Author James Gardner: An Autopsy of Zimbabwe

How can a country that in 1980 was called the bread-basket of Africa be reduced to a basket-case in 30 years? The same country that boasted about its 80% literacy rate now has 82% unemployment. In 1996, I bought a case of Zambezi beer for 130 Zimbabwe dollars, which was equal to 10 US dollars. Last year the same case of beer cost a staggering 100 trillion Zimbabwe dollars. The Zimbabwe economy makes the Weimar Republic in the 1930s look like present day Switzerland.

My first visit to what was Rhodesia and is now Zimbabwe was in 1968. Robert Gabriel Mugabe had already served four years of an eleven year prison sentence. His crime was making subversive speeches. Twelve years later, when Mugabe was sworn in as the newly elected President of Zimbabwe, he was seen as a bearer of hope for Africans. To the uninformed, Mugabe was not unlike the other iron-fisted leaders who wrestled control from the men whose European ancestors settled in Africa. But this was no ordinary thug seizing power by way of the usual military coup; this was a soft-spoken diminutive man who had earned seven college degrees. Zimbabwe’s economy flourished under Mugabe’s leadership during the early 1980s, and then something went terribly wrong.

After making 25 trips to Africa over a span of 40 years, I find I have more questions than answers, but there is one undeniable fact: In 1980, 300,000 whites controlled 99% of the Zimbabwe’s wealth. In a country of 12 million people, this inequity was unsustainable.

The centerpiece of Zimbabwe’s economic destruction has been Mugabe’s confiscation of the white-owned farms. The mass exodus of 250,000 white Zimbabweans has left the country devoid of capital and expertise. Unable to find work, Zimbabwe’s skilled black workers are also leaving.

Was reparation Mugabe’s hidden agenda, or did unseen circumstances force his hand? It’s difficult to understand the octogenarian President’s motives. He is an enigma protected by the tight security that has undoubtedly spared him from assassination.

Africans are plagued by an obsession with ethnicity. The European adventurists who carved up the Dark Continent used mountain ranges and rivers to mark the boundaries of the land they subjugated. Peoples with vast cultural differences were forced into coexistences. The conqueror’s greed and miscalculations have caused genocides and civil wars. The Hutus killing 800,000 Tutsis and the genocide taking place in the Darfur are prime examples.

Mugabe is a member of the majority Shona tribe. One of his first orders was to send the Fifth Brigade accompanied by their North Korean advisors into the heart of Matabeleland, where they massacred 20,000 members of the minority Ndebele tribe. It should be noted that most of Zimbabwe was at one time controlled by the more aggressive Ndebele Nation, until their king, Lobengula, sold it to John Cecil Rhodes.

At first, Mugabe courted the white farmers, but when they sided with the Matabele, he was said to be outraged. The farmers had become his scapegoats. Just as Adolph Hitler used the Jew and Idi Amin used the Indian, despots need to fabricate enemies to blame for the ills of their countries.
The final nail in Mugabe’s economic coffin was when the United States and Great Britain withdrew their financial support for reimbursing the white farmers for the land Mugabe was repossessing. How could he pay the people who were keeping him in power? His only option was to give them more farms. This made the downward spiral, fait accompli.

To his defenders, Robert Mugabe is seen as their George Washington. He is the black man who brought down the white elitists. His detractors say black Zimbabweans fared better under Ian Smith’s reign. One thing’s for certain, life for the average white or black Zimbabwean has been hellish.

What happens to Zimbabwe after Mugabe? During the last fifty years, guilt-ridden countries have sent one-trillion US dollars in foreign-aid to Africa, yet Africans are now the poorest of the poor. Massive aid will make dishonest men rich, but it won’t resurrect Zimbabwe. Rebuilding the country’s economy will take more time than it took to destroy it. The eco-tourist infrastructure has atrophied, but it can be revitalized. Some say the country’s mineral wealth has been squandered. Mugabe’s opponents say the money is stashed in his Swiss bank accounts. The real economic future of Zimbabwe lies in her fallowed farms. The country’s subsistence farmers cannot manage large scale farms. Running mega-farms is a complicated business that can only be learned by on-the-job training. The quickest way to kick-start Zimbabwe’s agricultural base would be to entice the white farmers to come home. Asking them to return without absolute assurances would be illogical. These guarantees will have to come from countries outside of Africa. To advocate a return to 1980 would be absurd, but is there room for compromise? If there isn’t, generations of Zimbabweans will live in poverty.

Someday, the fifty-three countries of Africa may have to be reapportioned into one hundred new countries. Although Zimbabwe does have tribal differences, it is far less diverse than most African countries. If the United States was successful in helping rebuild Zimbabwe, it would be a great endowment for America.

After the industrialized countries of the world squander their own raw materials, they will look to Africa as the place to obtain natural resources. China knows the success of replacing the United States as the next economic juggernaut lies in the strategic minerals and oil found in Africa. It’s not in our best economic interests to let China’s influence go unchecked.

     I have faith in the people of Zimbabwe. Africans are superb survivalists, it they weren’t we wouldn’t exist. After all, human evolution started someplace in Southern Africa.

     I invite your thoughts.
                James Gardner