Zimbabwe Absurdity

Yesterday I was at THE social event on the art calendar. It was the annual Verandah Gallery charity art show. I have been collecting local artist’s work for some time now and though I know little about what is good art I do know what I like. My friend Caro who is the senior art teacher at a very posh girls’ school actually complimented me on my taste. I am a little suspicious though as I know she covets one of the works in my “collection”.

Well, you would not have known that Zimbabwe was in the grip of a terminal economic meltdown. The place was packed and lots of works were being sold although I suspect not necessarily to Zimbabweans. I guess US$200 is not a lot to pay for a work that you like but it is very much a luxury for me so despite perusing several works that I like it was not difficult to leave empty handed. A few years ago I did not have this problem so I guess my income has diminished substantially in real terms.

On Saturday my friend Gary, not the Mozambican one, phoned me in a bit of a panic. He has a game farm just outside Bulawayo and had shot and butchered an eland for consumption (there is no meat to be had in the butcheries) but having put the meat in a freezer and transported it back here, there was no power at his girlfriend’s house. So for the last couple of days I’ve had a freezer on a trailer in my back yard! We don’t seem to have too many power cuts here and it was not in much danger of getting stolen either. Anyway, I’ve done OK out of it all has he has left me a large bag of meat and another bag of bones for Jenni. We are becoming a nation of barterers.

I came home this evening to a large fire burning the bush at the end of the road. There were various farm workers around seeing that it did not get onto the farm where I live. What did surprise me though, was the sight of the same workers a short while later deliberately spreading the fire into the bush below my house (the wind was blowing it away). A few years ago that would have been a criminal offence. Now I guess it is seen as being pragmatic – if the bush burns now you don’t have to worry about it burning again until next year!

Southern Africa burns every dry season, which means the fires are starting in earnest about now. I should think the visibility is down to about 5km, the smoke is that bad. For a particularly good satellite photo check out http://eobadmin.gsfc.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=5145

Some years ago when the farm invasions were running at their peak I was coming back from a day’s paragliding on the Great Dyke. It was night time and a fire was raging by the side of the road. I watched it and saw the obvious metaphor for what was happening to the country at the time and by the time I got home decided I would have to put it into poetry. I’m not a great poet but I have finally done it in about 30 minutes total! Here it is, I make no apologies except that it took so long in gestation. It is angry poetry – I was angry then and I guess I still am. (I am open to suggestions for improvements from those more literally talented than I!)

I watched my country burn last night,
The flames were ecstatic, greedy and bright.
I watched the trees twist and I cried,
They could not run,
They just smouldered, died.

I watched my country burn today,
The flames were hot but seemed far away.
Smoke towered and billowed, drifted black.
The sun grew scared,
The birds turned their backs.

I will watch my country burn tomorrow,
I will see the pain, the hope and sorrow.
The sky will dim, the people afraid.
But who will listen –
Who will answer the pain?

How long will it burn, this fire, this cancer?
Can it burn forever, forever disaster?
Can we put out the flame – divert our fate?
Can someone help us –
Quell the horror and dull the hate?

I have just had a interesting chat with a supplier’s wife who has a contact within the Reserve Bank and due to the nature of her business has other contacts with the RBZ. As usual the talk got onto economics and politics and the topic of the Z$250:US$1 exchange rate came up as being the single most damaging issue in the economy (40% of all exports must be changed with the RBZ at this rate when the black market rate is around 200000:1 and more). She has brought this issue up with the various RBZ officials whom she knows and they have wasted no time distancing themselves from it. The orders come down from On High and no matter how daft, they have to be adhered to – or else. So, until His Nibs moves on the destruction will continue. That’s not to say that a lot of those With Connections don’t have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

Earlier this week I had a letter from the local ZANU-PF (ruling party) branch informing me that there is to be a meeting on Sunday at a local farm and “Everyone in our constituency is required to attend this meeting.  This includes commercial farmers”. My first thought was of course f*&#k you but then I gave it a bit more thought. Maybe this would be a good time to get to “know the enemy”. Then I thought it was not such a good idea as I am a bit provocative and would not be able to resist saying pretty much what was on my mind.  In the end I have been rescued from the dilemma by Debbi who wants me to go and take photos at a gym function which sounds a lot more fun and not quite so boring. I was more than a little irritated by some of the wording “Your provincial leadership would like to address you on a number of issues”. I can guess – we need money, and anyway, “MY leadership”? I don’t think so. Oh, and there was also the issue of providing transport. I showed the letter to all my staff who were less than enthused and suggested that someone at least should go though I cannot force anyone (fear of repercussions should do the rest). I have ignored these summons in the past with little comeback but with the ship leaking badly… Who knows?

Interestingly the paper is photocopied onto the back of a spreadsheet printout detailing fuel usage from bulk tanks. ZANU-PF doing fuel stock controls? Unlikely, but not nearly as ironic as the ZANU-PF logo on the letterhead picturing the tower of the central enclosure at Great Zimbabwe (previously known as Zimbabwe Ruins) under which is the slogan “Unity Peace and Development”. I kid you not.

“The pale blue dot” is a well known book by  the late astronomer Carl Sagan. I have not read it but I did come across this article on the web last night which is a text of part of an address he gave at his own university. I suppose it struck a chord in me (see the second paragraph) because of all the strife we are experiencing now in Zimbabwe. Anyway, here it is.

“We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot… Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity — in all this vastness — there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us… To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known”.

– Excerpted from a commencement address delivered May 11, 1996

This is the actual picture he is talking about – taken by the Voyager spacecraft when it was about 4 billion miles away as it left the solar system. See the Earth as it really is – in the photo there are three rays of sunshine. In the one furthest to the right (the yellowish one), look VERY closely about the mid point. See that TINY white speck? That’s the home planet where ALL of the above, and all that will ever, take place.

I did a bit of shopping today. It’s been a while since I ventured near a supermarket, about 10 days or so, and supplies are running a bit low so I ventured forth to see what could be found, not expecting much. I was not disappointed. The first supermarket was closed, ostensibly due to lack of availability of diesel to run the generator in the absence of supplied power. I wonder. It might have been more to keep away “affirmative shoppers” and avoid selling below the cost price. We are sorry for the inconvenience. Right.

The second supermarket was open and selling. Great if you like butternut squash, onions and very sad tomatoes. The other shelves were full too. Of all the same thing – soda water mainly. In fact at least 4 entire racks were taken up by soft drinks in large bottles. The freezers had lots of pets’ mince but nothing else. No milk, flour, eggs, bread, meat of any type, sugar or mealie meal (the local staple). Well at least I was not spoilt for choice.  Lots of butter though. I wondered to another shopper if we could somehow reverse the process and get milk from the butter. She appreciated that. So I stocked up on the pets’ mince so that at least Jenni will not go hungry for a while. There were lots of cans of baked beans too. I guess Zimbabweans are going to be losing a bit of weight.

I have always associated bread queues with failed economies but curiously I have never actually stood in one. That changed this morning but the bread had run out before I got anywhere near the front. No riots though – yet.

It’s been a crazy week. Exchange rates on the black market have crashed by about 50%, price controls have been implemented by the “Price Police” and other hoods who have marched into retail and wholesale outlets, demanded that prices be reduced by an arbitary amount and distributed goods to their mates and others waiting outside. Rumours have flooded all aspects of the economy – “Prices have to be reduced by half”, “Prices have to go back to the level of June 18th”. Even restaurants have reduced prices. The price police have dictated prices of fresh produce arriving from the farms. And where have all these “guidelines” and “laws” emanated? None other than The Herald, that daily mouthpiece (but it more closely represents a sewer outlet) of the government. How much of this has been gazetted (written into law)? With the exception of the commodities that are already price controlled (bread, milk, maize meal etc.) – none. And has anyone challenged it? No. Fear rules.

My business has not yet had a visitation but I expect we will get one. Sooooo, we have joined the ranks of the spineless and reduced our prices somewhat, just to show we are “patriotic”. How long is this all going to last? Estimates vary from a couple of weeks to the end of the year but I really doubt the latter figure. Already supermarket shelves are empty of produce that is not going to be replenished at less than the cost price.  Already the government is getting belligerent and threatening companies that don’t toe the line and sell whatever they have at the dictated price level with takeover (takeover what exactly?). Bread is scarce, cooking oil non-existent, fuel can only be purchased with hard currency (so it is rumoured), butcheries are closed and empty and those that can afford to have stopped trading. Those who can afford to have been stocking up on the cut-price essentials, fearing the shortages that must surely happen. I have stocked up on dog food for Jenni (I wonder if I can eat it?) and other essentials when I see them. It cannot last of course, they have only tied a tourniquet around the leg – the cause of the bleeding has not been addressed and if the tourniquet is not loosened soon the leg will fall off.

In the wake of the precipitous collapse of the dollar over the past two weeks the government has slapped a price freeze on basic commodities. This has not been gazetted so I don’t know how “official” it all is but we are apparently supposed to revert to prices as they were on the 18^th of June. The government has even formed a squad of “price police” whose duty it will be to enforce the oft ignored price controls. Already the effects can be noticed in the empty shelves in the supermarkets (not replacing stock and not restocking) and other outlets. My usual stop at the bakers this afternoon was not worthwhile; I could see without getting out of the pickup that there was nothing in the shop. Now government has said that they will ease the problem with food and fuel subsidies, and indeed one of the weekend papers reported that the money crash was due in no small way to government agents buying up black market cash with freshly printed Zim dollars! This is apparently going towards buying the fuel to be sold at $15000 a litre instead of the going rate of $150000 a litre. Both of the major weekly papers, The Independent and the Financial Gazette predict that these “control” measures will merely drive the black market further underground and fuel even more spectacular inflation.The most impressive part of the pink paper as the Financial Gazette is known was the 38 page full colour supplement ostensibly put out by the Reserve Bank. Rather grandly entitled “The launch of phase 1 of agricultural equipment acquired under the RBZ farm mechanization programme – celebrating the birth of a mechanization vision and the consolidation of our land reform programme” it is a monument to the breathtaking stupidity of those in charge. While there is a certain amount of repetition of photographs, the range and quantity of equipment displayed is impressive. I must stress that it is not cheap and nasty stuff; it is all top of the line Massey-Fergusson, John Deere and Landini 4×4 tractors and Claas combine harvesters, Gaspardo planters and other assorted equipment. All this whilst Zimbabwe is reeling under 80%+ unemployment, estimated 10000% inflation, highly disruptive power cuts due to lack of money to maintain equipment and a government debt of over 2 trillion dollars (admittedly Zim dollars but that is still a lot of money). That aside, I am really mystified how splurging on highly technical equipment is going to solve our economic crisis. I do wonder just who managed to get their fingers into this particular pie because as sure as the Pope’s a Catholic, it is only going to fail without the technical expertise to get and keep it all running not to mention the finance (I guess the printing presses are running red-hot right now). It is interesting to note that in the same papers the collapse (or rather the non-start) of the much vaunted winter wheat programme is detailed. Of the 80000ha of winter wheat envisaged by the government, just 8000ha have been planted. So where has all the money for the rest of it gone? And why, pray, do we need all those combine harvesters for only 8000ha of wheat?

The Zimbabwe Government has the unenviable reputation of having the world’s largest cabinet. In the centre of the pullout there is a lovely example of just how they have achieved this. Pictured at the top of page 7 is “The Honourable Minister of Agricultural Engineering and Mechanization” – I am not joking, we have such a ministry. In charge of it is one Dr (of what one cannot imagine) Joseph Made, who with a little help trashed the entire Zimbabwean agriculture industry when he was the Minister of Agriculture. That he is not in jail is testament to the corruption that pervades the government of this country.

I have only paged quickly through the rest of the document – I have a limit to my patience. I do find it interesting that they have inserted it into a business orientated newspaper that is only likely to be bought by those with a bit of cash to spare and therefore a reasonable education and so are unlikely to be taken in by the blatant propaganda. Or so I would have thought.