From Zimbabwe’s past… to Zimbabwe’s future?

openDemocracy: You first went to Zimbabwe in 1990, 10 years after independence. How did the country seem to you? Very paternal?

VP: Oh, no, it seemed very vibrant. Tremendous enthusiasm, a tremendous sense of cooperation.

But the whole racial issue was completely unresolved. It was as though it wasn’t an independent nation. I was very shocked by their attitudes. And I was shocked by the poverty among the farm workers.

open: There were no black-owned farms?

VP: Oh, there were some. But in many places there was a kind of Boer mentality. People had come from South Africa to farm it. It was absolutely split. Very wealthy farms, workers with no security of tenure. Many farms were huge, so children were walking three miles to get off the farm to go to school, even before they started the trip by road.

Farmers would take you round their farm. And the area where the black workers were living in their huts, the farmers would say, yes, we give them a little bit of land for their vegetables. “We are giving these people extras.” They had no sense that they were exploiting them.

AG: I first went to Zimbabwe about the same time as you, and I was aware of a sense of real achievement after the first 10 years. The economy was flourishing. It was the calm before the storm. There was a huge sense of optimism about everything, people coming back into the country. The racial problem was something that I found quite startling. It was sown into the fabric of society. You are classified and judged by the way you look.

open: Was this true in the towns as well?

AG: Absolutely. My family is mixed-race. In England, black and coloured mean exactly the same thing. But if you go to Zimbabwe and you say ‘black’, you mean a traditional black African. If you say ‘coloured’, it’ll mean a person of mixed race. Then you have whites and Indians. It is extremely segmented.

I remember being asked by a woman, an African woman, what colour I am. I look African but when I open my mouth, then there’s something not quite right. A mixed-race couple will walk down the street and you will see heads turn. It’s something that the young population is getting over a lot faster now. But there’s still a lot of stigma attached to interracial relationships.

open: So your parents’ friends were all ‘coloureds’?

AG: Yes. It was very strange. I was very young then. I was 15, a teenager. I went there and was confronted with a huge African population, when I’d been living in a huge white population. It’s a culture shock. And then to be categorised so strictly.

I’m black, so why can’t I mix with black people? Well, you’re not really black, you’re actually coloured now. You no longer belong to the class of black. That is important for people to understand. Often, when they think of Africa, they don’t think of racial problems – ‘that’s a western problem’. But it really does have an impact on the way people think there.

A lot of it is in the way the residential areas are set up, extremely segregated. You have coloured areas and you have white areas and black areas. It’s like a self-imposed apartheid, you get few opportunities to mix.

I lived in a suburb, just on the outskirts of Harare. Coloured people are starting to live there more. It’s an emerging district, there’s the start of a nice ethnic mix, but that’s not common at all. The rural areas are primarily black, with few, usually wealthy white-owned properties and farms, not African-owned. And then you have an African population living round them, supporting them, working as domestics, gardeners or farm labourers.

In the cities there are high-density areas which are again predominantly African, very close to the business district which supports the local industry. And it is an eye-opener. So many people, packed into so little space. Then there are suburbs, and some of the most fantastic houses and living conditions that I have ever seen.

The Switzerland of Africa

open: The development of education, was it due to the churches or to the government?

VP: The post-independence government, definitely. All schools then went under the umbrella of the government. There was a network of Mission schools in the rural areas, well-endowed, quite expensive boarding schools. Children came from the urban area into the rural schools; the rural population couldn’t afford to go to them. The massive expansion came with the Food for Work program. The government provided maize (the staple food) and parents in the community provided their labour, making bricks, building the schools.

This was a post-independence partnership, capitalising on the energy and the enthusiasm in a new and growing country. There was a massive expansion in educational places. But in the poorer rural areas, the parents couldn’t afford to pay for extras – books and so forth. Those schools remained poor in resources. It was left to innovative and dynamic head teachers to go after funding.

open: Where did hope lie, in 1990?

AG: For us it was the economy. We had family there. They moved from a fantastic position in Britain, because Zimbabwe was an emerging economy. It was known as the Switzerland of Africa. Zimbabwe would be the food provider for southern Africa.

open: People assumed that food would go on being produced by these great white farms?

AG: I’m not quite sure. I think I was too young to understand. But a lot of people were revelling in the fact that Zimbabwe was a successful country. When I was there the land issue wasn’t as prominent. There wasn’t a feeling of fear. There wasn’t a feeling of, we need to kick the white farmers out, otherwise we’ll lose.

open: What was the vision that made them hopeful?

VP: There was a sense that the government was investing heavily in the social sector. The educational issue was being resolved, and for the first time people in rural areas had access to health care. Here was a government that was committed to change and inclusion. At that time there were no illusions about the big issue of the farms. There was an agreement, the Lancaster House Agreement negotiated in London in 1979-80, that land was not going to be touched for at least 10 years. By then, the ten-year period was elapsing.

The government had encouraged farmers to support the emerging education system and health system by building primary schools and clinics on the big farms. Some became model farms, providing electricity and water – but they really were the exception.

There was a sense that if farmers participated in this, they were going to get brownie points and national credibility. On the news, items would appear about what this or that farmer had done, schools and health centres being opened by ministers. In spite of that, a major study by the Zimbabwean Ministry of Education and the Swedish International Development Agency found that children on commercial farms had the worst access to education of any group.

And then two things hit. The structural adjustment and the drought, almost simultaneously.

IMF/World Bank parachute in

open: Tell us about the structural adjustment.

VP: It happened in ’92/’93. The economy was growing, something like 5-6% a year. And the package was presented as a home-grown policy by some, but in fact it was very much imposed on the government.

AG: By?

VP: Well, by the World Bank and IMF. Structural adjustment programmes were still used as models then, although there was heavy criticism. Now they have been abandoned. But one of the reasons was to expand the industrial base. So major privatisations began. The civil service, providing a huge amount of employment, was decimated.

School fees were introduced in urban areas at primary school level. This was only twelve or thirteen years after the country became independent. Although the schools were stronger, they still had a long way to go. They argued that people had the money in urban centres, but large numbers were living on very low incomes. So they introduced a hardship fund.

The hardship fund seemed completely unworkable, partly because the civil service cuts removed all the structures that could have administered it. So children were dropping out of school, even going to live in the rural areas. They were living with relatives, or building their own homes; sometimes squatting around boarding schools.

Primary school children from the towns would come on buses, with a small amount of money, building huts. I have pictures of a family of children. They’ve built a little playpen in the ground, with sticks for the smaller children. Living without any supervision.

Another issue was the introduction of medical fees. If you weren’t in a position to pay, you weren’t meant to, but it was all very badly administered. So, gradually, the gains made in education and health were being eroded through the structural adjustment. And the drought on top of that had a devastating effect.

As part of the structural adjustment process, the Zimbabweans had been persuaded to sell the grain stores, which they kept for security, but which were expensive. The drought hit just after that. Now that they had no grain stores, they had to start buying in grain with foreign exchange, which came mainly from the commercial farm sector, the only real export sector. There was still no real industrial base. They became more dependent on the commercial farm sector, and its position became more entrenched.

Of course the economy has since continued to decline. The government and Mugabe have been criticised for this. And now they have chosen their whipping boy, in the white farmers.

open: How long was the drought?

VP: Two years – though the first was the most severe.

AG: I think it was about three years into structural adjustment that people realised this is not going to work. Just before I left, my father used to run a service station and he knew a lot of local entrepreneurs, and they started going bankrupt. The economy couldn’t sustain what they were trying to do. Structural adjustment began to be derided by a lot of people in the country. But every year the situation got worse. Now it’s difficult to remember the Zimbabwe of 1990.

People are poorer. Especially in the last three or four years, petrol has become a luxury: either you can’t afford it, or when it does come to the station, they tell their friends who tell their friends, and it disappears. You go to a shopping centre and there are only certain things you can buy, and the prices have rocketed.

open: In the comparable situation in Russia, people in provincial cities became worse off than anybody in the country because they didn’t have access to land. The potato crop became a way of staying alive. Is there a parallel?

AG: In some of the high-density areas, in Harare, there is absolute destitution. My parents have been burgled three times in the last four months. A lot of companies are laying off. Investors are pulling out. The airlines are pulling out because they don’t think it’s safe anymore. There is a huge surplus of labour, especially in the cities, because they’re all drawn there. So crime is rocketing.

Real problem, wrong solution

open: What was the problem that structural adjustment was designed to solve? Zimbabwe was doing well, it had something going for it. Structural adjustment is supposed to solve problems.

VP: Zimbabwe wanted to build its trade, to earn more foreign exchange.

AG: And to diversify the economic base from agricultural farming, to industrialise.

open: And structural adjustment was the terms laid down for attracting capital?

VP: Yes. Massive lending came with strings attached. The strings were: adjust your economy toward the global market place. I don’t know whether it actually worked anywhere. But when structural adjustment was on the agenda, there were economic experts saying that it was going to be an absolute disaster for Zimbabwe. Why do it? The country was doing well, with higher rates of economic growth than western nations.

Zimbabwe in 1990 was international in its outlook. There was a lot of exchange. I think Mugabe just became desperate to hold onto power, to find a reason. Or he may have been duped. He made a state visit to Britain, just at the point structural adjustment was introduced.

Major events were held in London – he is a superb public speaker. In his speeches he said, “We have delivered structural adjustment, now come and invest.” Of course, they didn’t. I wonder if he just feels, “Why was I duped?” But it is no excuse for his subsequent actions.

open: But how have the IMF and World Bank adjusted their program? Have they acknowledged their own part in this debacle in any practical way?

VP: Not to my knowledge. But I think this failure would be seen now as something completely separate from their current programmes.

open: They can now put the blame on Mugabe?

VP: They absolutely can. There is plenty to blame Mugabe for, but structural adjustment cannot just be laid at his door too.

He has chosen other allies. He’s gone to China. Cuba has always been an ally. In recent years, Libya has become a major supporter. Especially with the collapse of the Soviet system, these have been their friends. Zimbabwe was friends with socialist countries around the world.

open: Cuba can’t have much to give now?

VP: It hasn’t. But there was a lot of exchange. They were part of a bloc. Mugabe was managing his position between his links with the British and links with the Soviet Union. A lot of people went to Yugoslavia to earn their degrees.

So now he has looked more to those friends as a bulwark against being marginalized by the World Bank, the IMF, the EU and the British. They are trying to use their control over the streams of money to modify his position. And they have spectacularly failed. Because they were very unsophisticated in the way they approached Mugabe.

Mugabe’s Zimbabwe

open: In the western press Mugabe is simply portrayed as having gone power-crazy, perhaps like something that happens under the sun: ‘just another African dictator with sunstroke’.

VP: Mugabe is very clever, and he has always acted to keep power. This is not a man who doesn’t know what he is doing.

Today, the wholesale intimidation, combined with growing poverty and the need to survive, is creating a climate of fear and terror. There’s no sense that the police are answerable to anyone, other than the party in government, ZANU-PF. The police say openly, we do not know what we should do. When people report beatings of Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) candidates or of MDC supporters at the movement’s rallies, they do not intervene or respond. They say they have been told not to.

Government has been reduced to party politics for some time. In the early days, ZANU-PF people used to go out into the rural areas and give out seeds and tools. At that time, Mugabe was stealing from the public purse, but the rural population just thought he was being a good father.

AG: Zimbabwe today lives on rumour. I call my parents there when I hear things, and the worst thing is, they can only tell me what the government lets them hear through the media. And you then survive on rumour – there are a few independent newspapers, but they are very constrained.

My parents know people who have been, not tortured necessarily, but captured and forced to proclaim something that they don’t believe in. They have to for their own safety and for their family’s safety.

There’s an intrinsic fear: people don’t know what’s going to happen, what Mugabe’s going to do, what they can do, can they do it without getting hurt…

open: Is there a lot of sympathy for Mugabe, or is there simply just hatred and fear now?

AG: A lot of people have lost respect for Mugabe, whom they used to regard as the saviour of Zimbabwe. They hoped he would take Zimbabwe in a different direction to the other African countries that have gone down the pan. There’s a lot of disillusionment now among businesspeople and people with contacts outside Zimbabwe.

VP: Do you remember after Mugabe got married again?

AG: Yes, to Grace. The ‘Princess Diana of Zimbabwe’!

VP: Grace was really blamed – it’s a very patriarchal culture. People say, “It’s not Mugabe, it’s Grace. It’s Grace doing this to him. Twisting his mind.”

open: Exactly the same thing happened to Raisa Gorbachev. When the structure of law collapses, when the fabric collapses, you’ve only got rumour and blame.

VP: Those who have turned against Mugabe are in large measure those who benefited from the education system, which he obviously had a big hand in building. One example: there are lots of tremendously committed teachers. They’re in their 40s and 50s. They lived through the war. They know what education means, they are still quite politicised around it; but they’ve turned to the MDC opposition. Mugabe has tried to intimidate teachers. ZANU-PF have in the past asked all the head teachers to provide names for all the people who supported the opposition.

open: This is organised fear.

VP: Very real fear; and it’s at its worst in the townships. It’s in the townships where people are being beaten. It’s in the cities that voted for the MDC. Places like Chitungwiza, some distance away from Harare, where there are big housing complexes built by the colonial government for the workers. It is quite terrifying out there. Wanton intimidation is taking place. Young people are disenfranchised and unemployed, the jobs aren’t there for them, they are disaffected, and they are used to wage a campaign of terror.

Zimbabwe’s whites today

open: We know a little bit about what’s been happening with the white farms. What about the rich white city-dwellers? Are they as confident as ever, or are they leaving?

VP: Some are leaving. They’re very worried, very afraid. They feel they’re unwanted. The white community is divided between those who were there before independence and those who’ve arrived since. And they tend to have very different political perspectives. Those who’ve arrived since 1980 came to support a newly emerging nation. They arrived with absolute political support for the new government.

open: Quite a lot came in?

VP: Yes. And the two groups didn’t mix very much, at least until they have begun to unite in opposition. To be identified as a white who had come in since independence was an indicator of safety.

People’s sensitivities to these things are very, very acute: it’s about danger and safety. From a very young age children know. They learn to pick up the signs, the body language. In Zimbabwe, nobody would say hello to me first. It’s almost as if they were waiting to see. And then there would be a beaming smile. A sense of relief! That really communicated what had gone on before.

West Africa, which didn’t have a large settler population, is completely different in the way that you are welcomed. You are welcomed as a guest. You’re not there as a potential oppressor. You are very much on their territory. And they treat you with a confident hospitality.

There is a tragedy of unresolved racial issues in Zimbabwe. And it’s finding expression now in all kinds of ways. Mugabe is able to tap into an undercurrent of anger and resentment that is in fact highly justified. I have been on farms where people literally scuttle away from the farmer. Almost like they are not entitled to be on that same path. They’re not being paid in money, but in kind through the farm shop. Gross exploitation, gross racism.

What future for Zimbabwe?

open: What do the Zimbabweans you speak to think is going to happen to their country in the future? Do you talk politics?

VP: People are not looking long term. They are looking to survive, and to help those closest to them to survive. That’s where everybody’s creative energy is going. They really don’t know what’s around the corner.

AG: It’s easy to get caught up in a ball of despair, and think, that’s it - it’s just going to collapse into civil war or chaos and strife. I think there’s a great possibility of a coup or some form of violent instability. But for the time being, a huge population of people are being resilient. Surviving, although they’re dying of AIDS or hunger, with very little hope on the horizon.

It’s strange. My parents say, we’ll stay. It may get better. That must be the case with a lot of people. People know the situation is terrible. But they can’t just abandon the country and come back when – if – everything is okay. There’s a commitment that politicians and the media in the West doesn’t necessarily feel. It’s their country.

But it’s so hard. So much of the hope is invested in the elections. What will happen if democracy is thrown down?