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You don’t
say, Mugabe!
E.
Ablorh-Odjidja
If I allowed
myself a moment to think that President Mugabe really said
what he was reported by News24 to have said, I would say to
myself that something serious had gone wrong with our
esteemed revolutionary leader.
“Stop stealing
our skills!” our once illustrious leader was reported to have
said.
President Mugabe
or members of his government are now ready to ask neighboring
countries in Africa to stay off poaching for professionals,
experts and skilled workers, at least those still in
the country, from Zimbabwe.
The surprise is
that there are any left in
Zimbabwe, in spite of the overwhelming difficulties brought on
this nation for the past ten years by the disastrous policies of
the Mugabe government.
Who would have
thought that there should be a soul left in Zimbabwe by now,
except the most ardently patriotic? But given the toughening
process that many nationals, those of the older generation, went
through during the “Bush War,” shoulder to shoulder with
Mugabe and Joshua
Nkomo,
the built-in patriotism would be hard to give up
by many. Even so, there is still a limit to what one could do
for a country.
Thousands of
skilled workers have already left Zimbabwe; both blacks and
whites. They have left the farms, the factories and the school
buildings. Some have left wives, children, and dear ones, and
properties because of the acute economic crisis that has left
Zimbabwe tethering on the brink of a failed state.
So to read
News24’s recent quote that Culture Minister Aeneas Chigwedere
says that “the government would approach its southern African
neighbors to ask them to stop taking Zimbabwe's teachers,” is to
wonder why the minister is so clueless as to why the
professionals are leaving.
However,
there is always the silver
lining where you least expect it. Don't be shocked to find
in the morose statement by this minister that soon awareness of the causes of the “push-factor”
behind the exodus will hit him in the face. And that the “pull-factor” from the
neighboring countries, he would then realize, is aided hugely by internal
conditions at home in Zimbabwe; factors that are now seriously
at work against the maintenance of a stable
skilled labor force, and consequently, the viability of the economy
at home.
But, there are
some in the West, comfortably at rest in the Diaspora, who do not believe that there
is anything
harmful about Mugabe's policies. Among some Africans and like
minded African-Americans, the thinking is Mugabe is a hero and
that he is the most progressive African leader since Nkrumah. I
suppose this kind of accolade should post a problem for those of
us who love Nkrumah. We would have preferred a better choice.
“"What we need
is to sit down with the neighbouring countries and make sure
that they apply to government for teachers, instead of poaching
the teachers," the reportage on Culture Minister Chigwedere
continued.
But why should these
neighbors bother to talk truce with Minister Chigwedere or what
should the underlining subject, obviously the exodus of skilled
workers from Zimbabwe, be about? There
are already too many of them in these
countries working as economic refugees - to and for the benefit
of these host countries!
Zimbabwe was
once a place where other Africans fled to for succor. Early in
the eighties Ghanaians were flocking to this country to escape
hardship in their country. South Africa, not yet independent,
looked to Zimbabwe as model for a future post-apartheid state.
Zimbabwe was stable and doing well. And now this: A land that
was once more prosperous than the majority of many states in
Africa has now been reduced to a chronic shortage of almost
everything. Inflation is soaring towards 8000%.
And President
Mugabe, at 83, is said to be going nowhere, at least not in any
direction away from the presidency.
The recent rumor
of attempt from his inner circle to oust him, to which he gave
credence by intimating to some reporters that some members in
his party ranks have consulted “traditional healers under the
cover of darkness,” has effectively been quashed.
One of the
beneficiaries of the rumor, said then to be a sure shot
replacement for the Mugabe throne, is current Vice-President
Joyce Mujuru.
Mujuru is a
member of Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party. She also happens to be the
wife of a very influential former general of the Zimbabwe army,
Solomon Mujuru. It must also be noted that it is Mugabe who
brought Joyce to public prominence, at least politically.
Two days ago,
Joyce Mujuru came out to declare that she would not contest
against Mugabe under any circumstance and to also proclaim her
devotion to the aging ruler.
"I was groomed
by Mr Mugabe to what I am,” according to Mujuru, so please
“don't force me into the presidential throne. Don't force me
where I don't fit. Mr Mugabe appointed me to my current position
so that I could help him."
With her loyalty
sadly pronounced, she is welcome to stay out of presidential
politics. But is there any chance in the future that she and
her army general husband will be forced into exile because they
represent a threat?
In the meantime,
Cultural Minister Chigwedere is said to be promising new
graduates and current teachers improvement in wages and
conditions while the same teachers are marching on strike in the
streets of Harare.
Teachers,
magistrates, prosecutors have all lined up ready for strikes and
to demand huge pay increases in the midst of an economy that is
dwindling fast. It remains to be seen how Zimbabwe can
realistically prevent these skilled professionals from drifting
out of the country.
E.
Ablorh-Odjidja,Publsiher
www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, October 8, 2007
Permission to publish: Please feel free to publish or
reproduce, with credits, unedited. If posted at a website,
email a copy of the web page to
publisher@ghanadot.com . Or don't publish at all.
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