ZIMBABWE: 'Africa Still Feeling Effects Of Brutal Colonial Past'

Zimbabwe's President Emerson Mnangagwa

BY FARIRAI MACHIVENYIKA

SOUTH AFRICA (THE HERALD) -- President Emmerson Mnangagwa has emphasized that Africa continues to feel the effects of its brutal colonial history, a legacy that still hinders its progress today. In a speech read on his behalf by Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister Ambassador Frederick Shava at the inaugural Africa Peace and Security Dialogue in Johannesburg, South Africa, the President called for renewed efforts to address the neo-colonial challenges the continent faces.

"As Africans, we remain cognisant of the experiences of the brutal colonial period and bemoan the neo-colonial effects which we continue to endure to this day," said President Mnangagwa. "We were robbed of our human and personal integrity; our vibrant African institutions were compromised or destroyed; our value and knowledge systems were either violently suppressed or deliberately undermined."

The President highlighted that Africa's historical trauma is central to the root causes of many conflicts across the continent. He stressed the importance of an African Renaissance to address these challenges, calling for solutions that reflect Africa's unique circumstances.

In his address at the dialogue, which was hosted by the Thabo Mbeki Foundation, President Mnangagwa also pointed to the array of contemporary security issues Africa is grappling with. These include unconstitutional changes of government, inter- and intra-state conflicts, climate change, the debt crisis, weak global governance, transnational organized crime, resource outflows, and terrorism.

"African governments are often blamed for weak political and economic institutions, yet evidence abounds that Africa has and continues to be deliberately made the theatre of political and military conflicts," he noted. "Proxy wars within the context of East-West rivalry and regime change agendas for easy access to Africa's strategic natural resources have characterized this period."

President Mnangagwa expressed concern over the recent military coups in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) region, with over ten attempts since 2020. He noted that these actions reflect former colonial powers' influence and the growing divide between civilian and military elites.
"The Sahel region has been a bedrock of instability since the fall of Libya in 2011," he said, adding that the jihadist insurgencies and terrorism afflicting the region remain unresolved. "The unconstitutional changes of government in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger were driven by the military's desire to rid themselves of what they saw as Western-controlled governments."

The President explained that these countries formed a confederation in July 2024 as part of their fight against neo-colonialism, signaling a potential split within ECOWAS. The confederation has since turned to Russia for cooperation, severing ties with the West.

On the conflict in Sudan, President Mnangagwa pointed out how external interference from Russia, the USA, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates has exacerbated the situation since the removal of President Omar Al Bashir in 2019. "The East-West rivalry is, once again, at play," he said, lamenting the millions displaced and the ongoing destruction.

The President underscored the importance of forums like the Africa Peace and Security Dialogue in addressing the continent's challenges, linking these discussions to the wider goals of Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want.

President Mnangagwa also reflected on the global context, noting that the 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly had recognized the urgency of addressing evolving global peace and security challenges. "The ongoing conflicts and the carnage we witness every day are an affront to our collective efforts towards a peaceful and secure world."

He commended the Thabo Mbeki Foundation for advancing African-led solutions to these issues, stressing that Africa must take charge of its own destiny. He also criticized the global military-industrial complex for perpetuating conflicts to sustain their business interests. "Unfortunately, wars and warfare are big business internationally," he said. "Our responses to the challenges we confront should be informed by this unfortunate fact."

The three-day event in Johannesburg concluded with participation from political leaders, academics, and experts from across the continent. The dialogue aimed to explore pathways toward sustainable peace and security solutions for Africa.

An Ancient African Tree Is Providing A New ‘Superfood’ But Local Harvesters Are Barely Surviving

The sun sets behind a baobab tree, known as the tree of life in Mudzi, Zimbabwe, Thursday, August 22, 2024, (AP Photo/Aaron Ufumeli)

BY FARAI MUTSAKA

Since childhood, Loveness Bhitoni has collected fruit from the gigantic baobab trees surrounding her homestead in Zimbabwe to add variety to the family’s staple corn and millet diet. The 50-year-old Bhitoni never saw them as a source of cash, until now.

Climate change-induced droughts have decimated her crops. Meanwhile, the world has a growing appetite for the fruit of the drought-resistant baobab as a natural health food.

Bhitoni wakes before dawn to go foraging for baobab fruit, sometimes walking barefoot though hot, thorny landscapes with the risk of wildlife attacks. She gathers sacks of the hard-shelled fruit from the ancient trees and sells them on to industrial food processors or individual buyers from the city.

The baobab trade, which took root in her area in 2018, would previously supplement things like children’s school fees and clothing for locals of the small town of Kotwa in northeastern Zimbabwe. Now, it’s a matter of survival following the latest devastating drought in southern Africa, worsened by the El Niño weather phenomenon.

“We are only able to buy corn and salt,” Bhitoni said after a long day’s harvest. “Cooking oil is a luxury because the money is simply not enough. Sometimes I spend a month without buying a bar of soap. I can’t even talk of school fees or children’s clothes.”

The global market for baobab products has spiked, turning rural African areas with an abundance of the trees into source markets. The trees, known for surviving even under severe conditions like drought or fire, need more than 20 years to start producing fruit and aren’t cultivated but foraged.

Tens of thousands of rural people like Bhitoni have emerged to feed the need. The African Baobab Alliance, with members across the continent’s baobab producing countries, projects that more than 1 million rural African women could reap economic benefits from the fruit, which remains fresh for long periods because of its thick shell.

The alliance’s members train locals on food safety. They also encourage people to collect the fruit, which can grow to 8 inches (20 centimeters) wide and 21 inches (53 centimeters) long, from the ground rather than the hazardous work of climbing the enormous, thick-trunked trees. Many, especially men, still do, however.

Native to the African continent, the baobab is known as the “tree of life” for its resilience and is found from South Africa to Kenya to Sudan and Senegal. Zimbabwe has about 5 million of the trees, according to Zimtrade, a government export agency.

But the baobab’s health benefits long went unnoticed elsewhere.

Gus Le Breton, a pioneer of the industry, remembers the early days.

“Baobab did not develop into a globally traded and known superfood by accident,” said Le Breton, recalling years of regulatory, safety and toxicology testing to convince authorities in the European Union and United States to approve it.

“It was ridiculous because the baobab fruit has been consumed in Africa safely for thousands and thousands of years,” said Le Breton, an ethnobotanist specializing in African plants used for food and medicine.

Studies have shown that the baobab fruit has several health benefits as an antioxidant, and a source of vitamin C and essential minerals such as zinc, potassium and magnesium.

The U.S. legalized the import of baobab powder as a food and beverage ingredient in 2009, a year after the EU. But getting foreign taste buds to accept the sharp, tart-like taste took repeated trips to Western and Asian countries.

“No one had ever heard of it, they didn’t know how to pronounce its name. It took us a long time,” Le Breton said. The tree is pronounced BAY-uh-bab.

Together with China, the U.S. and Europe now account for baobab powder’s biggest markets. The Dutch government’s Center for the Promotion of Imports says the global market could reach $10 billion by 2027. Le Breton says his association projects a 200% growth in global demand between 2025 and 2030, and is also looking at increasing consumption among Africa’s increasingly health-conscious urbanites.

Companies such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi have opened product lines promoting baobab ingredients. In Europe, the powder is hyped by some as having “real star qualities” and is used to flavor beverages, cereals, yogurt, snack bars and other items.

A packet of a kilogram (2.2 pound) of baobab powder sells for around 27 euros (about $30) in Germany. In the United Kingdom, a 100-milliliter (3.38-ounce) bottle of baobab beauty oil can fetch 25 pounds (about $33).

The growing industry is on display at a processing plant in Zimbabwe, where baobab pulp is bagged separately from the seeds. Each bag has a tag tracing it to the harvester who sold it. Outside the factory, the hard shells are turned into biochar, an ash given to farmers for free to make organic compost

Harvesters like Bhitoni say they can only dream of affording the commercial products the fruit becomes. She earns 17 cents for every kilogram of the fruit and she can spend up to eight hours a day walking through the sunbaked savanna. She has exhausted the trees nearby.

“The fruit is in demand, but the trees did not produce much this year, so sometimes I return without filling up a single sack,” Bhitoni said. “I need five sacks to get enough money to buy a 10-kilogram (22-pound) packet of cornmeal.”

Some individual buyers who feed a growing market for the powder in Zimbabwe’s urban areas prey on residents’ drought-induced hunger, offering cornmeal in exchange for seven 20-liter (around 4-gallon) buckets of cracked fruit, she said.

“People have no choice because they have nothing,” said Kingstone Shero, the local councilor. “The buyers are imposing prices on us and we don’t have the capacity to resist because of hunger.”

Le Breton sees better prices ahead as the market expands.

“I think that the market has grown significantly, (but) I don’t think it has grown exponentially. It’s been fairly steady growth,” he said. “I believe at some point that it will increase in value as well. And at that point, then I think that the harvesters will really start to be earning some serious income from the harvesting and sale of this really truly remarkable fruit.”.

Zimtrade, the government export agency, has lamented the low prices paid to baobab pickers and says it’s looking at partnering with rural women to set up processing plants.

The difficult situation is likely to continue due to a lack of negotiating power by fruit pickers, some of them children, said Prosper Chitambara, a development economist based in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.

On a recent day, Bhitoni walked from one baobab tree to the next. She carefully examined each fruit before leaving the smaller ones for wild animals such as baboons and elephants to eat — an age-old tradition.

“It is tough work, but the buyers don’t even understand this when we ask them to increase prices,” she said.

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A Zimbabwe Opposition Figure Seen By Supporters As The Face Of Resistance To Repression Is Convicted

Zimbabwean opposition figure Job Sikhala disembarks from a prison truck upon his arrival at the magistrates court in Harare, Wednesday, January 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

BY FARAI MUTSAKA

HARARE, ZIMBABWE (AP) — A Zimbabwean opposition figure who has spent close to 600 days in pretrial detention was convicted on Wednesday of inciting public violence, while some supporters sobbed at the treatment of a man seen by many as the face of resistance to the government’s alleged repression.

Job Sikhala, an outspoken official with the main opposition Citizens Coalition for Change party and a former member of parliament, was detained in June 2022 following the killing and dismembering of an activist from his party. He was accused of using social media to encourage opposition supporters to violently respond to the death of Moreblessing Ali.

Sikhala denied the charges, arguing that he was simply acting as the family’s lawyer in their quest to find Ali, whose body parts were later discovered in a well.

However, magistrate Tafadzwa Miti said evidence showed that Sikhala and opposition lawmaker Godfrey Sithole were responsible for the violence that followed Ali’s death near the capital, Harare.

Both men face up to 10 years in prison or a fine.





Sikhala has been arrested more than 65 times in the past 20 years and walked free each time before Wednesday’s verdict, his lawyers said. Supporters say his case highlights repression of dissenting voices in the southern African country.

Tension filled the courthouse in Harare. Dozens of people who couldn’t fit into the tiny courtroom packed the corridors and shoved police.

Outside, police in anti-riot gear and wielding batons blocked a group of activists from entering the courtyard to protest Sikhala ‘s continued detention. Some wept after the verdict was passed.

Sikhala seemed unshaken.

“Let them do what they want. I don’t care, don’t worry,” he said, wearing leg irons while walking from the court’s holding cells.

One of Sikhala’s lawyers, Harrison Nkomo, said they have been instructed to appeal Wednesday’s verdict.

The court on Monday will hear mitigation, a routine process in which lawyers plead for leniency before sentencing.

Global and local human rights groups including Amnesty International have protested the treatment of Sikhala, saying his situation underlines continued repression of the opposition and other government critics such as university students and labor unionists.

Last year’s election in Zimbabwe, the second since the coup that ousted the late and long-serving Robert Mugabe, was marked by allegations of violence, arrests, disruption of opposition activities and disputed results.

Current President Emmerson Mnangagwa, a former Mugabe ally who took power after the army-backed coup with promises of democratic reform, denies allegations of clamping down on the opposition. He insists that his government has improved the political environment and human rights situation.

Douglas Coltart, one of Sikhala’s lawyers, accused the government of using the law and the courts to punish outspoken rivals.

”The human rights situation in this country is extremely worrying. And it appears to be deteriorating,” he said outside the court.

Iranian President Welcomed In Zimbabwe With Anti-West Songs On The Last Stop On His African Trip

Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi, center, inspects the guard of honor upon his arrival at the Robert Mugabe Airprt in Harare, Zimbabwe, Thursday, July 13, 2023. Image: Tsvanginrayi Mukwazhi/Associate Press

BY FARAI MUTSAKA

HARARE, ZIMBABWE (AP) — Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi was welcomed in Zimbabwe on Thursday by people singing songs criticizing the West as he made his last stop on a three-nation Africa trip aimed at finding new trade alliances to soften the impact of U.S. sanctions on his nation.

Raisi was greeted at Harare’s international airport by Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa and dozens of supporters waving Zimbabwe and Iran flags and holding placards with Raisi’s image.

Both countries are under U.S. sanctions and Raisi’s trip to Africa, which has already included stops in Kenya and Uganda, highlights Iran’s efforts to counter those heavy economic punishments.

Iran and Zimbabwe already have a joint permanent commission on political and trade relations and officials on Thursday signed 12 new memorandums of understanding, including agreements on agriculture, pharmaceuticals, telecoms, gas, energy and education.

Iran also signed agreements with Kenya and Uganda on Wednesday.

“Our cooperation with Zimbabwe and our cooperation with the African continent, which is a continent full of potential, could help us for mutual advances,” Raisi said in translated comments in Zimbabwe.

Raisi has recently reached out to other nations struggling under U.S. sanctions, including on his first visit to Latin America last month, when he went to Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.

“It is critically important that we, the victims of Western sanctions, are talking to each other,” Mnangagwa said. “The authors of these sanctions would not want us to talk to each other. But because we are both victims it is equally important that we show them that we are united.”

Iran has been subjected to a new bout of sanctions by the United States for allegedly supplying Russia with drones that have been used to devastating effect in the war in Ukraine.

The U.S. and European Union sanctions on Zimbabwe go back 20 years and are largely due to allegations of human rights abuses under former president Robert Mugabe. Some of those EU sanctions are being eased.

Iran and Zimbabwe also share historical ties and Mnangagwa thanked Raisi for Iran’s help in a liberation war in the 1970s that eventually led to the southern African nation breaking free of white minority rule.

“When we went to war, Iran was our friend. I am happy you have come to show solidarity,” Mnangagwa said earlier in brief remarks on the tarmac at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport named after the late Zimbabwean leader Mnangagwa helped oust in a coup in 2017.

At the airport, supporters sang songs criticizing the West as “white masters” intent on interfering in Zimbabwe and Raisi inspected an honor guard by Zimbabwe’s military.

On his visit to Uganda on Wednesday, Raisi sharply criticized Western nations’ support for homosexuality and LGBTQ+ rights, calling it “one of the dirtiest things.” He said Uganda’s recently-passed anti-gay legislation and Western criticism of it was “another area of cooperation for Iran and Uganda.”

Zimbabwe also has anti-gay laws, and homosexuality and same-sex marriages are illegal.

However, Mnangagwa has not attacked homosexuality, unlike his predecessor, the late Mugabe, who described gays as “worse than dogs and pigs.”

The last visit by an Iranian leader to Zimbabwe was in 2010 by then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

Zimbabwe’s Aspiring Female Artists Still ‘Frowned Upon’

Zimbabwean artist and nurse Deodoris Mawanda, right, stands in front of her paintings, in Harare, Wednesday, March 8, 2023. Mawanda is one of 21 female artists whose works have been on show at the southern African country's national gallery since International Women's Day on March 8. The exhibition is titled "We Should All Be Human" and is a homage to women's ambitions and their victories, art curator Fadzai Muchemwa said. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

BY FARAI MUTSAKA

HARARE, ZIMBABWE (AP) — A self-portrait shows Nothando Chiwanga covering her face with a yellow miner’s helmet while money spills over the edge of a traditional African reed basket she holds in her lap.

The artwork, a collage called “Immortal,” challenges age-old gender roles in a strongly patriarchal country like Zimbabwe by juxtaposing a helmet from an overtly male-dominated job with a delicately woven basket commonly used by women at markets.

To art curator Fadzai Muchemwa, the piece speaks directly of a woman’s struggle to break free of those traditional roles.

“To survive as a woman in Zimbabwe … one needs a hard hat,” Muchemwa said as she gazed at the collage, which combines photography and paintwork in an intentionally blurred yet striking image.

Chiwanga’s “Immortal” is one of 21 works by female artists that have been on show at the southern African country’s national gallery since International Women’s Day on March 8. The exhibition titled “We Should All Be Human” is a homage to women’s ambitions and their victories, Muchemwa said.


There are paintings, photographs, textiles, sculptures and ceiling installations. They broach issues like migration, the economy and health, but also far more contentious subjects in Zimbabwe, such as a woman’s reproductive rights. Some of the art seeks to provoke discussions around pregnancy and maternity leave.

“Immortal” calls for change and is an invitation for women to reinvent themselves, visual artist Chiwanga said.

“It’s not often to find women doing such kind of work as mining,” she said. “In Africa, women are mostly looked down upon. People just see the face or body but the work that you do can also represent your identity.”

In her collage, the reed basket, the money, Chiwanga’s satin skirt and her neatly manicured nails are manipulated with blurs of red, yellow, brown and black to showcase the complexities of women’s lives in Zimbabwe, Chiwanga said.

She points out that women make up more than half of the country’s population of 15 million but are still vastly underrepresented in higher education and formal employment.

More girls than boys complete elementary school in Zimbabwe but one in three women were married before they reached 18, according to the United Nations children’s agency. UNICEF cited teenage pregnancy and early marriage as key factors preventing girls completing high school and pursuing careers.

Previously, girls could marry at age 16 in Zimbabwe while boys had to be 18. A Constitutional Court ruling led to law changes last year setting the legal age for marriage and sexual consent for both boys and girls at 18.

The 26-year-old Chiwanga is one of few young women to graduate from Zimbabwe’s National School of Visual Arts and Design. She was one of 30 artists from 25 countries to have works included in the “Notes for Tomorrow” exhibition on the COVID-19 pandemic, which was shown in the United States, Canada, China and Turkey in 2021 and 2022. She also had a show last year in Nigeria.

The “We Should All Be Human” exhibit in Zimbabwe was designed to raise the profile of young female artists and to ecncourage them to keep making art amid persistent societal pressures to get married, have children and change their focus to a life of domestic chores.

“You see a promising student, two or three years down the line they are married and they are done with art,” Muchemwa said. “In our society, married women are not expected to be artists. They are frowned upon, yet their male counterparts are celebrated.”

“We are featured more as subjects and not as creators of art. It is a narrative that we need to change,” she said.

Phineas Magwati, who teaches music and art at Zimbabwe’s Midlands State University, goes further. A woman’s decision to pursue a career in art often causes “conflict” in her family, he said.

That is reflected in Chiwanga’s life: her mother is supportive of her art, but other family members badger her about getting married and finding a “proper job,” she said.

Much of her art is conceived in a rusty brown caravan in the expansive yard of her family home in the suburbs of the capital, Harare.

Sitting on a rugged old wooden bed, Chiwanga works on her latest piece, covering her face with a transparent white veil and moving a camera back and forth to catch the right angles of herself. The photographs are then set on matte paper and worked with color.

“I have faced a lot of challenges because as a woman you have to be married when you turn into your 20s,” she said. “Even growing up you will be told a woman must aspire for marriage, you must not aspire to be great.”

“But as an artist I have told myself that I really want to achieve, I need to be big. You mustn’t force a woman to be in marriage before she can perfect herself,” she said.

___

More AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

Zimbabwe’s Imposing New Chinese-Funded Parliament Opens

The entrance to the new Parliament building where Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa delivered his State of the Nation Address in Mt Hampden, about 18 kilometres west of the capital Harare, Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2022. Mnangagwa hailed "excellent" relations with China as he, for the first time, delivered a State of the Nation Address at a new multi-million dollar Parliament building funded as a donation by the Asian giant.(AP Photo)

BY FARAI MUTSAKA

HARARE, ZIMBABWE (AP) — Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa hailed “excellent” relations with China as he delivered for the first time a State of the Nation address at a new multimillion-dollar parliament building gifted by the Asian economic giant.

China funded and constructed the imposing and spacious $200 million, six-story parliament building in Mt. Hampden, about 18 kilometers (11 miles) west of the capital, Harare, as a “gift” — signifying its growing influence on the former British colony.

The address, which also served to officially open the last session of the current parliament before elections next year, marks the move from the colonial-era Victorian-style parliament building in central Harare. Zimbabwe says it plans to establish a new “smart” capital city in Mt. Hampden where government offices will be located, away from the congested Harare.

In his speech, Mnangagwa described the mountaintop chamber that sits on 3.3 hectares (8 acres) of land as “majestic.” He said the building is a “testimony of the strategic and comprehensive partnership and excellent fraternal relations” between Zimbabwe and China. The government says Wednesday’s event did not mark the official opening or handover of the building, which would be done on a yet-to-be-announced date.

The countries’ links date back to the 1960s, when China helped train and supply guerrilla fighters in the fight against white minority rule. The country, however, retained close relations with Britain and other Western countries after independence in 1980.

Since 2003, Zimbabwe has looked to China, and also Russia, for friendship and assistance after falling out with Western countries that imposed sanctions following allegations of human rights abuses and vote-rigging perpetrated by then-President Robert Mugabe, who lost power in 2017 and died in 2019.

China is also massively involved in building and financing big-budget infrastructure projects in Zimbabwe that include revamping major airports. A Chinese company built the National Defense College in Harare, which opened in 2014 and was financed with an interest-free $98 million loan from China. Further Chinese involvement spans almost every sector of the Zimbabwean economy — from energy to mining and agriculture

However, unlike his predecessor Mugabe, Mnangagwa has sought to thaw icy relations with the West through an engagement drive that includes applying to rejoin the Commonwealth, a club of mainly former British colonies that Mugabe left in 2003.

Calling Zimbabwe a “friend to all and an enemy to none,” Mnangagwa called for “unconditional” and “urgent” lifting of Western-imposed sanctions and welcomed an invitation to attend the U.S.-Africa Summit next month. The U.S previously did not invite Zimbabwe to the summit during Mugabe’s time.

Zimbabwe Government Harasses Opposition With Arrests, Jail

Leader of the opposition CCC party Nelson Chamisa addresses supporters at the party's launch rally in Harare, Zimbabwe, Sunday, Feb 20, 2022. Chamisa has attracted considerable attention and followers. In response, police in Harare and other cities have been banning the party's meetings, as well as gatherings of civic organizations and church groups perceived as critical of the government. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi) (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

BY FARAI MUTSAKA

HARARE, ZIMBABWE (AP) — Opposition politicians languishing in prison. Journalists and government critics harassed and arrested. Public meetings banned.

Zimbabwe’s general election is several months away but many opposition figures say they are already battling intense government repression similar to the iron-fisted rule of Robert Mugabe, the former president who died in 2019.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government is responding with force to opposition to his rule, stoked by worsening economic conditions including inflation at more than 250% and the emergence of a popular new party.

Among those suffering from the government’s dragnet is opposition member of parliament Job Sikhala, who has been detained in the harsh Chikurubi prison near the capital, Harare, for close to three months on accusations of inciting violence.

The fiery 50-year-old Sikhala has been arrested more than 65 times in his two-decade political career but has never been convicted of any crime, say his lawyers.

Most recently Sikhala was arrested in June with more than two dozen other activists of the opposition Citizens Coalition for Change, known as the CCC, and accused of fanning violence after skirmishes with ruling party supporters. Repeated attempts to get bail for him and the others have failed.

“The reason they have not been given bail is because they (prosecutors) know they will not get convicted. The idea is to make them serve,” said lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa.

“They know they don’t have the evidence to prove the cases,” said Mtetwa, saying the government’s legal tactics are “lawfare” to weaken political opponents.

Criticism of Mnangagwa’s government has been stoked by Zimbabwe’s inflation, currently estimated to be one of the world’s highest and rising numbers of people pushed into informal trade such as street vending. More than two-thirds of Zimbabweans eke out a living in the informal sector, one of the highest rates in the world, according to the IMF.

Few of Zimbabwe’s poor believe the recent introduction of gold coins as legal tender will improve their day-to-day hardships.

The CCC party, launched in January and led by Nelson Chamisa, 44, has attracted considerable attention and followers. In response, police in Harare and other cities have been banning the party’s meetings, as well as gatherings of civic organizations and church groups perceived as government critics.

Dozens of people — including opposition supporters, political activists, journalists, church leaders, trade union members and student leaders — have been arrested and appear in court on various charges that legal experts say are harassment.

Mnangagwa’s strategy to stay in power appears to be to use the police, military, and security forces to keep the opposition in turmoil until elections are held next year, say analysts.

“The current environment has worrying indicators of the possibility of yet another violent and contested electoral period,” noted the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum in a statement in August.

Zimbabwe is facing “a breakdown in the rule of law and constitutionalism; overt militarization of government, security sector brutality, political polarization, exclusion and violence, shrinking civic space and widespread human rights violations,” said the group.

In recent weeks Mnangagwa has called for peace while at the same time lambasting the opposition and accusing it of being sponsored by Western powers.

It’s similar to the ways of Mugabe, who in his 37 years in power used harsh repression against all opposition. Although Mugabe was forced to resign in 2017, the same party remains in power.

ZANU-PF fought a bitter and bloody war throughout the 1970s, with backing from China, against the white-minority regime of Rhodesia. The guerilla movement won elections in 1980 and has ruled the country ever since, with a strong distrust of the West and multiparty politics.

“The complexities of Zimbabwe politics remain one where there was never a genuine transformation of the liberation movement of ZANU-PF into a political party suiting democratic dictates of the 21st century,” said Alexander Rusero, a Harare-based academic and political commentator.

“Liberation politics is informed by skepticism and binary characterization of citizens as either friends or enemies,” he said. “ZANU-PF continues to classify opposition parties and civil society activists as stooges of the West. It will continue to use its power to crush them, just like what happened during Mugabe’s time.”

Why South Africa Is Closing Its Doors To Migrants It Once Welcomed

NEW ZIMBABWE

Downtown Johannesburg, South Africa. Image: Kim Davis

When Petunia Sibanda came to South Africa from Zimbabwe in 2003, she arrived the way most people she knew did in those days – late at night, crossing over a dry patch of the Limpopo River that slices the two countries from each other, pretending not to see the crocodiles in the distance.

For several years, she lived her life in South Africa on the margins, constantly afraid her lack of legal status would be found out and she would be sent back home to a country where the economy was in free fall.

Then Ms. Sibanda found a lifeline. In 2011, she heard about a special visa for Zimbabweans, which would allow them to live and work in South Africa legally.

“I could live freely for the first time,” she says.

But the reprieve was always temporary. Last November, the South African government confirmed that it would no longer renew the 178,000 so-called Zimbabwe Exemption Permits it had issued. All ZEP holders, including Ms. Sibanda, had until the end of 2022 to get a different visa, or leave the country permanently.

Ms. Sibanda and tens of thousands of others in her position now face an existential question. Do they stay in the country where they have made their lives for the last decade, starting families and businesses, and become undocumented? Or do they return to the country they fled all those years ago, where conditions are perhaps even worse than a decade ago? How South Africa handles the issue in the coming months will set the tone in a region that, like elsewhere in the world, is grappling with growing xenophobia amid shrinking resources.

“We love our country, but we have nothing to go back to,” says Ms. Sibanda, whose four children were all born in South Africa.

Political points

Immigration has long been a hot-button political issue in South Africa. The country’s relative wealth, developed industries, and expansive legal rights for foreigners – at least on paper – have made it a popular destination for migrants from across Africa since the end of apartheid.

Today, it hosts more migrants than any other country in Africa. Simultaneously, though, amid high poverty and unemployment, anti-immigrant sentiment is often used by political leaders to rally working-class voters, and xenophobic violence flares regularly.

In practical terms, ZEP holders are a tiny fraction of South Africa’s migrant population, which is estimated between 3 million and 4 million people. But their case has taken on an outsize symbolic significance here, becoming a lightning rod in a wider debate about the role of migrants in the country.

When the government announced it would no longer renew ZEPs, the move was held up by political leaders as proof that they were doing something about South Africa’s rising unemployment and overstrained public services in the shadow of two years of a global pandemic. It came as an anti-immigrant vigilante movement called Operation Dudula – Zulu for “to beat back” – has organized sometimes-violent mass rallies around the country to intimidate immigrants.

For many Zimbabweans, making a new life in South Africa has been a halting, fraught process. Waves of xenophobic violence have swept the country several times in the past decade, targeting working-class foreigners and their businesses. Most recently, in 2021, many foreign-owned businesses were looted during widespread riots triggered by the arrest of former President Jacob Zuma on corruption charges, an issue entirely unrelated to immigration.

Terminating the ZEP “is an easy way to score points with voters,” says Loren Landau, a senior researcher at the African Centre for Migration and Society at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. “It’s a populist move.”

Ironically, the ZEP has its origins in neighborly solidarity. When an economic crisis ricocheted across Zimbabwe in the early 2000s and its agricultural economy collapsed, the government there began furiously printing more money. By November 2008, inflation hit 79.6 billion percent, and political repression from the party of President Robert Mugabe, which had ruled the country since 1980, was deepening. The result was a mass exodus. Most of those migrants ended up in South Africa.

In response, the South African government created a permit called the Dispensation of Zimbabweans Project (DZP), which it called a “gesture of support and solidarity” with Zimbabwe – and which also relieved pressure on its own systems. South Africa’s government continued to replace the permit with similar visas until November 2021, noting that Zimbabwe remained in crisis and that Zimbabweans “have made notable contributions” to South African society.

“South Africa is my home”

Farai Mukucha was one of the Zimbabweans who arrived during the more fortunate days. He left Zimbabwe in 2007, and during his first years in the country scraped together a series of informal jobs. In 2010, he applied for the DZP, which allowed him to work formally for the first time as an electrician. He now runs his own business, and two of his three children were born in South Africa.

“To be honest with you, if I go to Zimbabwe now, I’ll be like a foreigner there,” he says. “Yes, it’s my home country, but South Africa is my home.”

Very few ZEP holders are eligible for other types of visas, says Luke Dzviti, chair of the Zimbabwe Immigration Federation, an organization formed earlier this year in order to bring a legal challenge against the government’s decision. As in countries like the United States, migrants in South Africa must prove they are critically skilled in certain professions, or that their employer could not find a South African who could do the job for which they are being hired.

The government insists the rules are necessary to protect jobs for South Africans, given that the country’s formal unemployment rate hovers around 34%. It has also argued that it needs to regulate scarce resources within the Home Affairs Department – which also issues IDs, passports, and other documents – for citizens. But a 2021 study for the Department of Employment and Labour found migrants’ presence in the country had little effect on major issues in the labor market like unemployment and low wages.

Crises around unemployment and public spending aren’t closely linked to migration, adds Mr. Landau of the African Centre for Migration and Society. Instead, they’re easy ways to drum up political support ahead of a 2024 national election that is widely expected to be the biggest challenge to the African National Congress, which has been in power since democracy in 1994.

Mr. Dzviti’s court challenge is one of three currently in motion challenging the legality of ending the ZEP.

“When government makes a decision with such consequences for the lives of so many people, the decision must be taken fairly, and we’ve argued that this one was not,” says Nicole Fritz, executive director of the Helen Suzman Foundation, which brought another of the court challenges. The foundation argues, among other things, that the government didn’t properly consult with those who would be affected by the change – a legal argument that has been used with success in other recent cases.

In response, South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs issued a statement calling the choice to challenge the government’s decision in courts “disturbing” and “sabotage” of South African democracy.

“The decision of the Minister not to extend the exemptions granted to Zimbabwean nationals has been widely supported by South African citizens,” wrote Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi.

The three court cases will be heard together in October. Meanwhile, ZEP holders like Ms. Sibanda are in limbo.

“We are being thrown into the dark,” she says. “We don’t know what future is on the other side.”

Zimbabwe-Born Author Recounts Eventful Journey In A Van From Europe Back To Africa

When you take the courageous decision to drive thousands of kilometres from Europe and then through Africa, there is much adventure to be expected.

And while most travellers often set their sights on understanding the laws, culture and a good enough grip of the languages spoken in the countries they are travelling to, sometimes the biggest nightmare is sandy, muddied and potholed roads that are nearly impossible to prepare for.

Other times, the best thing to pack is the courage to put up a stubborn argument with border security when trouble looms.

These are just some lessons learnt by Zimbabwe-born author Dot Bekker, who bravely walked out of an unhappy marriage of 22 years, bought a van and travelled from Europe back to the land of her birth.


Bekker narrates her journey in her self-published book, Going Home To Africa.

Among other reasons, Bekker hopes the book answers a question she was commonly asked by those who had heard of her eventful journey — how she managed to drive herself through West Africa.

During her book signing at Fogarty’s book shop in Walmer on Friday, Bekker said the simplest and best answer to the question was that “Africa is full of warmth and good people”.

Born and raised in Bulawayo, Bekker relocated to SA in her early 20s and later to several European countries.

“It’s been a grand adventure altogether but what I did discover after 21 years in Europe was that I didn’t belong there.

“I may be Caucasian but I was certainly not European. Europe is a really hard place to live in,” Bekker said.

“I was unhappily married for 22 years and it just kept getting worse.

“At the age 58, I said ‘I’m coming up to 60 and I don’t want to be unhappy for another 5, 10, or 20 years’. So I left,” she said.

Bekker bought herself a 1994 Ford Transit which she not only travelled in but also lived in and continues to live in today.

She named the vehicle Blue-Bell.

Over 8½ months, the author travelled 20,000km through 18 West African countries to get home.

Her eventful tour included celebrating her 60th birthday in Morocco, where she was stuck in the sand for the first time in her journey, and again in Mauritania before travelling through other African countries she had never been to.

With humour and wit, Bekker details event in one of her stories in the book.

In the early stages of her journey, Bekker had dealt with several corrupt border officials, had half a tank of petrol poured into her diesel-powered vehicle, burned her leg and needed medical attention.

“People ask me how I managed to get this many stories. Trust me, every day there was a story,” she said.

Along with its lowlights, the journey had equally memorable highlights.

“I spent some time in Gambia and, one of my highlights, there was an old wooden dugout in the mangroves just off the side of the Gambia River …

“It was incredibly beautiful; the birdlife and the beautiful still water was sublime,” she said.

“Before I got to Ivory Coas,t I decided to go and see chimpanzees in the wild, which was another huge highlight for me,” she said.

The author said she also enjoyed a wonderful stay in Angola though she, at one point, found herself staging a solo protest against a truck driver on a one-lane bridge at the border.

Bekker arrived in Zimbabwe in August 2019 and her present focus is on giving high school girls access to education.

“Before I left Europe, I started a foundation called Kusasa Africa because I believed that our girls are our tomorrow, throughout the whole of Africa.

“If we don’t get gender equality, we will change nothing in Africa and we can’t get gender equality if we don’t educate girls.

“My focus is getting girls into high school and I’m working with some people to impart life skills,” she said.

Proceeds from her book go towards the education initiative.

----------------SOUTH AFRICAN HERALD

COVID Inequity: In Africa, At-Home Tests Are Scarce, Costly

A man is tested for Covid-19 at a private health centre in Harare, Zimbabwe, Thursday, Feb, 3, 2022. African nations have very limited access to COVID-19 tests, especially at-home tests. In the absence of vaccines, that discrepancy has denied millions of poor people an easy way to stem the spread of the coronavirus, health officials say. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

BY MARIA CHENG AND FARAI MUTSAKA

HARARE, ZIMBABWE (AP) — After learning that a friend tested positive for COVID-19, Thembi Ndlovu went to a health clinic in Zimbabwe’s capital in search of a free coronavirus test. But there were none left that day, leaving the 34-year-old hairdresser unsure if she needed to take precautions to protect clients.

“I wish we could just walk into a pharmacy and buy a cheap self-testing kit like we do with pregnancy or HIV,” she said as she left the clinic in a working-class township of Harare. “It would be much easier.”

For millions of people in rich countries, COVID-19 self-tests are abundant and free, including in Britain, Canada, France and Germany. But most people across Africa have limited access to them.

Zimbabwe introduced free walk-in testing centers in November 2020, but supplies are tight and the country still has no national program to distribute at-home tests.

Although self-tests are available in some Zimbabwean pharmacies, they cost up to $15 each, a fortune in a country where more than 70% of the population lives in extreme poverty made worse by the pandemic. The situation is similar elsewhere across the continent — and in parts of Asia and Latin America — with few, if any, opportunities for people to easily test themselves.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to making inexpensive, self-tests widely available in the developing world is that the World Health Organization has yet to issue guidance on their use. Without the resources of wealthy countries to buy tests or evaluate their safety, poor countries must wait for WHO approval before aid groups and international agencies are willing to donate them in large numbers.

“Donors cannot deploy the tests until WHO say it’s OK to deploy, and countries themselves don’t want to use the tests until they get that guidance,” said Brook Baker, a professor at Northeastern University who advises the WHO and others on equitable access to COVID-19 medicines and tests.

Some health officials say the discrepancy between rich and poor countries is discriminatory and has denied poor countries a chance to stem the spread of the coronavirus in the absence of vaccines. And unlike the massive global effort to share vaccines, little has been done to roll out more tests of any kind across much of Africa.

The omicron surge appears to have peaked across Africa, as it has in other parts of the world. In the last week, the WHO says Africa recorded at least 125,000 COVID cases and 1,600 deaths, although that is likely an undercount due to the lack of testing.

Baker and other experts have estimated the self-testing kits might not be widely available in the developing world until sometime next year.

In a statement, WHO said that setting guidelines is a “rigorous process that takes time” and that it expects to finalize advice for the use of COVID-19 self-tests in March. The agency said it has supplied more than 31 million rapid tests to health professionals in developing countries.

In an open letter to WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, more than 100 organizations last week called on the U.N. agency to speed its release of the self-testing guidelines, saying that 85% of infections are likely going unnoticed in Africa.

“We cannot tolerate a situation in which access to widespread testing, along with linkage to care and treatment, becomes the norm in the populations of wealthier countries while diagnostic access ... is missing in (poor) countries,” wrote the authors, whose signatories included Amnesty International and Oxfam. They called it “part of the same ‘medical apartheid’ that has plagued the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines.”

Groups that work closely with WHO say there is enough evidence that the self-tests help slow transmission based on rich countries’ experience and that the guidelines should have been issued long ago.

“There’s no reason to think that people swabbing their noses in the U.K. are going to do it any differently than people in Malawi,” said Bill Rodriguez, CEO of FIND, a Geneva-based global alliance for diagnostics.

With the extra-contagious omicron variant driving global transmission, Rodriguez and others say the rapid self-tests are sorely needed everywhere.

“Without high levels of vaccination in developing countries, we need to give people every tool possible to reduce their risk,” Rodriguez said.

John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said people would be more empowered to take action if at-home tests were available.

“We have learned from HIV that self-testing is so critical because when people know their status, they do the right thing,” he said.

Others pointed out that with generic versions of COVID-19 pills made by Merck and Pfizer on the way — after the companies agreed to let dozens of manufacturers make versions for poor countries — the tests will be even more crucial in the coming months.

“It seems kind of puzzling that we could have the treatments before we have the testing that tells us which people should get the treatments,” said Northeastern’s Baker.

Dr. Mamunur Rahman Malik, WHO’s representative in Somalia, said a pilot study in that country found that health workers using the tests led to a 40% increase of cases being detected.

“Without these tests, we do not have a full picture of how the epidemic is evolving,” Malik said, adding that the project showed the tests’ use are also possible in difficult, conflict-ridden environments like Somalia.

Rodriguez said WHO self-testing guidelines are also needed so authorities can address other potential issues, including ramping up the production of inexpensive testing kits. Some of the same problems that complicated COVID-19 vaccine production exist for test manufacturing, namely a shortage of raw materials and competent producers, but they are not as acute, he said.

He said that inexpensive self-tests were being made in countries such as Brazil, India, Morocco, Senegal and South Africa.

Still, even wealthy countries have struggled to maintain adequate supplies of the at-home tests, with demand far outpacing supply at times in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere.

Back in Harare, public health specialist Dr. Johannes Marisa despaired that people were not keen to get tested unless they were sick or needed a negative result to work, compromising efforts to stop the pandemic.

“It becomes deadly because many people only present themselves at health facilities when they become seriously sick and sometimes it’s too late to save them,” he said. Marisa said more education was needed to convince people to get tested earlier.

Ndlovu, the hairdresser, was told to return to the clinic in two days to get tested. She had several clients wanting to get their hair braided and wanted to avoid putting them at risk, but could not afford the private tests elsewhere that might cost up to $60.

“Monday is far (away),” she said. “I am too anxious.”

___

Cheng reported from Toronto. Mogomotsi Magome in Johannesburg contributed to this report.

___

Follow AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic

COVID-19 Spike Worsens Africa’s Severe Poverty, Hunger Woes

Elderly people, many without face masks or not fitted properly, stand in tightly packed lines waiting to withdraw their pensions in Harare, Zimbabwe in Monday, Dec. 13, 2021. In Zimbabwe and other African nations, the virus's resurgence is threatening the very survival of millions of people who have already been driven to the edge by a pandemic that has devastated their economies. When putting food on the table is not a given, worries about whether to gather with family members for the holiday or heed public announcements urging COVID-19 precautions take a back seat. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

BY FARAI MUTSAKA

HARARE, ZIMBABWE (AP) — Outside a foreign currency exchange in Zimbabwe’s capital, hordes of people desperate for U.S. dollars are pushed up against each other.

“That’s it, keep it tight,” some shout, trying to prevent others from jumping the line to buy the money that could get them a discount on goods pegged to a quickly devaluing local currency.

Nearly two years into a global pandemic, a new spike in coronavirus cases driven by the omicron variant is once again shuttering businesses, halting travel, reviving fears of overwhelmed hospitals and upending travel and holiday plans in countries around the world.

But in Zimbabwe and other African nations, the virus’s resurgence is threatening the very survival of millions of people who have already been driven to the edge by a pandemic that has devastated their economies. When putting food on the table is not a given, worries about whether to gather with family members for the holiday or heed public announcements urging COVID-19 precautions take a back seat.

“Yes, I have heard of the new variant, but it can never be worse than having nothing to eat at home right now,” says furniture store clerk Joshua Nyoni, one of the dozens waiting outside the exchange. Like many others in the chaotic crowd, Nyoni alternately wears his face mask below his chin or puts it in his pocket.

The United Nations Economic Commission on Africa, or ECA, noted in March that about 9 in 10 of the world’s extremely poor people live in Africa. The ECA now warns that the economic effects already felt since the pandemic began in 2020 “will push an additional 5 to 29 million below the extreme poverty line.”

“If the impact of the pandemic is not limited by 2021, an additional 59 million people could suffer the same fate, which would bring the total number of extremely poor Africans to 514 million people,” the agency says.

The World Bank estimates the economy went from 2.4% growth in 2019 to a 3.3% contraction in 2020, plunging Africa into its first recession in 25 years.

“The economic disruption wrought by COVID-19 has pushed hunger crises off a cliff,” Sean Granville-Ross, Africa regional director for the nonprofit charitable organization Mercy Corps, told The Associated Press.

Granville-Ross says his organization in 2021 saw “an alarming spike in need” in regions such as the Sahel, West Africa, East Africa and southern Africa where some countries were already experiencing humanitarian crises and conflict before COVID-19.

Worry is now intensifying amid a spike in COVID infections in Africa, which currently accounts for about 9 million of the world’s roughly 275 million cases.

The World Health Organization has for months described Africa as “one of the least affected regions in the world” in its weekly pandemic reports. But in mid-December it said the number of new cases was “currently doubling every five days, the fastest rate this year” as the delta and omicron variants push up infections. Both South Africa and Zimbabwe have been reporting reduced numbers over the past week, but authorities remain cautious.

Renewed travel restrictions and possible lockdowns “will only push millions more people to poverty and undermine the slight economic recovery we have started to see,” Granville-Ross says.

Compared to the continent as a whole, where just over 7% of the population has received two shots of the coronavirus vaccine, Zimbabwe is regarded as a success story — even though only about 20% of its 15 million people have been fully vaccinated.

Amid lingering hesitancy, the government has threatened to widen vaccine mandates. But for many people, virus infection fears have taken a back seat to the more urgent task of finding enough money to feed their families.

Dozens of residents desperate for access to money in an economy where cash, especially the U.S. dollar, is king, sleep outside both foreign currency exchanges and banks, huddled closely together for days. Elderly people, many without face masks or not properly wearing them, stand in tightly packed lines that snake for kilometers, waiting to withdraw their pensions.

“I would rather spend my time here than queue for the vaccine,” says Nyoni, outside the crowded foreign currency exchange.

“If I catch the virus, they may quarantine me, treat me or even feed me if I am hospitalized,” he says. “But hunger is different: You can’t be put in quarantine because the family has nothing to eat. People just watch you die.”

The United Nations Economic Commission on Africa, or ECA, noted in March that about 9 in 10 of the world’s extremely poor people live in Africa. The ECA now warns that the economic effects already felt since the pandemic began in 2020 “will push an additional 5 to 29 million below the extreme poverty line.”

“If the impact of the pandemic is not limited by 2021, an additional 59 million people could suffer the same fate, which would bring the total number of extremely poor Africans to 514 million people,” the agency says.

The World Bank estimates the economy went from 2.4% growth in 2019 to a 3.3% contraction in 2020, plunging Africa into its first recession in 25 years.

“The economic disruption wrought by COVID-19 has pushed hunger crises off a cliff,” Sean Granville-Ross, Africa regional director for the nonprofit charitable organization Mercy Corps, told The Associated Press.

Granville-Ross says his organization in 2021 saw “an alarming spike in need” in regions such as the Sahel, West Africa, East Africa and southern Africa where some countries were already experiencing humanitarian crises and conflict before COVID-19.

Worry is now intensifying amid a spike in COVID infections in Africa, which currently accounts for about 9 million of the world’s roughly 275 million cases.

The World Health Organization has for months described Africa as “one of the least affected regions in the world” in its weekly pandemic reports. But in mid-December it said the number of new cases was “currently doubling every five days, the fastest rate this year” as the delta and omicron variants push up infections. Both South Africa and Zimbabwe have been reporting reduced numbers over the past week, but authorities remain cautious.

Renewed travel restrictions and possible lockdowns “will only push millions more people to poverty and undermine the slight economic recovery we have started to see,” Granville-Ross says.

Compared to the continent as a whole, where just over 7% of the population has received two shots of the coronavirus vaccine, Zimbabwe is regarded as a success story — even though only about 20% of its 15 million people have been fully vaccinated.

Amid lingering hesitancy, the government has threatened to widen vaccine mandates. But for many people, virus infection fears have taken a back seat to the more urgent task of finding enough money to feed their families.

Dozens of residents desperate for access to money in an economy where cash, especially the U.S. dollar, is king, sleep outside both foreign currency exchanges and banks, huddled closely together for days. Elderly people, many without face masks or not properly wearing them, stand in tightly packed lines that snake for kilometers, waiting to withdraw their pensions.

“I would rather spend my time here than queue for the vaccine,” says Nyoni, outside the crowded foreign currency exchange.

“If I catch the virus, they may quarantine me, treat me or even feed me if I am hospitalized,” he says. “But hunger is different: You can’t be put in quarantine because the family has nothing to eat. People just watch you die.”

Becoming A Mongrel Of ‘Englishes’

Phillip Chidavaenzi. Image: Facebook

BY PHILLIP CHIDAVAENZI

I have observed that a lot of upcoming authors writing in English have a tendency of mixing up American and British English. Though not a cardinal sin, it tends to demean the value of the book in certain professional circles and on the international market.

In fact, it appears as if a lot of these young authors do not even know the differences between these two most dominant “Englishes”. These differences often manifest in orthographies, or the spelling system of a language. For instance, the Americans use “realize”, “color” and “center” where the British would use “realise”, “colour” and “centre”, respectively.

These differences emerged between the 1750s and early 1800s when Samuel Johnson published A Dictionary of the English Language in 1755, while an American standardised orthography was birthed following Noah Webster’s release of An American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828.

The publications extensively helped in defining and distinguishing the two English varieties. Traditionally, the standard English in Zimbabwe and the Commonwealth (a club of former British colonies) is British English.

But if one prefers to use American English, it is not a “crime”, either. It only becomes a crime when the author is not consistent in their use of that particular English variety. Consistency is important.

Although this may all sound somewhat strange, one might be interested to know that such variety manifests even in Shona. For example, in the Manyika dialect, the letter “w” is often used in place of “v” in the Zezuru dialect.

Internationally acclaimed Nigerian author, Adichie Chimamanda Ngozie, described herself as “a mongrel of ‘Englishes’” in a conversation titled Literature, Power & the Academy: A Conversation with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, with professors at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, Elisabeth Dutton and Alexandre Duchene on November 15, 2019.

Adichie is the author of Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, The Thing Around Your Neck, Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists. She is also popularly known for her TEDTalk presentation, The Danger of a Single Story.

“But I do feel that I’ve become a kind of mongrel of Englishes. I’d like to think that my work reflects the kind of English I’m familiar with, which is a certain kind of Nigerian English . . . An English deeply flavoured with Igbo, the other language I speak,” she said.

Adichie then explained about Pidgin English, another bastardised version of English, which one frequently encounters in Nigerian movies. This is a rather informal version of English spoken among the lower social classes in Nigeria. She described this as “. . . the multipleness of English in my world.”

When Americans speak or write, one notices their English is not exactly like that used by the British, or maybe Australians, South Africans and Zimbabweans.

There was a time when I thought my English had to be faultlessly British every time I write. I remember that this drive for perfection was born out of rejection. This was after an evaluator at Mambo Press had rejected my first ever manuscript around 2001/2002 on the basis that there was too much use of what she called Colloquial English in my writing.
Colloquialism is a word or phrase that is not formal or literary, and is used in ordinary or familiar conversation.

But over the years, I have been increasingly fascinated by the disruptive innovations that have crept into the study of language and literature. This is why it is exciting to have a new crop of young writers like Roderick Mazoyo, author of Hupenyu Hauna Formula and Audrey Chirenje, who recently published Life Will Humble You. Chirenje, in particular, uses the largely informal English you may call slang, spoken among a younger generation of Zimbabweans, to tell her story.

Linguists, however, argue that colloquialism is not necessarily slang (words used by specific social groups such as teenagers or soldiers), but may include slang while consisting mainly of contractions or other informal words and phrases known to most native speakers of the language.

In 2016, veteran author Spiwe Mahachi-Harper published a collection of short stories titled Tales from the Kombi: The Shattered Pattern of Life. Originally considered slang, “kombi” (commuter omnibus), is now being used in formal writing, and has become part of Zimbabwean English. The same applies to words such as “robot” (traffic lights), “durawall” (precast wall) and “small house” (mistress), which have all found their way into official writing.

During a recent chat with University of Zimbabwe lecturer and literary critic, Tanaka Chidora, about this very subject, he revealed he was working on a thesis titled When Ancestors Speak in English: Chenjerai Hove’s Groundbreaking Shonalised English Novel.

A Noma Award for Publishing in Africa winner, the late Hove left behind a rich literary portfolio which included Bones (1988) and Ancestors (1994). Chidora describes the latter as “a ground-breaking project with an Achebean tinge to it because it was the first full throttle attempt by a Zimbabwean author to, so to speak, make ancestors converse in English”. He further argues that by so doing, Hove joined “the side of Chinua Achebe, who argued that English can be made to carry the weight of his African experience”.

But perhaps what is more catchy is Chidora’s proposition that Ancestors “is also an archive of what I can call Zimbabwean English, in terms of the use of Shona idioms and speech rhythms”.

This is powerful, and so very liberating, especially the acknowledgment that Hove’s “process of “Shonalising” manifests in the new generation of globetrotting Zimbabwean writers who seem to be creating a ‘home’ away from home by importing various idiomatic forms of Zimbabwean languages into their writings”. Among these globetrotters are Petina Gappah, Brian Chikwava and Panashe Chigumadze.

SOURCE: NEWSDAY ZIMBABWE

Billionaire's Cash Helps Zimbabwe's Doctors Back From Strike

In this Thursday Sept, 19, 2019 file photo, Zimbabwean medical staff march on the streets of Harare. A billionaire has offered to pay striking doctors in Zimbabwe to help end a months-long protest over grave hospital conditions as the economy crumbles, and a doctors' group on Thursday Jan. 23, 2020, said it was encouraging members to embrace the money and return to work. But Dr. Masimba Ndoro, vice president of the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association, warned that “nothing much has changed” in the conditions at public hospitals that include the lack of basic items such as bandages and gloves. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi, File)

BY FARAI MUTSAKA

HARARE, ZIMBABWE (AP) — A billionaire has offered to pay striking doctors in Zimbabwe to help end a months-long protest over grave hospital conditions as the economy crumbles, and a doctors’ group on Thursday said it was encouraging members to embrace the money and return to work.

But Dr. Masimba Ndoro, vice president of the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association, warned that “nothing much has changed” in the conditions at public hospitals that include the lack of basic items such as bandages and gloves.

Relatives of patients are still expected to buy such items and, in some instances, bring buckets of water as Zimbabwe’s once-envied health care system reflects the southern African nation’s general collapse.

“It breaks a doctor’s heart to ask a patient who clearly cannot afford bread to buy their own blades, bandages and even dressing solutions, painkillers and antibiotics,” Ndoro said.

Doctors abandoned work four months ago to press for better salaries and working conditions, saying their roughly $100 monthly pay is not enough to get by. The action became one of Zimbabwe’s longest doctors’ strikes in history.

The majority of people in Zimbabwe already are battling to put food on the table, let alone afford expensive private medical care or drugs.

“It is in the interests of both the patients and the doctors to go back to work,” Ndoro told The Associated Press.

He said his organization, which represents about 1,600 junior doctors at public hospitals, is asking members to accept the offer by Zimbabwean telecoms billionaire Strive Masiyiwa.

Masiyiwa through his charity late last year offered to pay doctors a “monthly subsistence allowance” of roughly $300. Doctors are also offered transport to and from work.

The Higherlife Foundation charity announced Tuesday that it had reopened the offer, which more than 300 doctors had signed up for before it closed in December.

Ndoro said more needs to be done to fix the health sector.

Often the best a doctor can do is diagnose and write a prescription for patients who usually ask relatives for help to buy drugs at private pharmacies, where prices are steep because of shortages at public hospitals.

Critics say the collapse of Zimbabwe’s economy is making hollow President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s promises to change the country’s fortunes when he took power in 2017 after longtime leader Robert Mugabe stepped down under pressure.

Since then, inflation has spiked to about 500% amid shortages of gas, food and even drinking water. Electricity cuts of up to 18 hours a day have led some rural hospitals to ask relatives to take bodies to private funeral parlors or conduct quick burials to keep them from decomposing in their mortuaries.

Health Minister Obadiah Moyo on Wednesday told the state broadcaster that the situation is improving.

“They (doctors) are back in full force. We want to be able to work together as one team, everyone has a role to play,” he told the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation.

But many doctors and other health professionals such as nurses seem to share little of the minister’s optimism and are looking for a way out.

“I don’t have the actual numbers but many doctors have left the country,” Ndoro said. “A lot are pursuing greener pastures. They may not yet have left, but they are definitely going to leave.”

No Training, No Gloves: Zimbabwe’s Desperate Childbirths

Mothers hold their babies delivered in a tiny apartment in the poor suburb of Mbare in Harare, Zimbabwe, Saturday, Nov. 16, 2019, with the help of 72-year old grandmother Esther Zinyoro Gwena. Grandmother Esther Zinyoro Gwena claims to be guided by the holy spirit and has become a local hero, as the country’s economic crisis forces closure of medical facilities, and mothers-to-be seek out untrained birth attendants.(AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)



HARARE, ZIMBABWE (AP) — When her contractions became unbearably painful, 18-year-old Perseverance Kanyoza rushed to a maternity hospital in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare. But the doors were closed amid a weekslong strike by public health workers. With no money for private care, panic set in.

A hospital guard directed her to a tiny apartment in the poor suburb of Mbare nearby. The midwife: a grandmother with no formal training and claiming to be guided by the Holy Spirit.

Thirteen hours later, Kanyoza gave birth to a healthy baby girl.

“It was a miracle,” she told The Associated Press with a beaming smile. “I feared for the worst. I didn’t know what to do after finding the hospital closed.”

Her baby was one of dozens delivered in the past week alone with the help of 72-year-old Esther Zinyoro Gwena. She has become a local hero as the southern African country’s worst economic crisis in more than a decade is forcing desperate women to seek out traditional birth attendants who often deliver babies using their bare hands with no sterilization or post-natal care.

72-year old grandmother Esther Zinyoro Gwena holds one of the babies she helped deliver in her tiny apartment in the poor surburb of Mbare in Harare, Zimbabwe, in this Saturday, Nov. 16, 2019. Grandmother Esther Zinyoro Gwena claims to be guided by the holy spirit and has become a local hero, as the country’s economic crisis forces closure of medical facilities, and mothers-to-be seek out untrained birth attendants.(AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

Some worried Zimbabweans say Gwena’s work only highlights the collapse of a health sector once regarded as one of the best in Africa. Doctors have been on strike for more than two months, seeking better pay than the roughly $100 they receive a month, and nurses and midwives in Harare walked off the job two weeks ago.

Since then, Gwena said, she has delivered more than 100 babies and no mothers have died. She doesn’t charge for her services and helping stranded pregnant women is her concern.

“I never trained as a midwife. I started by befriending pregnant women at the church and then eight years ago I just started delivering babies. It is the holy spirit,” she said.

“I have had no rest since the nurses’ strike started. The work is becoming too much for one person. I am even losing weight,” Gwena said.

She said she has been delivering up to 20 babies a day in her two-room apartment.

Samantha Nazarere smiles as she is handed her new baby, delivered in a tiny apartment in the poor Mbare suburb in Harare, Zimbabwe, Saturday, Nov. 16, 2019, with the help of 72-year old grandmother Esther Zinyoro Gwena. Grandmother Esther Zinyoro Gwena claims to be guided by the holy spirit and has become a local hero, as the country’s economic crisis forces closure of medical facilities, and mothers-to-be seek out untrained birth attendants.(AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

When the AP visited on Saturday, four pregnant women writhed in pain while sitting on blankets on the floor in the tiny living room-turned-maternity ward.

The bedroom is now the “recovery room” where several women holding newborn babies huddled on Gwena’s small bed.

“They need the bed more,” she said. “I rarely get time to sleep, they are always coming in … in the middle of the night.”

Neighbors, relatives of the pregnant women and some of Gwena’s children, who help clean the blood, fetch water from a nearby well and cook, sat on a bench. Others stood in the packed room.

“Make way, another one is coming,” one woman shouted. A heavily pregnant young woman walked in carrying a small plastic bucket, blanket and bag.

Less than two hours later, the number of pregnant women had swelled to 10, their bags piled in a corner. More stood in line in the hallway outside.

“I was apprehensive,” said Grace Musariri, one of the women in line. “But I have already seen four women leaving with their babies in the few hours I was here. The fear is gone.”

The makeshift maternity ward contained little but boxes of cotton and gloves donated by President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s wife, Auxillia, who visited on Friday after Gwena’s story made headlines in Zimbabwe’s state media.

Before her visit “I used my bare hands,” Gwena said. She asks women to bring their own razor blades, cord clamps and other items.

“My biggest challenges are space, water and protective clothing. I need help, and fast,” she told a team of senior health officials who visited on Saturday.

She told them she had delivered 15 babies overnight and seven more before lunchtime.

One birth caused a brief scare. The baby popped out but seemed lifeless. Some in the room held their breath. Others screamed and the mother began to cry.

Gwena splashed water on the baby’s forehead and the child let out a cry.

“She is so big,” one woman exclaimed, joining others in cleaning a pool of blood from plastic that would be reused later.

The city’s health director, Dr. Prosper Chonzi, said such home childbirth services are becoming rampant.

“Throughout Harare there are a lot of traditional birth attendants,” he said. “If you go to our clinics right now they are empty. Where are these women going to? They are now coming to deliver here. There are no follow-ups when these women have delivered. It’s really worrying.”

Chonzi said hygienic conditions such as water availability, infection prevention and disposal of placentas were a worry.

“There is no proper management of blood and blood products,” he said. “After birth, what happens? There are certain processes that need to happen during labor and after labor both to the mother and to the child. These are now missed opportunities.” Those include helping to prevent HIV transmission from mother to child.

The health director added, “I am really depressed, to say the least. Something needs to be done. This is not the way to deliver health services in an urban, local authority.” He told Gwena he would put in a word with his bosses to provide her with more gloves, cord clamps, sterile linens and other items.

The pregnant women flooding Gwena’s apartment are happy to receive any assistance as state-provided services either become unavailable or sharply deteriorate.

“Both my child and I could have died had it not been for Gogo (grandmother),” said Kanyoza, the new mother, making her way home.

Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa

Mugabe Is Dead, But Old Men Still Run Southern Africa

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa at the funeral of his predecessor, Robert Mugabe. EPA-EFE/Aaron Ufumeli

BY HENNING MELBER

The death of Robert Gabriel Mugabe (95) saw another of the first-generation leaders of newly independent southern African states leave the world stage.

Southern Africa was the last region on the continent to obtain majority rule. The independence of Zimbabwe (1980), Namibia (1990) and democracy in South Africa (1994) ended white settler minority regimes. They were replaced in power by liberation movements. The Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu, later Zanu-PF), the South West African People’s Organisation (Swapo) and the African National Congress (ANC) have been in government since then.

Mugabe’s death invites a look at the succession – or lack of – in these three countries.

Despite the cultivation of heroic narratives and patriotic history, the first-generation freedom fighters who took over the state offices are not immortal. Mugabe’s male-dominated leadership structures based on liberation struggle credentials remain entrenched.

In all three countries a second struggle generation is gradually entering the higher echelons of party and state. But the “born free” – people who were born after liberation – as well as women have hardly made significant inroads into the meritocratic, male-dominated core structures of power.

The question is how much longer the “old men syndrome” will remain alive and kicking in the three countries, despite growing frustration among the politically powerless.
Zimbabwe

Celebrated by many as an icon of the anti-colonial struggle, Mugabe was nevertheless an autocratic ruler who overstayed his time in office. The military finally replaced him with his longtime confidante Emmerson Mnangagwa in a soft coup in November 2017.

Mnangagwa’s sidelining was initiated by Mugabe’s younger wife Grace (born in 1965, she was 40 years his junior) to hijack the succession of her husband. She led a group of Zanu-PF members, dubbed the G40 (for Generation 40). The name referred to a constitutional clause that everyone above the age of 40 qualified as a presidential candidate. But, the military and security apparatus and its leadership was still firmly rooted in the struggle generation and opted for “Team Lacoste” named after “the Crocodile”, which is Mnangagwa’s nickname.

This ended the political careers of the G40. So far, the “elders” remain in charge and in firm control.

Morgan Tsvangirai (born 1952) founded the Movement for Democratic Change-Tsvangirai in 1999. The opposition party has been denied electoral victory several times since 2002.

After Tsvangirai’s death earlier this year the much younger Nelson Chamisa (born in 1978) won the internal party power struggle. He challenged Mnangagwa in the elections in July last year.

Thanks mainly to rural area results, Zanu-PF recorded a landslide victory in the parliamentary elections. Mnangagwa also secured a (disputed) and much more narrow first term in office as elected head of state.

This is partly due to a continued stricter social control in rural areas. Political interaction and activities in villages can be much more easily monitored than in urban areas. But it also suggests that traditional values – such as respect for elders – remain alive. This gives the generation in power a comparative advantage over younger competitors.

Similar generational constellations also benefited the governing parties in Namibia and South Africa.
Namibia

Namibia has had three state presidents since independence in 1990. Sam Nujoma, co-founder of Swapo in 1960, was its president until 2007 and the country’s first head of state for three terms until 2005. In May he celebrated his 90th birthday in seemingly good health. Though he remains influential, he has been less visible lately.

In a heavy-handed inner-party battle he ensured that his crown prince Hifikepunye Pohamba (born 1936) followed for two terms. Pohamba was succeeded by Namibia’s first Prime Minister Hage Geingob (born 1941).

After a clash with Nujoma, Geingob left Namibia to head the Global Coalition for Africa in Washington. Returning to Namibia’s parliament, he made a comeback under Pohamba. Reappointed as Prime Minister in 2012, he became state president in 2015 and party leader in 2017.

Geingob is tipped to be reelected as head of state for another five-year term in the next presidential and parliamentary elections in November. His current Vice President Nangolo Mbumba is the same age. In the Swapo electoral college on 7 September he secured another top ranking on the party’s candidate list for the National Assembly and will remain in the inner circle of “Team Hage”.

Five years ago the delegates, in a surprise move, ousted some of the old party cadres. But the elders remained dominant in cabinet. This time the expected further generational shift did not happen.

Party president Geingob could also fill ten secure seats on the electoral list and brought some of those seniors back, who did not make the cut. As the head of state he can appoint another eight non-voting members to parliament. This will allow him to retain several more of the trusted old cadres.

Despite this, Namibia’s second struggle generation (those who went into exile in the mid-1970s) is gradually taking over.
South Africa

Nelson Mandela,(1918-2013) served only one term as state president. His successors Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma (both born 1942) were recalled by the ANC and did not survive the full two terms in office.

Zuma was succeeded by Cyril Ramaphosa. Born in 1952, he is ten years younger than his predecessor.

Inter-generational tensions have begun to show in South Africa. In the latest national elections young South Africans, or “born frees”, showed their disdain for the ANC’s old guard and agenda by staying away from the polls as a form of protest.

This younger generation has shown its frustration with the limits to liberation. Many dismiss formal politics. Their preference is to engage in social movements or other parties.

One such choice is to support Julius Malema (born 1981) and his Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) which was founded in 2013 and appeals to a smaller pan-African segment of the younger generation. But the party’s election results remained behind its expectations and kept it in a distant third place, garnering only 10,80% in the latest polls.
The future

For obvious reasons, the first-generation freedom fighters, who took over the state offices after liberation, continue to place a high value on seniority in age.

Younger generations of leaders and women make only limited inroads into the structures of power, and the “born free” are not represented.

Rather, the second struggle generation is moving upward to take over, maintaining a system which leaves little room for renewal beyond the confines of individual credentials within the ranks of the former liberation movements.

The continued cultivation of a heroic narrative and patriotic history includes the internalised conception that freedom fighters never retire. Theirs is a lifelong struggle. “A luta continua” remains alive as long as they are.

But this is a backward looking perspective, nurtured by a romanticised past. It blocks new ideas and visions by younger generations contributing to governance, which would create ownership and make them feel represented. It prevents rather than creating a common future.

SOURCE: THE CONVERSATION