Africa and the problem of Zimbabwe
By
Tunji Ajibade
Several issues of concern
hang over Africa as a continent. There is political
instability on the one hand and the achievement of
stability at the
expense of
democratic rule on the other. Zimbabwe is one country that is
symbolic of both except that, in its case, the latter may soon lead to the former. Internally, as things stand, this Southern African country is a bundle of problems that may become an earthquake. Externally, the drama unfolding within it portrays Africa in a particular light that the continent no longer needs at this point when things have become different from what obtained when Zimbabwe first appeared on the map. Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, in the pre-1980 years was an intense emotional issue for the people of sub-Sahara Africa such as Nigeria. That was a time when most of the people at that end of the continent were under white minority rule, oppressed and afflicted in their naturally-endowed land. Long before that time, the southern rim of Africa was a favourite spot for white settlers. Deprivations of all forms that included stripping the black majority in Zimbabwe of the right to their land was the fall out. While a semblance of the same picture existed in places such as Angola through South-West Africa now Namibia to South Africa, the situation as regard access to land in Zimbabwe was unprecedented. This is one of the myriads of problems that made the people of those colonies that were under British rule in that region to take up arms and withdraw into the bush early. Their were stirrings by the end of the 2nd World War and by the 1950s, open hostility had broken out in places such as Kenya and Rhodesia against their colonial master. As late as the 1970s, colonies such as Angola and Mozambique under the Portuguese were still fighting for their independence. The British had left Rhodesia way back 1965. But it was not to the black majority. Ian Smith, a white supremacist was the one who seized power. He unilaterally declared independence and thus while a section of Rhodesia - Zambia – got its independence in 1965, the part that was later called Zimbabwe did not. Rather, its people had just left exchanged one noose of an oppressor for another. Ian Smith’s idea of ruling did not include a black majority participation. In the process, all the privileges that white settlers had become used to in that area for decades were maintained. Access to arable land continued to be restricted for black people. And so 1965 marked the beginning of the second war of independence for the likes of black Rhodesians such as Robert Mugabe. Mugabe had been in the bush fighting the British in the pre-1965 period. Had Ian Smith not proved a spanner in the wheel when the colonial masters departed, he would have emerged in 1965 to lead his frontline ZANU PF party to majority rule. But the chances for that was ruined. Smith, who just died late in 2007, held on to power from the time he seized power until 1980. That was when it dawned on him that there was no
other way to turn but go. But that translated into another fifteen years of slavery during which time the white minority people and others who carried British passport but were of, for instance,of Indian origin, had the best of Rhodesia while Mugabe and his people rubbed their noses in the sand. Those were terrible times. Justice was just not there for a people who were in their own country but denied everything due to a citizen. The 80 percent population of black people had less of everything than the 20 per cent minority. As a matter of fact, some 80 percent of the arable land was inaccessible to the majority black population. Mr Mugabe and the rest of the freedom fighters knew well what they were fighting for. Thus when his ZANU PF party later emerged as the ruling black majority party in 1980 when Zimbabwe got its independence, he promised his long-afflicted people one major thing: Land reform.
Concluded on December, 27, 2007
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