Zimbabwe Is Back In The News

So soon?

Friday I worked from home, because I had one of those ever-popular dentist appointments in the middle of the day. And since I was home on a workday (which almost never happens), I decided to stop at the print shop of the Zimbabwean who left a comment on my latest Zimbabwe post. What a treat!

He wasn't there when I first arrived, so I talked to his wife, and she's the one who first told me the news that Zimbabwe will be issuing new $Z100,000 notes. Her family is still stuck there, because they're black and no other countries will take them (His family is white, and they were all able to get out--to Australia, the Netherlands, the UK, and the US). Where the wife's sister lives, they're down to only four hours of electricity a day, and now the water is being cut off for part of the day. Each day seems to bring more and more hardship while it brings less and less stability, buying power, and subsistence.

When the husband arrived, we continued the conversation, and he expressed his frustration with the lack of news of his home country. And I agree. Almost every article I've seen about Zimbabwe has been in the London Telegraph, which is understandable for them since Zimbabwe was once a British colony (this couple's accent sounds British to my ears). But I hate the lack of coverage in the US press.

I'm reminded of the movie Hotel Rwanda, when the main character is asking the Canadian representative of the UN why the world is ignoring the massacres. The UN man replies to the effect that "the world doesn't care about you because you're black." Is that what's happening in Zimbabwe too? It would certainly seem that way, especially since most of the whites have fled the country.

My heartbreak over the people of Zimbabwe is greater than for other poor countries. To have known nothing but scratching out a living every day of a person's life (as in Haiti or the shantytowns of Mexico) is bad enough. But to have known a life very similar to that of America and then to have that taken from you so that you're left in Haiti-like conditions is even worse. I can't imagine.

Meanwhile, Breitbart reported yesterday that one of Zimbabwe's newspapers (probably government-run or -dictated) is claiming that the US is trying to force the removal of President Robert Mugabe. We should be so lucky.

"In one of its recent strategic advisory documents to the US government, Havard University's John F. Kennedy School of government implores donors to withhold assistance to Zimbabwe until "recovery" is possible with new leadership." it said.

"No donor should provide assistance to the government at present ... since recovery is impossible with the current leadership," the weekly said quoting what it claimed was an extract from the document.

"It is clear the US have a problem with the liberation ethos as well as its symbol President Robert Mugabe and are thus intent on reversing all that together with the gains of independence," [Mugabe's spokesman George Charamba] said.

Somehow, I don't think independence is what the US has a problem with.

At the print shop, I asked the husband, whose love of Zimbabwe is obvious: If Mugabe and his thugs were to be removed from power and replaced with someone who had Zimbabwe's best interest in mind, would you go back?

He said no. They've been here for three years and built up a business that's managing to keep a roof over their heads. In America, their teenage daughters have the chance to be whatever they want to be. If they want to be a doctor, they can try for medical school. But in Zimbabwe, all the private schools and universities are closed down, so if one of their daughters wanted to be a doctor, all she could do would be to dream of it for the rest of her life with no way of making it happen. The people with the ability to help rebuild what Robert Mugabe has destroyed are gone and not likely to return.

Zimbabwe will probably be like Haiti for a very, very long time.