Thank you for your reply, on events in Zimbabwe.
You remind me of Uganda in the early 1970's. It was a very hard time we had there too.
As a result of the 'Economic War' by President Idi Amin, schools lost virtually all the expatriate teachers.
We were the first generation of young Ugandan men and women to step in and take over, in a big way,
the important task of educating the youth!
First, the kids were very scared of having, more or less, an exclusively African teaching force.
Amin had said that we had been hitting the street, unemployed with all our certificates, now we had to get
the jobs and shoulder the responsibility!
So we gave it our very best. We invested all the vigour of our youth in this task.
One would teach until you felt dizzy. And then mark the kids' scripts until the wee hours of the morning.
Inspite of the monumental sacrifices to make sure 'standards were mantained', many parents were bitter
that Africans were now teaching their children.
One can take to be denied because of incompetence but not race.
That these were fellow Africans, still evokes anguish in me.
How was I expected to agree with them that Idi Amin was such a monster as to put Africans in-there?
Later on he complemented these efforts by bringing in the country the likes of Mohammed Idris of Pakistan.
The doyen of Mathematics in the Asian subcontinent. Still people were bitter.
You should have seen them falling over themselves when they saw even a most hopeless illiterate Briton.
These elite parents even had the guts to tell us off on our faces.
But the fruits of our labour eventually came.
I will never forget how estatic I felt to see, later, my former students as engineers in the construction of
the Lesotho/South African Highland Project.
A two billion dollar massive project to redirect the waters of the Orange river into the industrial heartland
of the Witwatersrand/(Gauteng today). But little did I know then that that was just the curtain-raiser.
Others cut their teath in the construction of Nuclear Reactors in North America.
Still others came out of MIT with flying colours in fibreglass communication backbones!
Others are Rwandese military commanders in the pay of imperialism and have been occupying the mineral-fields
of Southern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The list is endless! But that was my experience of the times.
Mark you many Ugandans would want to skin me alive when they hear me take such a position.
Some lost their dear ones in the process. I would only be crazy to minimize their anguish.
So then Brother Dingaka, take heart. In a few years time, those who have aquired ranches in
Zimbabwe will be owning Lear Jets.
May be then, may be, they will remember not only Robert Mugabe, but more so the likes
of Enos Nkala (of Bulawayo) who have already paid with their blood.
Thank you so much for sharing the sentiments below!!
From: "dingaka zulu" <>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To: "Mitayo Potosi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
My Brother Mitayo
Yes indeed its true, heavy rains are falling all over Zimbabwe. Most people are doing what they are supposed to, till the land and plant some crops. I hope that the weather continues to be kind to us.
I am happy for your neighbor's good fortune in getting a farm. Most people that I know have also gotten their pieces of land. I have not yet gotten mine yet, but do not worry about me, I am patient enough and my name was on the list of those that would get the medium size farms. Even if, for some unkown reason, my application is not successful, I will still be happy that most African people now have a chance to make a decent living out of their own land.
I have an aunt who is currently visiting from Zimbabwe, she is a very strong MDC supporter. When I asked her about land reform, she started telling me the usual propaganda about only ZANU people are getting the land, Mugabe is not giving people seeds to plant and he is not helping with tilling the land. However, after a few days' stay she revealed that her husband could not come because he has to tend to their new farm provided by Mugabe! I then asked her to buy some seeds from here since she had said Mugabe was only giving to his supporters, she again reversed herself and said that actually her husband had been issued with enough seed to plant 3/4 of their new land. I then asked her why she is so negative about the government especially given the fact that she and many others are huge beneficiaries of Mugabe's policies, all she could say is, well, when is he going to give us morwe fertilizer?!!!
The story above only helps to highlight that most of our people are so enamored by the whiteman and what he says. There exists in ZImbabwe some very verulent anti-Mugabe newspapers such as The Daily, The Independent, The Standard and The Financial Gazette. These papers are what the US undersecretary Kasterner was refering to when he said he is using some journalists in Zim to try and overthrow the government. Luckily for him, the majority of urbanites such as my aunt believe everything they read in these papers thus propaganda against Mugabe works very well with them, inspite of any benefit they might get from Mugabe. So, these are the kinds of people that Mugabe has spent most of his life fighting for. Largely ungrateful people who are not even aware of where their interests are best served.
I bring this up to show you that even if I were to not get any farm inspite of my strong support of the pan_Africanist position ever since, and MDC people get them instead, it won't be a big deal. Imagine how bad Mugabe would feel if he were to dwell on the thoughts that for the past 50 years he has been fighting for the rights of Africans in Zimbabwe and most of them, especially the urbanites were ready to throw him to the wolves, when the going got tough? Inspite of all the good he has done and continues to do, there were sufficient numbers of his own people who were openly on the side of the very white people he has been trying to save them from, and were ready to vote him out. This perspective makes me realize that it is better for me to take a position based on principle rather than on a desire to make profit from a situation. One is not always guaranteed of benefit from the political positions we take. I support the president's position first and foremost because it is ri
ght. It is also right that MDC supporters, inspite of their treasonous foolishness, as citizens of the country, should get these lands too.
I hope that your neighbor and my aunt and my sister and so many other Africans that have benefted from this program will take their responsibilities seriously and help feed our nation. I also hope that they can use the prfits from their new ventures to grow new businesses for the country so we can employ more of those currently without jobs.
Take care my friend
"Ivinicus factus sum veritabem diceus." ( I have become an enemy for speaking the truth ) St Paul!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mitayo Potosi
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