Tears For Zimbabwe

Having been fortunate enough to have lived in Zimbabwe, and even more fortunate to have married a beautiful Zimbabwean, I have more cause than most white British people to follow the fortunes of that amazing southern African country.

All too sadly the fortunes of Zimbabwe have been almost entirely trampled into the ground by the man who has presided over the country for the last 28 years. There was much that was wrong with the regime that Mugabe and his political party, Zanu PF, replaced back in 1980. But economically the country that was Rhodesia and became Zimbabwe was vibrant. One Zimbabwean dollar was worth one British pound and the country was able to feed it's people and export food to other African countries. And various other agricultural based products, most notably tobacco and flowers, also had a plentiful world market.

By the mid-90s you needed 20 Zim dollars to equal the value of one British pound. Fast forward to now and nobody really knows how many dollars make a pound. A loaf of bread alone, if you're lucky enough to be able to buy one, costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. Over 80% of the population don't have a job, life expectancy is pegged around 40, and every associated ill that comes with abject poverty is rife.

In the surreal parallel world of sickness that we currently inhabit, you can however dine on lobster, or any delicacy you fancy, in the five star hotels and restaurants in the capital Harare - providing you have the foreign currency to pay for it.

One man, and one man alone is responsible for the situation that Zimbabwe finds itself in. He blames white people with an all too familiar dogmatic, repetitive rhetoric. No question former colonial rulers have plenty to be ashamed of, but the ruin that is currently Zimbabwe is not of their making. The truth is clear, though.

You could talk for hours about the ills and woes of Robert Gabriel Mugabe and the way he 'rules', and I, and many others, have often in the past with family, friends and fellow Zimbabwe lovers. Suffice to say that I don't believe there are enough chemicals in existence that could be concocted into a drug strong enough to enable the 'president' to rest his weary, weary head at the end of each and every day. The greatest irony is that, aside from the fact he had long had no obvious issue with 'white people', Mugabe has become a caricuture of the worst embodiment of former white colonial rules in Africa.

The people of Zimbabwe have patiently and law abidingly used their electoral right to make it clear to Mugabe that his time is up over the last 3 or 4 elections going back 10 years. Most recently at the election 3 weeks ago that everyone is still waiting for clear results from. The man is not listening: he has made it clear, in words and actions, that as long as he is alive he doesn't intend to go anywhere or change anything.

Meanwhile the most vicious of Mugabe's tactics for maintaining power and control at all costs have long since been unleashed. Again, it is not worth pouring over it: it is all too familiar and predictable. Suffice it to say Mugabe is a man who has publicly stated many times that he has 'degrees in violence' and has no compunction about using them.

Until he dies, I can only see tears for 95% of the people of Zimbabwe and feel deep sadness for them, the countryside and the animals.