What Hope for Zimbabwe?

Robert Mugabe has gone from office. It is not clear whether he will be allowed [or required] to stay in the country, or what will happen to his deeply-hated wife.

There has been great public rejoicing at the fall of Mugabe; but that is just one man, who has been set aside by the alliance of military officers, former 'freedom fighters' or 'War Veterans' and the current members of ZanuPF: Mugabe's party. There has been no ambiguity about what they want to happen next: the recently-deposed vice-president, Emmerson Mnangagwa - a Mugabe thug for the past four decades - is to be put into the top job. He has a record of extreme violence, most notably the 'ethnic cleansing' of Matabeleland in the 'eighties. This was part of the campaign to establish ZanuPF as a one-party government, which never succeeded fully but was sufficiently ruthlessly maintained for the opposition never to have a chance of winning either the presidency or a majority in parliament. North Korean mercenaries were imported to do much of the killing, and estimates of the numbers killed run around 20,000.

Especially in the light of his recent experience, some commentators are asserting that the incoming president might prove to be a pragmatist, who will recognise the need to engage the opposition in a widespread reform of how the country is to be run. It is blatantly obvious to all commentators that the economy must be opened to international capital, at least some cash-crop farming must be reinstated [though not on the old Rhodesian basis of white-owner-occupied large-scale holdings], and corruption - especially by the police - must be stamped out. How far the new president has the will or the intellectual capacity to do these things, only time will tell.

When Southern Rhodesia had white minority rule it was extremely prosperous, with a high educational standard right across the races and classes. Mugabe has destroyed much of the prosperity, but the educational standards have been maintained. There is almost universal access to the lingua franca - English - and there is an unusually high proportion of graduates among the population: many of whom are unemployed. Insofar as academic qualifications have maintained their value, the latent talent pool is massive.

Mr Mnangagwa is seventy-five, and although he appears to be fit it would indeed be remarkable if he has either the physical resources or the will to hang on to power for more than a decade. He has the opportunity to set in process a positive restoration of the country, and thus become the national hero that Mugabe certainly was not. We shall see....

Power, Legitimacy and the Economy

Chairman Mao declared that "power comes out of the barrel of a gun"; and over the millennia many regimes all over the world have gained and held power by the power of the sling, the arrow, the spear, the sword and the gun. The Bible tells how the pyramid-building rulers of Egypt consolidated their power over centuries by maintaining state granaries, in which crop surpluses were stored in fruitful years, which could then be doled-out to maintain the people when harvests were insufficient; whether that was due to crop failure [usually due to irregular weather] or to military intervention with the farming year [as when 'the peoples of the sea' invaded some provinces].

The comfortable delusion upon which the European Union was built is that the founder states were mature democracies, where the mass of the population acquiesced in the constitutional order and selected between political parties in regular, orderly elections; largely on the basis of their performance or promises in developing the economy. Since 1995 several states were admitted that had recently been 'democratised' after decades under the Communists gun-rule, and their dissent from the consensus established in Brussels [not least, on inward migration from outside Europe] has now become conspicuous. But [as has been pointed out before in this blog] the west European democracies were new when the Treaty of Rome was signed. Germany was fascist and brutal until mid-1945, Italy was in a similar state. France was still recovering from the hidden conflict between wartime collaborators and resistants. Smaller states with monarchies had been able more quickly after 1945 to establish a sort of normalcy, but all carried legacy issues from the war [except Sweden, which had the great luck to maintain its neutrality]. The EU had a mock-democratic parliament, which was subject to the farce of moving every month from Brussels to Strasbourg that was the proof of its impotence: if the assembly had an iota of real power the members would have opted for a fixed location.

The United Kingdom and Ireland joined the Common Market together, with the secret agenda [agreed in London and Dublin, but not shared with the broad electorate in either country] that a 'peace process' could follow in Ireland as the identities of the two states was subsumed in the European project. Before Mrs Thatcher won her infamous 'rebate', the UK was paying in massive amounts to  the Common Market funds that made similarly vast payments to Irish farmers and local authorities. A generation on, Mrs May and her pathetic cabinet seem not to know that, so they delude themselves that are avoiding the crunch on the Irish Question by putting up notions for a customs arrangement that is very much secondary to the political fudge. If the political fudge is ignored the whole Brexit project will end in violence. It is more than a coincidence that Gerry Adams has announced his intention to stand down: if there is to be a new civil war in Ireland [with inevitable excursions into the British mainland] it will necessarily be  conducted by a new, vigorous Republican high command.

If this interpretation of current events seems apocalyptic, be aware that if consent is withdrawn by a coherent component of the population in any country [or province] the men and women of violence will seek to develop that situation. Mercifully, there is no sign of such a thing happening in Catalonia; but Ireland has been a different case, for centuries.

If a regime is able to provide the mass of the people with palpable economic benefits, as the pyramid-builders did - and as the welfare state did in western Europe for the half-century after 1950 - revolt against the centralised state is rare: Northern Ireland, the Basque region and a few other cases were the exceptions that proved the rule because there were deep historical reasons for those special cases. It is significant that as the Irish Republic gained more of the advantages of a welfare economy, so the politicians in that state eschewed the IRA and their political allies more and more deeply.

Meanwhile, in Zimbabwe massive crowds have assembled to support the army and the ruling ZanuPF party in their attempt to replace Mugabe by his erstwhile deputy. 'The crocodile', as he is known, is a notorious enforcer; hitherto in Mugabe's interests. It was he who unleashed North Korean mercenaries to support his own thugs in killing at least 20,000 Matabele. It was he who organised such beatings of opposition voters in the last presidential election that the opposition withdrew from the second round and allowed Mugabe to reap his 'democratic' mandate. By all accounts he is less blatantly kleptocratic than Grace Mugabe, who was being set up as the next president. Optimists are hoping that the crocodile will metamorphose into a consensualist who can forge a truly 'national' government, but the odds are stacked against that. Once the dust settles on Mugabe's departure, Zimbabwe will revert to rule by fist and cane, supplemented - as judged necessary - by bullets: as in the case in most of Africa.

The chances of Zimbabwe approaching any credible standard of democracy within fifty years are very small.

The chances of the beneficent Brussels fantasy lasting for another fifty years are diminishing: as Mrs Merkel's struggle to build a coalition well illustrates.

Grace Mugabe

In yesterday's blog I said that Robert Mugabe was unassailable. I still hold to that; but an delighted to recognise that in restating their loyalty to the President the leaders of the Zimbabwean army have asserted that there are 'criminals' surrounding him who are despoiling the state and threatening the Constitution.

Chief among the 'criminals' is the president's wife, Grace: who is half his age and irrationally ambitious. No longer prepared to be left as a manipulator of the next president [whose succession is seen as imminent, in view of Mugabe's age and medical frailty] she has been maneuvering to be designated as the successor. Meanwhile she has raided the state's income and assets as if they were her own, with legendary shopping trips to European, Asian and South African luxury outlets. Meanwhile, and more alarming, her sons have been allowed to spend vast sums of money on their own luxuries and indulgences.

It appears that some leaders in the army [apparently in contrast to a suborned police farce] have a strong sense of constitutional propriety. Following the recent dismissal of the Vice-President [who has sought refuge in China] the army has decided that things have gone too far. Apparently following a meeting in China, the army chief has acted. It is going to be fascinating to see how things play out over the coming days; not least, how the UK and the US will react to the obvious hand of China in this situation.

If the defenders of the Constitution succeed, this will be a great moment for the whole of African democracy.

A Glance at Africa

In a Quiz Night yesterday the teams were each given a map of Africa with just the coastline and the boundaries of states shown. The object of the exercise was simply to identify twelve of the very many states that now litter the continent; but the impact of the map was to cause serious reflection about a whole range of issues.

One person emphasised how few straight lines there are, other than the borders of Egypt. This is such a contrast with the boundaries of the majority of states in the USA, where straight lines seem to predominate. Thus arises the observation that although the borders were mostly set in colonial times they tend to follow geographical features, notably streams and rivers [which objectively exist, and cannot readily be shifted] to save all the hassle of establishing and maintaining artificial boundary markers. Donald Trump's wall would be an inconceivable project even along a small length of frontier in Africa.

The next obvious observation was that the borders were very rarely drawn to grant territorial integrity to some ethnic group: all over the continent ethnic groups [even quite small ones] are split between states, and most states have complex ethnic composition which makes political and social compromise difficult - sometimes impossible. The world paid attention - briefly - to the trouble attendant on the two recent attempts to run a fair and free election in Kenya, which is a reasonably sophisticated state with strong institutions and functioning [though anachronistic] legal system. As the frontiers are drawn, the Kikuyu are very clearly the dominant ethnic group: therefore they have a majority in parliament. One hereditary opposition leader drawn from another tribe, whose advancing age makes it impossible that ethnic change would occur to enable his tribe to predominate, has asserted that the system is simply undemocratic and withdrew from the second-run of the election. In his terms, Kenya cannot ever be a democracy in the sense that there is an alternation between parties of government. It may be possible to form some sort of coalition, provided the subordination of the smaller populations is inbuilt into the mindset of the participants.

Some states in Africa come close to being genuinely democratic, with stable governments [think Botswana and Namibia]; but the majority do not. In some, dictators [some of them second-generation] rob the country of wealth for their own gratification; in others war lords control massive swathes of land with conscripted armies that exploit the population to grab the resources that provide the funds with which their guns and bullets are to be replaced.

For the last few decades while the Soviet Union maintained the mission to spread Communism around the world various regimes and guerrilla movements were supported; while South Africa and Rhodesia [as long as they existed in their ugly, racist form] sent expeditions and counter-guerrilla units to oppose them. The further such operations were conducted north of the Limpopo River, the more secure were the governments in Pretoria and Salisbury that armed uprisings were little threat to them. The former colonial power, Britain, ultimately intervened to close down the beleaguered Rhodesian government and force the whites there to accept black majority rule. A democratic constitution was bequeathed to the local politicians, of whom the most powerful were those who had led the various exiled armed groups. For only a couple of years, there was a semblance of following the constitution: then the largest ethnic group [the Shona] grabbed control. The Matabele, who had collaborated most effectively with the white settlers, suffered most as a brutal policy of 'Africanisation' was imposed. White settlers' farms, especially the large ones that were among the most successful businesses in Africa, were occupied and ruined. From being a major exporter of crops, the new Zimbabwe [named after a set of ruins that had been ascribed to a forgotten African 'superpower'] became a net importer of food and the economy collapsed. The president who presided over this disaster was - still is - Robert Mugabe, who is honoured all over Africa as a former freedom fighter. His position is unassailable.

Britain could not make the ex-Rhodesia a democracy. A large army from any of the former colonial  'powers' could not bring peace to Libya, the end to ethnic tension in Kenya or a terminus to any of the other conflicts and stresses to which Africa is prone; and none of the former colonists would think it worth spending scarce resources on political reconstruction in Africa. Even China has recognised the limits of its formerly-aggressive 'economic colonisation' of parts of the continent. The general opinion in even the most democratic and high-minded advanced countries is to leave the Africans to stew in their own problems: and to sell them such military equipment and luxuries for the ruling elites as they can buy, cash-on-the-nail. Nineteenth-century European children were told of their countries' 'civilising mission' in spreading their imperial control over the 'dark continent': twenty-first century  children are told virtually nothing about an embarrassing post-colonial inheritance. And there the matter is left to lie.

More About Sovereignty: Rhodesia to Zimbabwe to Disaster [and On to Honours from the United Nations]

The arbitrarily-drawn colonial-era boundaries that still delineate the African country called Zimbabwe were set in the last days of the nineteenth century. The area had by then been recognised as having significant potential for the development of agricultural estates; and a group of entrepreneurial individuals gathered around Cecil Rhodes [a magnate who became premier of the Rand diamond and gold mining area which was settled by large numbers of Europeans, predominantly British] agreed to venture further north into this promising territory. Approval from the British state was secured, a territory called 'Rhodesia' was marked out, and a Company on the traditional lines of the East India Company and the Hudson's Bay Company was set up to help to fund the venture. The Rhodesia Company - which mutated into Lonrho - was essentially a trading operation. White settlers accepted land grants individually to set up their own farms [of various sizes, but much larger than those individuals could have bought in Europe or North America], and several companies and consortia also took land grants, all employing 'native' labour, and with the intention to sell their output on world markets. It was quickly demonstrated that the land was generally fertile and well-watered, and favourable for growing food crops and tobacco and for cattle ranching.

The settled pattern of agriculture cut directly across the traditional migratory lifestyle of the Shona and other peoples who were well established on the territory; and there were frictional incidents as the allocations of land to white individuals and alien-owned companies proceeded. In due course accommodations were made with the indigenous tribal groups, chiefs were given status in the pattern of civil administration, and relations between settlers and native peoples became relatively calm.

One great disruption had occurred more or less simultaneously with the development of white interest in the territory: a significant sub-set of the warrior Zulus rebelled against their famous king Shaka, and to avoid his wrath they knew they must put a significant distance between his armies and their own. Thus they migrated to the territory that was soon to be Rhodesia [later Southern Rhodesia] where they could be used by the whites as a counterpoise against the majority Shona: in effect, they were allowed to settle, provided they collaborated with the colonial regime. With that uncomfortable mix of farmer-settlers, ex-Zulus known as Matabele and Shona [who had the longer claim to the territory] Rhodesia developed as a major exporter of food [crops and beef] and of tobacco; with significant mineral production as well.

Come the nineteen-sixties and the desire of the United Kingdom to slough-off direct responsibility for the colonies, the London government lumped together three colonially-administered territories into a new Central African Federation. The economic, social and political structures of the three components were very different. Southern Rhodesia was a relatively rich segment of Africa, with hundreds of thousands of white settlers and the major city of Salisbury as its capital: there was an apartheid-type parliament, dominated by whites but with representation for Matabele and Shona.  Northern Rhodesia had a much smaller white settler and technician population than its southern neighbour, but it had a semi-democratic representative assembly; and the territory had significant wealth both from agriculture and from mineral exports, most notably copper. The smallest territory in the Federation was the poorest, Nyasaland [now Malawi]; with the lowest level of white settlement, the least-developed economy, and no effective democratic institutions. Unsurprisingly, the Federation fell apart. The convention that nobody should upset the colonial frontiers was upheld, however, so Malawi and Northern Rhodesia [renamed Zambia, after the river that runs through it] drifted into post-colonial limbo within their existing boundaries. For more than a decade the informal white-Matabele coalition continued to control Southern Rhodesia [which became Rhodesia] but it became susceptible to an increasingly aggressive Shona-led insurgency which campaigned for independence under black rule.

South Africa and Rhodesia conducted joint military operations in several other African countries where the 'freedom fighters' holed up, often with assistance from the local government and from the Communist bloc; while the fighters waged an increasingly successful guerrilla war against the Rhodesian state. The freedom fighters fell into several sections, and included some Matabele; but their movement was predominantly a Shona enterprise. It had several leaders, of whom Robert Mugabe was one. Hence, throughout Africa, he is gazetted as a hero of the struggle for liberation. The eventual collapse of the isolated settler state and the grant of formal sovereignty to the new country of Zimbabwe - named after some impressive ruins left by a forgotten people - was followed by the seizure of power by Shona factions, the brutal suppression of the Matable and the botched 'Africanisation' of agriculture which deprived the country of its export surplus.

At the age of 93, Robert Mugabe is seen from Europe as a grasping, incompetent, brutal tyrant. By c contrast,Almost throughout Africa he is seen as a man who has an heroic past, who has tried constantly [and largely successfully] to remove colonial exploitation and all its hangovers from his country: as he promised to do half a century ago. In so doing, he has ruined the economy and once-great public services - not least, the health service - have suffered.  Thus it is paradoxical that a recently-appointed African chief officer of the World Health Organisation [WHO - a part of the UN] should think naturally of appointing an African legend to be a 'Goodwill Ambassador'; and that the aid-donating west should be horrified that the chief agent of waste and pillage in a once-rich country should thus be honoured. At least, the furore surrounding the appointment has made a few people remember the past and contemplate the future of a naturally rich part of the world.