozambique
So it was this which drove me to want to meet Bob. Short and middle-aged with a strong voice, he struck me with his enthusiasm for Zimbabwe Eagle School Zimbabwe Matabeleland at that stage, it remains unsolved. As for the Eagle School massacre, I have recently met one of the students present that night, and there is another story of Zimbabwe
In his telling of the story, Bob is unemotional belying the pain that es must still feel to this day; and hence the story is a kind of catharsis for him. But he betrays no bitterness, in fact, the opposite, an even greater love and care for the country which has killed so many before his friends and many more in the period after that – black and white.
In March 2010 after the publication of the Africa edition of Saving Zimbabwe I talked to Bob in the US
David Katerere – Why saving Zimbabwe?
Bob Scott - It’s a good question. The story behind the book is that when I came home from Zimbabwe
And then as I begun to ponder I began to realize that about 30 years ago when Robert Mugabe came to power there was a sense of euphoria and such hope for what Zimbabwe
DK - Does Zimbabwe
BS - Well, I think as I really talk about in the book, it could have been entitled Saving Africa , for that matter it Saving the World. The point of the book is that humanity seems to be plagued by a terminal illness called self-centerness. 2000 years ago the writer James in the Bible said, “Where you have selfish ambition and greed you will have every evil thing”. It seems that looking back over history, those words are painfully true. I think what Zimbabwe needs to be saved from are the forces within our souls as human beings – the same things that make us to lie, cheat, steal, racism, murder, greed all those things that take over the human soul. So when I look at Zimbabwe
I write about in the book there is no more noble organization than the UN. If you read the tenets of the UN it has such a noble vision to save the world and yet they have had one failure after another. Why is that? They have some of the smartest people in the world with some of the most brilliant ideas and lots of money. But why is there continual failure? It all goes back to one issue – corruption (of the soul).
DK – So in your book Zimbabwe
In my case I believe that the teachings of Jesus have a lot to offer in terms of challenging the Zimbabwean people in terms of motive. One of the things I find fascinating about Jesus’ life is that as he lived he was always challenging people’s motives – why were they doing what they were doing. He gave help to the Roman centurion and healed his servant, why? At that time the Roman centurion was regarded as the equivalent of the Gestapo (Hitler’s military police), an occupier.
He tells the story of a good Samaritan, in Jewish culture there was no such thing as a good Samaritan , all Samaritans were evil. Jewish people hated the Samaritans. Why was Jesus healing on Sunday? Because he wanted to expose the motives of the people in power who got angry and said that he was breaking the rules. The poor people then saw the leaders exposed and they saw that they didn’t care about them but about enforcing the rules and maintaining power. I think Jesus spent most of his time on earth trying to get to the heart of things. Over and over again he talked that you can clean the outside but it’s what’s on the inside that matters.
DK - We have Christian leaders in Africa, or at least they profess that...?
BS – We must distinguish between spirituality and religion. Jesus said again and again that don’t listen to what people say, watch what they do because that’s what defines who they are. Words are cheap – people throw words around like they are worth nothing. So even Christians need to be saved – saved from their own selfishness, greed and self-centredness.
DK - Who were the Community of Reconciliation
BS - The Community of Reconciliation (CR) was interesting. It actually came out of a church home group which was meeting in Bulawayo Zimbabwe
DK – In the book you talk about the Road Ahead and Road Behind. That goes to how Zim can be saved.
BS - One of the things I was intrigued about when I went to the CR is that they didn’t try to start a church which is the typical mentality in the Christian community – that if you want to make a difference, go and start a church. In the case of the CR they realized that if we are going to have a church it should come out a way of life. So they went out to become servants - building dams, reclaiming the land it was all done with the idea in mind to empower the poor.
One of the things I talk about in the book in terms of the road ahead is that everything emanates from the soul – why are you doing what you are doing. In the US
DK - How long had they been running when you encountered them?
BS - They had been going for 2 years when I encountered them in 1984 and at that stage they had about 5000 acres of land and when I got there we helped them with funding to buy another farm which was much closer to Mbizingwe and they named that property Olive Tree. They planted an olive tree there because it’s leaves are the symbol of peace. .
The African brothers and sisters began to move and live on the farm together (with the founders) and that was the beginning of real integration – blacks and whites living and working together side by side. The last time I saw them was in 1986.
DK - What are your first thoughts when you hear about the massacre?
BS - To be honest with you as I wrote in the book it was an emotional collision because the day I received the news was Thanksgiving holiday here in the US
Then I get a phone call to let me know that my 15 friends had been killed the night before! It was so surrealistic; it was one of those moments in life where what you hear is so outside anything you are prepared to hear.
I went into shock. It took me a little while to grasp the enormity of what happened.
DK – But you still had the strength to go back – were you not afraid to go back?
BS - Oh yes, I was but it didn’t matter. There are just somethings you just have to fight through. It was important for me to get back there and find out what happened and be with the family members and my African friends. It was one of those moments in time where black and white because the community was so integrated that everybody who was associated with it felt the loss, it didn’t matter whether you were black or white.
There wasn’t a victory for one side or the other; everyone was in pain.
DK – Were any members of the African community killed?
No. The one person who came closest to being killed was Stephen. He was one of the elders in the community and they tried to force him to kill everybody but he refused to do it. He thought they were going to kill him because he refused. My friend Thabani and I will travel to Zimbabwe
He is alive and we will be seeing him at Mbizingwe and we look forward to seeing him
DK - How do you planning to achieve Saving Zimbabwe
Because again I see politics and economics and many of those things as surface issues. I know that hard for a lot people to understand because they are concerned about what party, which ideology, is going to win – that’s what the fight is about right now.
But for me it’s about the motives – it’s about getting our hearts right, our priorities right. Jesus said something interesting that “there is no greater love than to lay your life for your friend.” God wants to release that love in Zimbabwe
As far as the politics, because I am not a Zimbabwean and I don’t live over there, so I don’t have the right to speak into the situation. There are people there right now who are much more qualified than I am. For me the root of the issue is pride, arrogance, selfishness, lust – the things that plague the human soul. If you deal with these the rest will naturally take care of itself. If it has a good root it will bear good fruit.
That the contribution I can bring Zimbabwe
DK - So do you see the Community being re-ignited? Is this the road ahead that you talk about?
Well, the place is in ruins and the government came and took the land away. In terms of practical restoration of the original community that is not possible. On the other hand many Zimbabweans who have read the American version of the book have written to me and say they have been challenged and are keen to carry on the ideas, ideals and vision of the community.
I would be careful to say re-igniting that particular community but the ideals, the heart and soul, the vision of it, I would love to see.
Part II – we discuss reconciliation and how national healing can be done differently in Zimbabwe and learn from Rwanda
**********************************************************************
Monday, March 29, 2010
Land of Miracles
Let there be light! (or not).
To my two year old son (aka The Boy) this is the natural thing when one flicks the light switch on. And he loves to play with electricity, switching things on and off and on and off until he gets “the look” from me then he shies away laughing. Caught out, young man! (Perhaps he will grow up to operate a power station).
Here is a boy who enjoys being naughty like any normal child exploring the world and experimenting with the apparatus of this wonderous laboratory naturelle. A tap is for opening and marveling as the water pours out, and the most fun of all can be had the toilet - the flushing sound, waterfall of liquid gushing down into the bowl and the gushing of a refilling cistern. Hmmm, all the things you can do with that, his little mind is simply blown away…..
So The Boy is bewildered when he flicks the switches on and the light does not come on; the taps are dry and all the toilet does is to gurgle like an old emphysematous man gasping for air, lungs rasping. We are in Harare
To-day in Zimbabwe, when the lights come on and stay long enough to finish cooking, or when water flows out of the taps, it is a small miracle worthy if thanksgiving. And this is how Zimbabweans live their lives, from one little miracle to the next. Lights, food on the table, rains, the commute to work and back, all of these appear to be miracles, at least to those of us visiting from far where we take all of these mundane things as given and guaranteed. But the greatest miracle of them is quite possibly how the country has not disintegrated into open armed conflict or anarchy. Some people think that this is a curse rather than a miracle, for they argue the matter would long have been solved one way or the other had then been open conflict! Most people who say this do this in their air-conditioned homes or bars in Cape Town , London , New York
Zimbabweans have become more religious as a result of their travails. An irony really; while other people would question the existence of a God who looks on their suffering without interest, Zimbabweans seem to see their troubles as a consequence of their misdemeanours (whatever our collective sins might be).
So to-day the country has a delectable menu of churches available – the traditional protestant and catholic churches thrive. The Anglican Church once one of the most progressive religious movements in the country, however, is in the middle of a battle royale in which the Mugabe government is directly involved; renegade bishops are causing problems in Harare Zimbabwean Church
The “African” churches – particularly the Mapostori church (no English translation for this word would do it justice despite it’s origins being from Apostolic) – in all it’s gazillion branches and sub-branches is the most prolific and most prominent in it’s visible dominance. Darted across almost every open urban space you will see devotees in their white or red or green garments (gemenzi) – a gathering of 10 people here, there a group of fifteen or twenty maybe more, over there a woman prophetess praying for a young child, another man raising his staff to the heavens like the picture of prophets of old in the Illustrated Children’s Bible. And it’s not just on Sundays when these scenes play themselves out (like in the old days) but now it seems you see them everyday. It is testament (no pun intended) to the lack of economic activity that a quarter to half of the townships are out praying during working hours. With all the talk of black Jews having taken residence in pre-historic Zimbabwe
Then there is the new phenomenon of the pentacostal charismatic churches. Previously they were only a handful either homegrown or American, now they are coming in from Nigeria Holy Mountain Fire Church , Redeemed Holy Church of God, Holy Spirit Revival Church etc they have colonized buildings in downtown Harare Lagos or Johannesburg Zimbabwe
So one can be cynical. But to be sure Zimbabwe
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Christmas in Zimbabwe: to Gweru
| First published in The Zimbabwean |
We arrived in Gweru just after lunch, burning 50 liters of fuel in the process with a misfiring luxury car. It is a Sunday and we literally snake our way along the gulleys of the township road (these are not just pot-holes). The mood is a little bleak and it doesn’t feel like Christmas.
The kids are excited to see their cousins and play in the streets, my wife is excited to see Maiguru and exchange tidbits of family escapades and village gossip. I am despondent; worried about the car and the other leg of the journey to the East and what it is all costing. Further to that I keep in the shadows lying in bed because there is no man’s company here. About 3 months ago babamukuru (my brother – in – law) finally threw in the towel and escaped. He now teaches in far away Kuwait
I am still grumpy when I take a commuter taxi into town – I cannot afford to get the fuel -guzzling car to town and back – to check out e-mails and try to connect with the outside world. Normally when I need cheering the virtual world sometimes offers solace, but after 30 minutes of catching up with the saner outside world (I deliberately avoid opening work e-mails), I am still walking around feeling the whole Zimbabwe
Gweru – this used to be a vibrant little town, the “warm heart of Zimbabwe Zimbabwe Zimbabwe
Now Gweru operates more like a remote rural village than a modern city. The roads are pot-holed everywhere and the few traffic lights don’t work. In the townships there is no water and people trek miles with buckets on their heads to well that were provided by donor finance. In some cases, my sister-in-law tells me that she wakes up in the dead of night to wait for water to fill up the various buckets; and in the bathroom, the scummy water used for bathing and laundry is not thrown away but rather kept aside for ablutions. The cholera will be back here soon, if it ever went away and it will probably be as vicious as it was in 2008.
All these thoughts feel my mind as I walk into the sunlight with streets filled with people. I decide to go into OK bazaars to buy bread and then I am confronted by scene from the Christmases of old. Back in the early 1980’s my parents would take us to Mutare for our Christmas shopping and there we experienced our Mall fever for the year – people scurrying up and down with trolleys filled with groceries for the festivities, the air was filled with corny piped Christmas carols and decorations hung from all shop fronts with season’s greetings. We would do our shopping, get measured for new clothes and then sit down at the Dairy Den to have pork pies and ice cream before setting off back to Nyanga. And those were the most wonderful Christmas memories being partly recreated in Gweru.
The shop is abuzz with activity, people pushing trolleys, holding baskets and picking up items – sweets, Mazoe juice, rice, drinks, beer – and earnestly preparing for the Christmas festival. There are long queues of half-laden trolleys (the US dollar would not allow for the filling of several trolley loads for these people) and excited chattering – a distinct change from last year (2008) and previous years – when people were said to have had Christmas lunch of pop-corn (maputi).
Who can look on this site and fail to be uplifted? Uplifted in spirit because despite the intransigence of the regime people are going ahead and living their lives; grateful for small mercies, and, doggone it, they are going to celebrate “their Christmas” and having survived another year and no-one is going to stop them!.
There and then my grumpiness dissipated and I could not help but smile ruefully at such a people. God bless Zimbabweans, God damn its leaders!
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Christmas in Zimbabwe 2009
15/12/ 2009
Here we are in Harare
We land on an overcast Harare Johannesburg International Airport , and when we open the door to the little cottage Zimbabwe
I spend the next two hours driving around with a kind uncle searching for paraffin which we eventually snag at USD1 a litre in the working class township of Epworth
I am tired and cold, and disenchanted. And when later on I curl in bed, I ask myself if this is a country I would come back to soon to settle.
16/12/09
Day 2
Day 2 at the passport office. I have with me my daughter,6, whose passport needs to be renewed. Yesterday afternoon didn’t go well. I met my contact (everyone who goes to apply for a passport in Zimbabwe
This time around my contact seems to be more in the action. Yesterday she had tried to get my copies authenticated by the guy in room 6, but he was not interested – he said it was too late in the day and that I should return the morrow.
So I am here to-day with Paida, my loquacious daughter, all carbo-loaded on bread and with mealies for packed lunch, just in case it turns out to be a daylong expedition. As we turn the corner into the parking street and Paida sees the large crowd milling outside the building she asks her first question:
“Daddy, are they refugees?”
She knows all about refugees because we went with her to the holding camp of Zimbabweans who were attacked in Cape Town
But no, sweetie, these are not refugees, these people are us!
But maybe on second thought maybe we are all refugees, and this paper or small green passport book is the last step to full flight and asylum in seemingly saner places.
We park and head for the crowd and through to the office of our contact. She tells us to go to room 6 and trying to squeeze through the wall of human beings with a little hand to hold and guide becomes a perilous thing altogether. In crammed corridors, poorly lit, flesh presses against sweaty flesh waiting to push into this office or that office. The walls are dirty from all the touching, elbowing and shoving of a million bodies a year. The offices have rows and rows of dirty manila files and folders piled on brown clattered shelves, the ceilings are peeling and the crevices of the wooden panel walls are filling with dust and dirt. This is a makeshift warren of offices, a temporary wooden structure which has assumed a state of permanence it was not intended for. Welcome to the Passport Offices of the Ministry of Home Affairs, the same man who is director of this chaos is also in charge of the shambolic election process.
Once at the gate, a woman has delegated herself the role of allowing access and she does not yield. This is the thing with these people, civil servants – instead of being at their desks pushing papers, half of their time is spent berating the crowd and telling us (“vabereki”, “parents” as they call us) to form orderly queues to sit down where they are benches or to start in tidy lines.
Eventually pushing through we get to room 6, get the signature and then we are sent to room 3, then we are told to go and pay the fees which entails jumping the queue (we are paying for the 3 – day passport so we get preference), and more strong words to “sit there and move along fast, vabereki”. Here the cashiers do not accept small notes, and for some inexplicable reason they have to write down the serial number of every note they receive. So the queue snakes along like a snail. Once we have obtained the receipt, they send us to room 5, then it’s back to the moody guy in room 6. In each of the various rooms that we visit there are queues to be navigated and bodies to be shoved and elbowed, a civil servant who lazily looks at the forms and scribbles some code or other and pushes it back with instructions to the next room – it’s surreal, if not funny and sad, a kind of Amazing Race in miniature where every room and signature is a much sought after pitstop and the ultimate prize is a passport, the privilege of the privileged.
It is certainly not a right in Zimbabwe
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Of herbalists and scientists
The speech was first presented at the Toxicological Society of Southern Africa (TOXSA) Conference
It is an honour and a privilege to have been invited to TOXSA to give this talk. My expertise lies in pharmacognosy and analytical chemistry – having spent the past 10 years doing work on the pharmacology and chemistry of medicinal plants. As for traditional medicines, not only have I been involved with them from a scientific aspect, but I am a product of that culture and I can remember using herbal medicines from as far back as I can remember remembering – in other words from my earliest memories.
Traditional medicine has a long history of use world-wide and has not only survived various assaults by Christendom, colonial authorities westernization and urbanization, but to-day thrives and is widely used in all its many and varied forms. The WHO estimates that 70 – 80% of the world population (mostly in the developing world) uses traditional medicines exclusively to meet their health needs.
Traditional medicine remains popular for various reasons – it is a cultural heritage which is closely tied with many ritualistic and religious aspects of life from birth to death and everything between.
- It is more easily accessible for many poor people of the world.
- Traditional medical practitioners are respected members of their communities and provide holistic solutions to the health-care needs of their people unlike over-worked and poorly-resourced western-trained health personnel who tend to medicalize everything. This explains why herbalism which is the cornerstone of traditional medicine now appeals more and more to citizens of Europe and North America. It offers individuals the opportunity to self-medicate and be in control of their own health.
- There is also a general disillusionment and frustration with the failure of allopathic medicines to offer a curative solution to many of the ills of modern society e.g. depression, cancer, and HIV / AIDS. Most modern medicines only offer symptomatic relief (rather than cure) and their use has many side effects.
In the public’s mind traditional is safe because of its length / history of use. In the US surveys have suggested an increase of people reporting use of botanicals or non-vitamin/ non-mineral supplements from 2.5% in 1990 to 12.7% in 1997. 38% of cancer patients and between 14 – 29% of children have used herbal / botanical medicines.
South Africa as is readily acknowledged, is endowed with a rich plant biodiversity – 24,000 indigenous species – strong. 70 -80% of our population use traditional medicine. This correlates to figures from elsewhere in the developing world. In SA, more than 200 000 traditional healers are believed to be practising. Unlike other countries in the SADC region, notably Zimbabwe where one may only practise upon registration with a professional body (akin to the health professions council) in SA anyone can prescribe and dispense traditional medication even when they have no training or claim to the art and science. This may be part of the problem.
But then again, what is a traditional healer. African traditional medicine is generally practiced at three main levels (specializations, if you like), or combinations thereof.
• Diviners / Spiritualists – magico-spiritual, invoke spirits of the ancestors and uses plants, animal parts, rocks or water
• Traditional Birth Attendants (Gynaecologists and Obstetricians, if you like), they are knowledgeable in ante-natal issues and mother and child care
• Herbalist s– use knowledge passed on from generation to generation based on empirical observations. By far the most useful for biological prospectors and pharmaceutical drug discovery.
Regulation of medicines in SA is by the Medicines and Related Substances Act 101 of 1965 with subsequent amendments and this is administered by the Medicines Control Council. Traditional medicine falls outside of this Act for historical reasons however, and this has created many problems. There are ongoing efforts within the MCC to create legal space for traditional and complementary medicines and their practitioners.
Because of the prevailing legal situation and South Africa’s new found enthuasism for all things African, not uncommon in post-colonial Africa, as well as political expediency the terrain of traditional medicine became a battlefield. This battle was largely fought over this society’s response to HIV/ AIDS with activists such as the TAC, politicians, scientists, healers, quacks and pretenders all ranked against one another. And there were no winners – just losers all around.
But this battle royale is also being fought elsewhere albeit on different issues. In the UK the battle pitches HRH Prince Charles and a coterie of GPs and complementary healers against the “medical establishment”.
A few years ago the Prince in addressing the WHO said, “Many of to-day’s complementary therapies are rooted in ancient traditions that intuitively understood the need to maintain balance and harmony with our minds, bodies and the natural world”.
When challenged to produce evidence to support the use of complementary and alternative medicine in the public health sector on of the Prince’s supporters said "I think what this suggestion amounts to is a form of medical apartheid: any therapy which can't trace its origins to what is called the biochemical model should be excluded from the NHS […] The weight of the evidence does suggest that homeopathy is effective."
But then the British can afford to fight in this way and there is certainly no health crisis of the nature we have in Southern Africa. In South Africa while we fought people are dying. Almost everyday the media splashes stories about this or that cure for AIDS or this or that healer making unfounded claims about his treatment.
Let me be clear at this stage and say that we must debunk three myths here
1- that traditional medicine is primitive and has no place in the days of our lives. If this were true it would have long fallen out of use. We know that traditional medicine is a potential asset and in fact provides up to 50% of the pharmaceuticals that have transformed health care in the past century.
2- with regards to pharmaceuticals, advocates of traditional medicine claim that they are toxic and traditional medicine is not. Anti-retrovirals have been called “toxic” and “poisonous” by one camp and “lifesavers” by AIDS treatment activists. We know from basic pharmacology that everything that is ingested has some adverse effect – even water!
3 – that traditional medicine is an alternative science with it’s own principles and laws which are in a different paradigm to so-called western science. This myth is propagated by people who want to discourage enquiry into the use of some of these herbs without proper scientific evaluation.
The then South African Minister of Health in motivating for the Act to govern complementary, alternative, African traditional medicine said “We cannot transplant models designed for scientific validation of allopathic medicine and apply it to other remedies.”
The rejoinder to that would be – if you are going to treat disease which can be explained and diagnosed by allopathic medicine and talk for instance of CD4 and viral loads then that supposed cure should also stand up to the scrutiny of conventional science.
We need to move away from the either or syndrome that is gripping the South Africa. Traditional medicine has a vital role to play; however that role is limited and should be defined. Traditional medicine cannot and should not transplant medical and scientific enquiry. It needs to be put into perspective. And that starts with putting science and ethics into this whole debate.
And the science and ethics of science says that if you are to put out a medicine into the public domain then there must be certain assurances that it is meets three criteria
- that it is efficacious,
- that it is of good and acceptable quality
- and that it’s toxicity profile is understood.
These issues must be addressed in some manner with regards to traditional medicine.
It is an honour and a privilege to have been invited to TOXSA to give this talk. My expertise lies in pharmacognosy and analytical chemistry – having spent the past 10 years doing work on the pharmacology and chemistry of medicinal plants. As for traditional medicines, not only have I been involved with them from a scientific aspect, but I am a product of that culture and I can remember using herbal medicines from as far back as I can remember remembering – in other words from my earliest memories.
Traditional medicine has a long history of use world-wide and has not only survived various assaults by Christendom, colonial authorities westernization and urbanization, but to-day thrives and is widely used in all its many and varied forms. The WHO estimates that 70 – 80% of the world population (mostly in the developing world) uses traditional medicines exclusively to meet their health needs.
Traditional medicine remains popular for various reasons – it is a cultural heritage which is closely tied with many ritualistic and religious aspects of life from birth to death and everything between.
- It is more easily accessible for many poor people of the world.
- Traditional medical practitioners are respected members of their communities and provide holistic solutions to the health-care needs of their people unlike over-worked and poorly-resourced western-trained health personnel who tend to medicalize everything. This explains why herbalism which is the cornerstone of traditional medicine now appeals more and more to citizens of Europe and North America. It offers individuals the opportunity to self-medicate and be in control of their own health.
- There is also a general disillusionment and frustration with the failure of allopathic medicines to offer a curative solution to many of the ills of modern society e.g. depression, cancer, and HIV / AIDS. Most modern medicines only offer symptomatic relief (rather than cure) and their use has many side effects.
In the public’s mind traditional is safe because of its length / history of use. In the US surveys have suggested an increase of people reporting use of botanicals or non-vitamin/ non-mineral supplements from 2.5% in 1990 to 12.7% in 1997. 38% of cancer patients and between 14 – 29% of children have used herbal / botanical medicines.
South Africa as is readily acknowledged, is endowed with a rich plant biodiversity – 24,000 indigenous species – strong. 70 -80% of our population use traditional medicine. This correlates to figures from elsewhere in the developing world. In SA, more than 200 000 traditional healers are believed to be practising. Unlike other countries in the SADC region, notably Zimbabwe where one may only practise upon registration with a professional body (akin to the health professions council) in SA anyone can prescribe and dispense traditional medication even when they have no training or claim to the art and science. This may be part of the problem.
But then again, what is a traditional healer. African traditional medicine is generally practiced at three main levels (specializations, if you like), or combinations thereof.
• Diviners / Spiritualists – magico-spiritual, invoke spirits of the ancestors and uses plants, animal parts, rocks or water
• Traditional Birth Attendants (Gynaecologists and Obstetricians, if you like), they are knowledgeable in ante-natal issues and mother and child care
• Herbalist s– use knowledge passed on from generation to generation based on empirical observations. By far the most useful for biological prospectors and pharmaceutical drug discovery.
Regulation of medicines in SA is by the Medicines and Related Substances Act 101 of 1965 with subsequent amendments and this is administered by the Medicines Control Council. Traditional medicine falls outside of this Act for historical reasons however, and this has created many problems. There are ongoing efforts within the MCC to create legal space for traditional and complementary medicines and their practitioners.
Because of the prevailing legal situation and South Africa’s new found enthuasism for all things African, not uncommon in post-colonial Africa, as well as political expediency the terrain of traditional medicine became a battlefield. This battle was largely fought over this society’s response to HIV/ AIDS with activists such as the TAC, politicians, scientists, healers, quacks and pretenders all ranked against one another. And there were no winners – just losers all around.
But this battle royale is also being fought elsewhere albeit on different issues. In the UK the battle pitches HRH Prince Charles and a coterie of GPs and complementary healers against the “medical establishment”.
A few years ago the Prince in addressing the WHO said, “Many of to-day’s complementary therapies are rooted in ancient traditions that intuitively understood the need to maintain balance and harmony with our minds, bodies and the natural world”.
When challenged to produce evidence to support the use of complementary and alternative medicine in the public health sector on of the Prince’s supporters said "I think what this suggestion amounts to is a form of medical apartheid: any therapy which can't trace its origins to what is called the biochemical model should be excluded from the NHS […] The weight of the evidence does suggest that homeopathy is effective."
But then the British can afford to fight in this way and there is certainly no health crisis of the nature we have in Southern Africa. In South Africa while we fought people are dying. Almost everyday the media splashes stories about this or that cure for AIDS or this or that healer making unfounded claims about his treatment.
Let me be clear at this stage and say that we must debunk three myths here
1- that traditional medicine is primitive and has no place in the days of our lives. If this were true it would have long fallen out of use. We know that traditional medicine is a potential asset and in fact provides up to 50% of the pharmaceuticals that have transformed health care in the past century.
2- with regards to pharmaceuticals, advocates of traditional medicine claim that they are toxic and traditional medicine is not. Anti-retrovirals have been called “toxic” and “poisonous” by one camp and “lifesavers” by AIDS treatment activists. We know from basic pharmacology that everything that is ingested has some adverse effect – even water!
3 – that traditional medicine is an alternative science with it’s own principles and laws which are in a different paradigm to so-called western science. This myth is propagated by people who want to discourage enquiry into the use of some of these herbs without proper scientific evaluation.
The then South African Minister of Health in motivating for the Act to govern complementary, alternative, African traditional medicine said “We cannot transplant models designed for scientific validation of allopathic medicine and apply it to other remedies.”
The rejoinder to that would be – if you are going to treat disease which can be explained and diagnosed by allopathic medicine and talk for instance of CD4 and viral loads then that supposed cure should also stand up to the scrutiny of conventional science.
We need to move away from the either or syndrome that is gripping the South Africa. Traditional medicine has a vital role to play; however that role is limited and should be defined. Traditional medicine cannot and should not transplant medical and scientific enquiry. It needs to be put into perspective. And that starts with putting science and ethics into this whole debate.
And the science and ethics of science says that if you are to put out a medicine into the public domain then there must be certain assurances that it is meets three criteria
- that it is efficacious,
- that it is of good and acceptable quality
- and that it’s toxicity profile is understood.
These issues must be addressed in some manner with regards to traditional medicine.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Come Home Campaign
This article was published originally in The Zimbabwean (http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/2009121527495/opinion-analysis/come-home-campaign-let-us-proceed-cautiously.html)
Who does the “Come Home Campaign” serve?
David R. Katerere
I went to see Morgan Tsvangirai speak at a public forum in Cape Town last week. Surprisingly , it was actually my first in-life experience. He was cogent and lucid, humorous at times but not quite the politician on the stump because, of course, he was playing Mr Prime Minister, Mr Inclusive Government, the statesman. And he played it well.
His message was mainly to the Zimbabweans in South Africa, urging them to go back home. He has previously carried this message to the UK, where it did not go down well and ended in some humiliation for him. To his credit, though, he did not shy away from preaching the same gospel, albeit with some caution. But when asked by a member of the audience what opportunities for gainful employment there exist in Zimbabwe to-day, he rightly pointed out that the inclusive government cannot give or guarantee jobs but rather is trying to create an enabling environment for people to pursue economic activity. In his words, “there will not be a time when a line will be drawn in the sand to say things are now good”, it’s time for those in exile to come home; each person, he said, must take a risk and throw in their lot.
The issue of going back to Zimbabwe is indeed a complicated one. In fact is it necessary for people to be urged to go back to Zimbabwe, to go back home, or perhaps in these days of globalization we should actually look at the continued existence of the diaspora as an asset. India has millions of it’s citizens resident around the world; they were not exiled by political turmoil (as in the case of Zimbabwe) but by different accidents of history and personal choices. To-day they form a powerful economic bloc and important pillar to India’s development and international standing. Increasing China and Mexico also have a burgeoning number of non-resident citizens. Prime Minister Tsvangirai should perhaps take a leaf from this. The problem is that the Zimbabwean diaspora was largely spawned by the collapse o f the country and much of it has led to social instability within the region, so it is natural that the leaders of the region are supporting a resolution of the Zimbabwean question in order to put the genie back in the bottle. However it also true that a substantial number of Zimbabwean immigrants are educated and skilled persons who contribute to economic activity in host countries and are the unsung heroes in saving Zimbabwe from total collapse. Tsvangirai did not acknowledge the latter fact. Mugabe has predictably been scathing of Zimbabweans working menial jobs and in a discussion I had with Margaret Dongo, she also appeared blind to this fact that despite Zimbabweans living in some of the most horrendous circumstances, particularly in South Africa, and despite Zimbabweans suffering abuse from locals (read xenophobic attacks), they have continued to work to send money home for their families. And this money prevented total economic collapse the past and is now playing a huge part in stabilizing the current economic situation in the country.
The other worrying part of this blanket call to go back home is that it might inadvertently expose Zimbabweans to xenophobic attacks. In South Africa in a particular, this has been a gathering storm and when locals hear news that “there is progress in Zimbabwe” or “things are getting better”, they appear to find no excuse why Zimbabweans should continue to be sheltered among them. Go back to Zimbabwe, they have said in the past, and vote Mugabe out. And now they say, Go back to Zimbabwe because things are now well, you don’t belong “in South Africa”.
So let us approach the “come home” campaign with some caution. First because it is a good thing to continue to have Zimbabweans in influential positions in other countries of the world – it gives us what in business they would call a global footprint; second, because the idea of home makes little sense in a globalized world; migration is a reality that we have to live with and take advantage of; and third, because it might expose citizens to increased xenophobic attacks.
Who does the “Come Home Campaign” serve?
David R. Katerere
I went to see Morgan Tsvangirai speak at a public forum in Cape Town last week. Surprisingly , it was actually my first in-life experience. He was cogent and lucid, humorous at times but not quite the politician on the stump because, of course, he was playing Mr Prime Minister, Mr Inclusive Government, the statesman. And he played it well.
His message was mainly to the Zimbabweans in South Africa, urging them to go back home. He has previously carried this message to the UK, where it did not go down well and ended in some humiliation for him. To his credit, though, he did not shy away from preaching the same gospel, albeit with some caution. But when asked by a member of the audience what opportunities for gainful employment there exist in Zimbabwe to-day, he rightly pointed out that the inclusive government cannot give or guarantee jobs but rather is trying to create an enabling environment for people to pursue economic activity. In his words, “there will not be a time when a line will be drawn in the sand to say things are now good”, it’s time for those in exile to come home; each person, he said, must take a risk and throw in their lot.
The issue of going back to Zimbabwe is indeed a complicated one. In fact is it necessary for people to be urged to go back to Zimbabwe, to go back home, or perhaps in these days of globalization we should actually look at the continued existence of the diaspora as an asset. India has millions of it’s citizens resident around the world; they were not exiled by political turmoil (as in the case of Zimbabwe) but by different accidents of history and personal choices. To-day they form a powerful economic bloc and important pillar to India’s development and international standing. Increasing China and Mexico also have a burgeoning number of non-resident citizens. Prime Minister Tsvangirai should perhaps take a leaf from this. The problem is that the Zimbabwean diaspora was largely spawned by the collapse o f the country and much of it has led to social instability within the region, so it is natural that the leaders of the region are supporting a resolution of the Zimbabwean question in order to put the genie back in the bottle. However it also true that a substantial number of Zimbabwean immigrants are educated and skilled persons who contribute to economic activity in host countries and are the unsung heroes in saving Zimbabwe from total collapse. Tsvangirai did not acknowledge the latter fact. Mugabe has predictably been scathing of Zimbabweans working menial jobs and in a discussion I had with Margaret Dongo, she also appeared blind to this fact that despite Zimbabweans living in some of the most horrendous circumstances, particularly in South Africa, and despite Zimbabweans suffering abuse from locals (read xenophobic attacks), they have continued to work to send money home for their families. And this money prevented total economic collapse the past and is now playing a huge part in stabilizing the current economic situation in the country.
The other worrying part of this blanket call to go back home is that it might inadvertently expose Zimbabweans to xenophobic attacks. In South Africa in a particular, this has been a gathering storm and when locals hear news that “there is progress in Zimbabwe” or “things are getting better”, they appear to find no excuse why Zimbabweans should continue to be sheltered among them. Go back to Zimbabwe, they have said in the past, and vote Mugabe out. And now they say, Go back to Zimbabwe because things are now well, you don’t belong “in South Africa”.
So let us approach the “come home” campaign with some caution. First because it is a good thing to continue to have Zimbabweans in influential positions in other countries of the world – it gives us what in business they would call a global footprint; second, because the idea of home makes little sense in a globalized world; migration is a reality that we have to live with and take advantage of; and third, because it might expose citizens to increased xenophobic attacks.
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