And in case you were wondering, Robert Mugabe has made it quite clear that not only is he not going into exile or anywhere else, he plans to win the country’s 2008 elections. I wonder what Thabo Mbeki and SADC think about that as Mugabe continues to outflank them at every turn.
(By the way, this seems as good a time as any for a primer on “How Not to Understand Zim.”)
NPR has a feature on how Zimbabwe represents inhospitable terrain for journalists. One journalist explores why:
In Zimbabwe, practicing journalism is forbidden. Reporters caught working without government permission face beatings, long prison sentences, or worse. The job becomes especially perilous when the story about the local police force, focusing on police brutality
So why do reporters like myself take the risk? Some do it for the thrill, others for the fame. Others do it because they knew Zimbabwe before it became the police state dictatorship it is today and they feel morally obligated. I do it because I know a lot of Zimbabweans. They are wonderful people, who don’t have a voice to tell their stories. I also do it because I can.
I certainly wonder what will happen the next time I am in Zimbabwe. Of course there is an element of self-aggrandizement in the speculation — the odds, after all, are that nothing will happen. At the same time, it would not take more than a few seconds of snooping and all of my identities would strip away — professor, American, etc. — and I’d be marked down into one category, however much I denied it: Journalist, and a hostile one at that.
Hostile, of course, meaning to Robert Mugabe and his regime, and not to Zimbabwe and its people. But in any authoritarian state, opposing the leader is tantamount to opposing the state. Oppressive states always silence journalists and other potential critics, especially outsiders, if it is at all possible to do so. Information is dangerous for people like Mugabe, who accuse his critics of trafficking in untruths. The stronger the accusation the more likely it is that the targets of his ire have identified real truths, which are the most damning.
The Foreign Policy Association has posted its Great Decisions series updates for fall 2007. Please avail yourself of these wonderful resources. (Here is the South Africa update.)
Over at The Mail & Guardian the University of the Witwatersrand’s Achille Mbembe wonders what Thabo Mbeki, chief architect of the “African Renaissance,” is playing at with regard to his apparent endorsement of French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s galling recent comments in West Africa. At least on the issue of Pan-Africanism, Mbeki has earned the benefit of the doubt (indeed, possibly too much so given his apparent coddling of Robert Mugabe) but Mbembe is rightfully concerned:
That two years before he exits power, Mbeki would tie his impeccable pan-Africanist credentials to Sarkozy is but the latest paradox in the political journey of a man who has thrived on contradictions. Were he to do so, Mbeki would deeply alienate francophone West Africa, of which South Africa knows so little about. He would also run the risk of giving his blessing to a profoundly demeaning representation of the continent by an arrogant former colonial power that has, for the last 50 years, actively stood against the African project of emancipation.
Never let it be said that Mbeki is anything other than complex, but there is a fine line between being complex and being inscrutable. Too often Mbeki crosses that line.
Peter Kagwanja, research director and senior African fellow at South Africa’s Human Science Research Council and president of the Africa Policy Institute argues that SADC’s mediation of the crisis in Zimbabwe “must be given a chance to breathe.” But he also believes that Zimbabwe’s salvation will only come through change:
[P]olitical theatre aside, the SADC mediation should focus on securing constitutional reforms, an economic recovery plan and electoral reforms ahead of the 2008 elections. But a bit of help from the likes of Sam Nujoma and Kenneth Kaunda, who have the necessary liberation credentials to urge Mugabe to step aside and oversee a peaceful transition, could also help ease the tension.
It is easy to grow frustrated over the slow, and seemingly static, state of change in Zimbabwe. At the same time, it has long been apparent that forcing change is not viable and for all of the hand-wringing, few of the harshest critics of SADC’s (or Thabo Mbeki’s) inaction have presented realistic alternatives to accelerate Zimbabwe’s transformation. Nonetheless, SADC’s breathing process cannot be open-ended. At some point, member nations, whether acting within SADC or individually, are going to have to take a stand.
According to the Mail & Guardian, SADC’s plan for Zimbabwe’s economic recovery is a non-starter because, well, SADC and its member nations do not have the necessary funds and the prospect of such support coming from the west in sufficient qualities is highly improbable.:
The economic rescue package for Zimbabwe, touted at the Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit in Lusaka last week, is a non-starter, economists and political commentators argued this week.
They said that at least $15-billion would be needed to restore Zimbabwe’s collapsing infrastructure and revive commercial agriculture, the mainstay of the formal economy. The region could not foot this bill and Western “development partners” would not come to the party unless Zimbabwe democratised and introduced rational economic policies.
There are two (possibly three) questions that SADC ought to be asking: Were the funds available, would the economic recovery plan be either desirable or viable? This is a crucial question because any Zimbabwe economic recovery plan that does not incorporate regime change seems to be placing a misshapen stopper in a spilling bottle. Doing so will be, at best, a temporary solution. The second question then takes two paths: If such a plan is viable or desirable, is accessing the funding truly an impossible task? If not, then what plan must SADC develop in its place?
But of late it seems that SADC is uninterested in asking what ought to be baseline questions for fear of not finding their preferred answers. Until the member nations of SADC take the questions seriously, there is little reason why we should seriously consider their answers.
Changing the names of places, infrastructure, and institutions in South Africa tends to be a flashpoint for controversy, as I’ve discussed in this forum on several occasions. A recent story from the Daily News gets at what some might see as the lighter side of the shifting nomenclature phenomenon:
The name eThekwini is to be consigned to history, but Durban will live on. That is the word from Mayor Obed Mlaba.
But he is on a mission to change the current “eThekwini” name for the whole metropolitan area because the name is embarrassing.
Mlaba said the meaning of eThekwini, which refers to the testicles of a bull and was the traditional name given to the shape of Durban bay, had caused him a fair amount of international embarrassment.
Mlaba was speaking after the tabling of the long-awaited policy document that will govern the roll-out of the second phase of street, building and natural landmark renaming.
Senior council officials are confident eThekwini will give way to the proposed new name, KwaKhangela, by the end of the year. Mlaba however reiterated that the city’s name, Durban, would remain.
“If you unpack what eThekwini means, it just doesn’t sound right. A lot of people overseas have asked: ‘What does eThekwini mean?’.
Then you start saying, ‘Well, you see, ummm, please pass me the milk for my tea’ because you are not proud to unpack what it means,” Mlaba said.
“But also, KwaKhangela is the name the royal King Shaka gave to this region when his military training ground was where the University of KwaZulu-Natal is now situated. It means ‘watch out (for any attackers)’, so as a military person he saw this part of the world being very strategic,” he said.
And although tight lipped on when the new name may be adopted, Mlaba said the change would “come out” of the policy document adopted on Tuesday.
Opposition parties were concerned that the ruling ANC planned to do away with the name “Durban”, but Mlaba said that had never been the intention. Durban was the name of the city, while KwaKhangela referred to the metropolitan municipal area.
I find the compromise aspect of some of these naming debates fascinating and laudable. But I suppose it’s the bull testicles you’ll remember from this particular episode.
From a Medical Research Council report on children’s health issues in South Africa:
Every year almost 23,000 South African babies die in their first month of life, yet one in five of these deaths could be avoided with better education, and relatively inexpensive and easily implemented changes in healthcare, says a new study by the Medical Research Council (MRC).
“The bad news is that, according to the report, ‘one in five deaths could have been clearly avoided’, and inequalities are also highlighted, with avoidable deaths being twice as common in rural areas,” said Joy Lawn, Senior Policy and Research Advisor at Saving Newborn Lives, a programme run by Save the Children, an international non-governmental organisation for children’s rights, in the foreword to the report.
“The good news is that these deaths are not complex or expensive to prevent - improving the quality of care during childbirth is a top priority that would also save mothers’ lives and reduce long-term disabilities in children,” Lawn commented.
This latter news, of course, is what South Africans must work to bring to fruition. These issues are tied in with questions of opportunity and access that South Africa also struggles to address.
Some of you may be familiar with the gruesome and depressing dogfighting story of NFL star Michael Vick. (See here, and, if you have the stomach, follow the many links to the right of the story.) But dogfighting is a real problem in South Africa as well, as a story in today’s Cape Times revealing “savage dogfighting in Stellenbosch” shows. No commentary is necessary. This is cruelty of the basest sort for which there is no excuse and no justification.
Hopes were high for the two-day Southern African Development Community (SADC) Summit held last week in Lusaka. The crisis in Zimbabwe would be high on the agenda. Thabo Mbeki would present his progress report on his mediation between Robert Mugabe and his opponents. Some how, some way, the region’s leaders would broker a solution, or at least break the logjam.
Admittedly this was an optimistic outlook and few of us who observe African affairs believed that any actual solution would be forthcoming. But we did hope that stern words and perhaps hints of action to come might emerge from Lusaka. In short, we hoped for at least symbolic action.
Instead Mugabe received a hero’s welcome, which shocked and dismayed diplomats and other outside observers. So perhaps the welcome was merely an acknowledgment of Mugabe’s status as a liberation hero and one-time brother-in-arms. Perhaps it represented a last hurrah for the grizzled Zimbabwean strongman.
Not quite. Mbeki’s report was feckless and tepid, asserting that the various parties were in discussions with progress being made. To make matters worse, SADC leaders declared that the accusations aimed at Zimbabwe have been “exaggerated,” and that the country will solve its economic problems. Of course no one was able to explain how Zimbabwe would suddenly end the slow slide into chaos and economic failure that has characterized the bulk of the last decade and that has only accelerated in recent months.
I’m not certain if I have ever agreed with South Africa’s Democratic Alliance on much, but the party position, as presented by the DA’s former leader and current spokesman on foreign affairs, Tony Leon, seem an apt summation:
“The Zimbabwean President was treated to a hero’s welcome in Zambia, and the SADC executive secretary Tomaz Salamao blamed much of the economic woes in Zimbabwe on sanctions,” he said in a statement.
The “cosy attitude” displayed by SADC heads of state towards Mugabe, Leon said, was a further indication that the South African government’s approach to the Zimbabwean crisis was unhelpful and inappropriate.
“Zanu-PF’s attitude and tactics will not be changed by quiet diplomacy or a weak stance by our government,” he said.
Leon said statements made by Zimbabwe’s Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa at the opening of the summit were evidence of the contempt Zanu-PF had for mediation talks spearheaded by Mbeki.
“How many more futile attempts to coax Zanu-PF to behave in a responsible manner will it take before President Mbeki agrees to take a stronger more critical stance on the matter?” asked Leon.
What is perhaps most disappointing is that SADC, in not recognizing Zim’s problems, have made it nearly impossible to pave the way for a post-Mugabe dispensation. It is understandable, after years of ruthless European imperialism followed by an almost equally deleterious era of Cold War clientelism, for African leaders to circle the wagons and to resist being told what to do by the outside world. but to fall back on those canards in the face of the current monstrosity that is Mugabe’s regime is to abandon millions of Africans to the capricious whims of a despot. It is one thing to applaud Mugabe if behind the scenes you are working to find a way out of the mess he has created and to ensure that there will be some prospects for success after Mugabe’s fall or death. That is how high-level diplomacy works. But it is quite another to applaud Mugabe’s face and pat his back. That is how acquiescence to authoritarianism works.