Laban Opande

"To get rich is glorious…
It doesn't matter if it is a black cat or a white cat. If it chases mice, it is a good cat."

-- Deng Xiao Ping

Africa is an amazing continent. I am not saying that because I am a proud native of that part of the world, but because one can find almost anything they want. That includes a whole lot of good and just a little bad. Since the good would need much more space to articulate than what this forum provides, I will dwell on some of the little amazing bad. I will even narrow that bad to just a few isolated incidences, but which share some common trends and similarities.

A few months ago, Kenya, a tourist joint on the East Coast was going through what was considered a routine exercise of electing new leaders. After the exercise was concluded, it turned out there was nothing routine. Many, including myself, are still suffering from nightmares from video images of untold violence perpetrated by a citizenry gone amok. The reason: alleged rigging of the election, delayed tallying of the votes and eventual announcement of a winner by an intimidated electoral commission. The victims: next door neighbors, classmates, workmates, and even church members. The common identifier: your surname, your looks, your accent, or even sometimes, your familial lineage, whether by birth or marriage. End result: over 1,000 dead, half a million in refugee camps, billions of dollars in losses, and bruised egos. I classify ego in this category because, at least, to those who never wanted to give in as this mayhem continued, they felt their ego was that important.

So the world came out screaming, mobilizing, and praying. The efforts yielded a negotiated accord to share the spoils between the antagonists. Since then, it has been nothing but mistrust and anxiety. So much anxiety that even when a cabinet of 90 Cabinet officers in a house of 210 members, people were tired to fight at the obvious immoral gesture towards the taxpayer. And those who were nominated were quick and eager to assume office, and embark on ‘nation-building’.

As the episode continued in Kenya, their comrades in Zimbabwe down south were perfecting the script. After an election conducted several weeks ago in a general poll, the electoral commission is yet to tally and announce the presidential vote. In the meantime, the police force is gearing itself and strategizing for a ‘routine’ operation. The country prides a 100,000%, yes, one hundred thousand per cent inflation, and has a 1 billion dollar bill in its currency. Therefore, it’s safe to assume that it is used to big numbers. So how difficult is it then to tally a few million votes cast for the presidential candidates? But to the world, Comrade Mugabe is perhaps the only surviving bad boy in Africa. He has been a thorn in the flesh to the West, after he sent their kin packing from the rich farmlands in Zimbabwe. So he has been left to Africans. The clear perception is that Mugabe is an African problem better solved by an African solution. Unfortunately, Africans don’t find him a problem. In Zimbabwe, at least going by the already tallied parliamentary votes, he has roughly half of the population behind him. Regional leaders and Sub-Saharan Africa power man Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, does not find him a nuisance.

Like the many who believe in him and his policies, I am almost tempted to support his stand. The central issue that has made him a rogue president is land distribution in Zimbabwe. But in the midst of politics, I get confused with the facts and so I vaguely try to relate with what I know about white settler farmers in Kenya. Simple history teaches me that they seized my fore-fathers’ lands without compensation and pushed them into unproductive areas. After independence, the new government attempted to resettle the natives through schemes that the central government provided loans for. However, only the well connected managed to get access to these loans and thus the farms. The result has been the endless land clashes over the years, and which culminated in the post election violence in Kenya in the recent months. Zimbabwe is therefore facing the same scenario as Kenya. You can predict my guess as to why the results have not been released.

 

But that’s Africa, where we have a whole lot of good, and some little bad. So you may consider this as just another little bad, even if hundreds of Zimbabwean wake up one day and start chopping off their neighbors’ necks, animals, and crops. I look forward to writing on the good, once an accord is mediated by Kofi Annan and signed by Mugabe and Tsvangirai (the opposition candidate), and a Cabinet of 100 is appointed to share the spoils.

 

Laban Opande is a Lawyer, Activist, and Political Organizer. He lives in Houston, Texas.