African Laughter - Doris May Lessing [208]
‘Very funny,’ says he, ‘and now tell me what has really happened.’
In Zimbabwe the election was won by Comrade Mugabe and Zanu PF and no one talks of Tekere. ‘Who?’ they will soon be asking.
Mugabe still wants a one-party state but his colleagues won’t hear of it.
1991
Comrade Mugabe formally abandons communism.
Who says no one learns from other people’s mistakes?
But the University of Zimbabwe is still subject to Party control.
Why?–everyone wonders.
I try to put myself in Mugabe’s place and find I am suffering all the emotions of the elderly who experience what they valued quietly slipping through their fingers. This is a proud man, an austere man, a man of principle. That shield and buckler, the Fifth Brigade, became the most hated people in Zimbabwe. The People’s Hotel and Party HQ and the Sports Stadium, all copied from the communists, are white elephants. His colleagues and comrades have taken to thievery as if born to it. Communism has gone, the one-party state has been rejected, the economy of Zimbabwe is in disarray, just like every other communist-influenced economy. But, there is the University of Zimbabwe, and at least that can be controlled.
and Again, in Passing…
1992
Kenneth Kaunda is no longer President of Zambia. He resigned. Voluntarily. His successor’s task in that mismanaged country is unenviable.
In Zimbabwe they are not saying, ‘Why doesn’t Mugabe…?’ ‘Mugabe should…’ The people have given up hopeful expectation.
The currency has been devalued. The Zim dollar is worth a quarter of what it was. The already desperately poor are even worse off. A new acronym, ESAP, sums up a new economic policy. It means, wait for it, Economic Structural Adjustment Policy. Or, how to get the advantages of capitalism without giving up socialism. The Povos, instructed to tighten their belts, say it means Extra Suffering for the Poor, or, The Sugar is Over. (A Shona phrase.) The sugar crop failed because of the drought. The leaders are begging for international investment while still heaping abuse on the multinationals. They, perhaps, are waiting for the telephones to work and red tape to be made less. In the farming districts some farmers have given up expecting anything from telephones and have reverted to the radio networks set up during the Bush War. Jokers say, ‘Why not use talking drums? The Africans did well enough with them.’
At a meeting a man called out to Mugabe, ‘We did better under Smith.’ He was hauled off to prison. But up and down the land they are saying the same. And, ‘At least Smith was honest.’ And, even, ‘We need a new leader’, for, like other apparently more sophisticated countries they believe a change of leader must mean a change for the better. It is likely, so rumour goes, that they will soon have a new leader: Mugabe, they say, will resign. They are saying, ‘Poor Robert’s heart has been broken by the bad Chefs.’
The word Chef is heard less often. Was it after all a term of affection?
Sally Mugabe, Robert Mugabe’s wife, has died. They say that pity for him united the country–at least for a time.
Famine threatens. In the past there was a policy to keep a year’s supply of grain in the silos. This year’s reserves have been given away, notably to the famine areas in Ethiopia, or sold to Mozambique. Meanwhile the government discouraged the growing of maize, the staple crop, telling the farmers to grow crops that bring in Foreign Exchange. It seems advice from the experts of the IMF and the World Bank was partly responsible for this stupidity. Then the rains failed. So now Zimbabwe is buying grain from South Africa, herself short of maize because of drought, and paying Foreign Currency for it. This inspired bit of planning will insure that Zimbabwe will be holding out a begging bowl this year. And if the rains are bad again next year?
The Book Team has had a difficult twelve months. Two Ministries found the women’s book unpalatable. High level intervention saved the book. Its title, Building Whole Communities,