Africans, please help

Zimbabwe needs its neighbours to help rescue its people from hell

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Ideas? Comments?

Gile na Gile

The 'Millenium Development Goals'. Does anyone remember them?
They were the topic to which African leaders had committed themselves to discussing at this weekend's AU Summit meeting, not Robert Mugabe. Where could we be I wonder if all the energies of the international press had instead devoted themselves to their coverage?


Thanks Jose Carpintero - your comments explain a lot. You're saying are that those who should lead their countries to greater democracy are knowingly and consciously choosing a path that leads to less democracy.

This is why it would be insanity for the "West" to intervene. If those Africans who can and should rule democratically can't act in good conscience, why should American and European taxpayers and their governments bother with the continent at all?

George Washington could have chosen to be king after the American Revolution - he'd led his ragtag forces to victory over the British Empire and formed the first government. After 2 terms in office he willingly stood down and retired to his farm. As did John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. It was a succession of great men like them that laid the foundation for a great nation.

If Zimbabwe is a basketcase it is because of the small-mindedness and mean-spiritedness of its leaders. The contrast is clear.


Yes, it was certainly wrong to support the old gang of African leaders, but since the time of Mobutu and Idi Amin many decades went by without any improvements. The recent Kenyan power struggle was purely homemade.
Julius Nyerere may have been a fine gentlemen but his policies based on naive communism and forced relocations have been desastrous. He has certainly not moved his country forward.


The African Union should be ashamed of its impotence in solving the continents problems but then again how many of its heads of government are in office legitimately?
I cant resist the urge to blame the former colonial powers who in the midist of the cold war went to bed with the likes of Mobutus,Banda and even Idi Amin ignoring rare leaders of conscience like Julius Nyerere!
Its during that period that the seeds of todays impunity were swon and its now harvest time!
All is not lost though but its only the UN and the might of the West that can bring sanity because at any rate what we have as states are in essence forced unions since they are colonial and hence alien creations.
Anderson Mwairongo,Nairobi.

Jose Carpintero

Because of my work, I know a lot of the sons (daughters don't count as much)and friends of the powerful elites in Southern Africa, specially Zambia. They all studied in UK, America, etc. and are as well-travelled and educated as anybody. They fully understand and respect democracy like any of us. They are the next generation that will be in charge of these countries.
When I asked them if democracy will finally come to Africa when their turn to rule comes, they looked at me puzzled and laugh. "Why on earth would we give all that power and money away?" they asked me. "Would you, would anybody?"

Wake up.


Thanks Sulwe. If we look ahead to the future of African countries like Zambia and South Africa, will the quality of the leadership be sufficient to overcome the challenges? Mandela is a great man - is it sufficient to have one great man who is then followed by mediocrity after mediocrity? And what if a really terrible leader comes along (another Mugabe)?

I've noticed that Africans who become educated and urbanized have no desire to organize and lead the rural and un-educated electorate to a much higher level of engagement with their democratic process. But surely they realize that it makes their democracy vulnerable to demagogs like Mugabe. Can you explain this to me?


Knowledgeseeker:I understand the limitations of education in advancing democracy. Mugabe himself is a good example. He is a knowledgeable person who knows better than what he is doing. Let me share with you an episode in FW de Klerk's memoirs( LAST TREK: New Beginning)when he was serving in the Govt of National Unity with Nelson "the great one" Mandela. De Klerk went to Mandela and asked him whether he was not bitter with SA whites for what they had done to him. Mandela answered: I wish there was time to be bitter. If I get bitter, the bitterness will get in the way of what we are trying to achieve. Would Mandela have been the hero we all think without education? I do not think so. Education has a general tendency to help democracy to flourish in the long run.

How's Zambia doing? We stand a good chance to make appreciable progress under the current President who also happens to be SADC chairman, Levy Mwanawasa. But he is up against formidable challenges because too many people in Zambia do not frown upon unearned wealth. That is how I can sum it up.


Sulwe, thanks, I didn't know about that.

I don't disagree with your general point about necessity for education, but I think one of the lessons from Zimbabwe's descent is that education is necessary, but not sufficient. The educated must organize and lead the electorate to a much higher level of engagement with their democratic process (i.e. Activism), else the Mugabes of the world will step into the power vacuum. Do you agree? What is the situation in Zambia?


Knowledge seeker:Rhodesians actually had a better choice in Garfield Todd. They rejected him because they felt he was too soft on blacks. There was an academician Terence Ranger who was trying to bring Rhodesians to their senses but they chose to ignore him. This is recorded history. Ian Smith had no black judges in Rhodesia but I know of at least one black (Edwin Zvobo)who was teaching law at Harvard University at a time when Smith's govt was preaching that blacks were too dumb to pursue high education.


Sulwe is right. If Ian Smith et.al. had been wiser and more prescient (and less racist) they would have devolved power earlier. Knowing that people learn democracy and activism by participating in the decisions made at a village or town meeting, they would have created a federal political structure so that even the rural and less educated could experience their democratic rights, and responsibilities, first hand. In this way capable democratic leadership and an organized electorate could have been home-grown, starting in the late 1960s. Imagine the legacy he would have left behind - Zimbabwe could have been the Switzerland of Africa.

Instead he persisted down a dead-end.

Of course his sins of omission are not even in the same league as Mugabe's atrocities, who should be tried for crimes against humanity after Zimbabweans have violently overthrown his regime.


iamprof14: Sorry I have to disagree with you but not completely I must also say.Ian Smith (I have a copy of his autobiography THE GREAT BETRAYAL)made a big mistake. He never gave blacks the right to vote and to receive a decent education so that they could compete in the labour market.The result was that they never held top jobs in govt and industry. Now they had to fight that system and we their neighbours in Zambia felt duty-bound to support them. We never regret that we supported them to fight Smith. But we regret that Mugabe has eventually betrayed the gist of the struggle. I agree when you say that the Rhodesian administration was efficient but efficient for whom, I may ask? Incidentally I also have Peter Stiff's SEE YOU IN NOVEMBER. I know the language he uses in that book to describe people like me. European history is not a neat straight line from primitivity to civilisation. There were setbacks along the way (Hitler, anti-semitism, civil wars,Luddism, communism etc. Why should Africa be judged differently?


For those of us who have a long memory (or are just older), we might recall Rhodesia during the Ian Smith time. He was a farmer, and his main goal was to make money, as was the other (admittedly) mostly white farmers.
But we must also recall the this country was the 'breadbasket of Africa' and things under Ian Smith were good for all, black and white.
Then along comes Mugabe, who seems to hate anything except himself, and through a campaign of terrorism got most of the white farmers (who treated their workers reasonably and fairly)to leave. I vividly remember reading a story at the time of people who later became 'war veterins' pouring boiling water down the throat of a 85 year old farmer's wife)...not gentle people ...thugs....mugabe's thugs.....since his take over he has built a huge mansion for himself whilst the ordinary people live in shacks....a fairly typical African dictator...but now the 'west' is seen to be impotent (or not care, after all there is NO oil, unlike Iraq) and so nothing changes.
Africa has produced some oif the worst dictators the world has ever seen, mugabe and amin to name just two, but MOSTLY BECAUSE they are black , the pc west doesn't say too much, even though their victims are BLACK!!!
I mean it now costs someting like 250,000,000 Zim Dollars for a sandwich, can we really take this man seriously. He has simply raped Rhodesia. Compare his behaviour to Ian Smith
...quite a difference....he actually cared for the country and the people, Mugabe is just a greedy thug, one white, one black in Africa......spend a few moments to ponder that situation.

A. Mee

We all have to remember that the bigger picture is in this case something that we don't ever get to see. How many handshakes were made many years ago in the dark days of the continents struggle?

Indeed how great it would be for a continent with such abundance of resource and opportunity to be governed by an EU like institution. Sadly the truth is that everything rises and falls on leadership and it is this that Africa lacks in Abundance. Can it's neighbours really come to the rescue, and if so what are they capable fo bringing?


It would be nice if an EU-like institution came about in Africa, but given that it took the extraordinary and tireless leadership of great men like Jean Monnet, and half a trillion U.S. dollars in Marshall Plan aid to persuade war-ravaged and starving European countries to cooperate economically - what are the chances of anything like it ever happening?

The wishful thinking will continue, and eventually the realization will dawn that this problem can only be solved by Zimbabweans, but by then it will be too late.


Sulwe, here's a simple equation to evaluate Zimbabwean electorate’s level of activism and the quality of its upcoming leadership. If you asked the university graduates you mentioned the following question: “How many political demonstrations have you organized over the last 28 years while Mugabe was gradually pilfering your rights as citizens?” What would the answer be?

If the typical answer is zero, then you know what the probability is of Zimbabwe achieving a liberal democracy in the foreseeable future. Zero.

Your point about an urban society being a requirement for democracy ignores the history of democracy in other countries that were distinctly rural. Read de Tocqueville (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_America) - as you'll see these concepts are not new. Democracy, by definition, begins and ends with the electorate. If the electorate does not jealously and vigorously guard its rights as citizens then no amount of outside intervention can save it from tyranny.


11 Zimbabweans have taken residence at a refugee camp run by the UN refugee agency in the north-western part of Zambia. This was reported 2 weeks ago in the Zambian media. More likely to pour in depending on what happens in the next few days. Meanwhile the megalomaniac who runs Zimbabwe and his minions accuse Zambia of working in the pay of Britain for admitting the refugees.


Jose Carpintero:How a person who reads The Economist weekly can fail to appreciate the role of a middle class in a democracy beats me. People do not just march against a dictator. They need to get regular information at roughly the same time and live in close proximity of each other to be able to organise and march. This is easier in an urban setting for reasons already explained. There is too much unenlightened individualism in rural areas of Africa,rather similar to what the Charlmagne column said about fishermen in the EU last week.


Mr Carpintero quote: "If the political will was there ...."
That's precisely the point. It is not there and nowhere to be seen. Wishful thinking is not getting Africa anywhere. To expect a development comparable to EEC or EU anytime soon is highly naive. You must be working for one of the numerous NGO's
who have to paint a rosy picture in order to justify their existance. In Africa they are doing more harm than good.

And if you see the little suffering kid again, tell him/her to blame mother and father for his/her fate.


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