As a young boy growing up in suburban Australia, I watched the opening ceremony of the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane with giddy kid wonder. Western Samoa, Yemen, Zaire, Zambia. I had no idea where these places were, but I wanted in. The last team to enter the stadium was Zimbabwe, a brightly dressed bunch of amateur athletes, more barn-dance than decathlon. My geopolitical knowledge was too juvenile to comprehend why half the team were freckled white guys.
Six years later, in 1992, as a spotty teen listening to Dinosaur Jr, I again experienced Zimbabwe through sport. The fledging Zimbabwean cricket team was taking part in its maiden World Cup. They wore fluorescent red uniforms and 1970’s haircuts, and included a 42-year-old middle-order batsmen named Dave Houghton, the very talented Flower twins, and a young pace bowler called Heath Streak. They were skilful, if a little slapdash, but for a kid who knew Africa through The Gods Must Be Crazy and Dr Livingstone pop-up books, I couldn’t understand what had happened to all the black guys.
On my first visit to Zimbabwe in 1997, I saw lots of black guys. What I didn’t see were any outward signs of the ‘self-inflicted’ disaster that would leave the country crippled today. In the town of Karoi in the lush northeast, I stayed on a tobacco farm run by a second-generation white family. I bungee-jumped off Victoria Falls, rafted down the Zambezi, danced in Harare and Bulawayo, and kissed girls black and white. The two hundred black workers living on the property seemed satisfied and buoyant. Sure, I was told by Jason, the eldest son, land reform was long overdue and necessary, but why rush when across the country the standard of living was high, and life remained steady.
Two years later, I met Jason in London. He looked tired and worn, his white-blond hair thinning at the front, his muscular shoulders sagging. Jason had come to England to deposit two suitcases of cash into an offshore bank account. Everywhere, it seemed, were ‘ex-Zims’ waiting for their British visas to clear. My farmer friend couldn’t decide what to do. “Zim is fucked, bru, but I have to go back. I’m African.”
Over the next five years, I read the news from Zimbabwe, alongside emails from my friend. Both versions were bad. International observers denounced Mugabe’s re-election as rigged, state-sponsored violence appeared widespread. Jason’s neighbour was raped and murdered, packs of ‘war veterans’ too young to have fought in the 1980 Independence struggle attacked his house with axes and swords. His phone line dropped out. I suggested that he move to Australia, but he insisted Zimbabwe was his country. I tried to understand, but couldn’t. He met a girl, and got married quick. He started to look at his options – tobacco in Namibia, coffee in Mozambique, a desk job in Cape Town. He settled on farming St John’s Wort in Zambia. His parents had moved to Johannesburg, and his siblings to the States. Soon enough an entire elite agricultural workforce would be chased from the country. Fertile land was left to ruin. Twenty years after Independence was so bravely sought, justice in Zimbabwe had been handed to the mob.
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Zimbabwe wasn’t always this grim. Claimed by the obstinate British explorer Cecil John Rhodes as his empire spread north from South Africa in the nineteenth century, Rhodesia quickly built a reputation as the region’s economic golden child. In 1980, when independence was won in a hard-fought war led by a charismatic Robert Mugabe, the future looked even brighter.
Sadly, present-day Zimbabwe is a shambles. The Finance Mister recently slashed three zeros off the currency in a bid to keep up with world-record 1700% inflation. Unemployment hovers above 80%, while an elite minority drives bigger and bigger cars. Morgan Tsvangarai, leader of the opposition political party, Movement for Democratic Change, was this month released from hospital after a brutal gang attack.
A recent joint statement from the Catholic Archbishops of Southern Africa pleaded for a ‘radical change of heart’ from the Zimbabwean government and a God-granted ‘miracle’ to alleviate the poverty and oppression of their ‘self-inflicted disaster’. Upon his return from an extended visit to the country, an American Jesuit priest told Johannesburg radio station 2000FM that all he saw in Zimbabwe was a ‘palpable absence of hope’.
Zimbabwe can take some solace from elsewhere on the continent. Reconciliation efforts in northern Uganda are helping to overcome differences between the Ugandan government and the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army. Using traditional ceremonies, members of rival factions are asked to drink the bitter mato oput, a ritual in Acholi justice that absolves past matters of murder and mistrust.
Similarly, on hillsides throughout Rwanda, gacaca courts allow victims to confront perpetrators of the 1994 genocide that claimed over 800,000 lives. In Somaliland, after the fall of the Siad Barre regime incited violence in Mogadishu, clan elders employed the traditional gurtii structure of order to ease the impact of the fighting on the people’s memory. Likewise, in Angola and Mozambique, cleansing rituals help to assimilate ex-combatants into mainstream society by forgiving past ill deeds, and embracing the future with a clear conscience.
At the Southern African Development Community summit in Dar-es-Salaam in late March 2007, the thirteen African leaders present chose to unanimously endorse the leadership of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe. South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki – who sees an ‘African Renaissance’ on the horizon – was designated as mediator between Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
Meanwhile, Jason runs a bed-and-breakfast with his wife and 2-year-old girl, Francesca, in a small town outside Lusaka, Zambia. The St John’s Wort crop failed to yield. “It hurts, hey, it really hurts. I’m Zimbabwean, you know. Ten years ago, m
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