Columns
Blogs written by Zimbabwe Watch bloggers.
All visitors came with low expectations and all of them left with a much better understanding of the opportunities Zimbabwe offers. One delegation member (an expert in red meat processing) expressed it in simple words: ‘What I looked for in Zambia, I found in Zimbabwe!’
I can't stop but think about one of my favourite soul singers Sam Cooke who sang 'a change is gonna come...' It is difficult to predict what this change will look like in Zimbabwe, but ultimately it will lead to a more democratic Zimbabwe, for like Martin Luther King concluded: 'We shall overcome because the arch of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice'
Economists belong to an interesting species. In Zimbabwe they are easy to study, since they write articles in the various newspapers, you hear them on the radio and you see them often at gatherings of important people.
If Europeans poke their noses into the Zimbabwean folklore, firebrand Mugabe will use every opportunity to blend them ''imperialists'' and ''racists.'' Mugabe isn't prepared to listen to an ''unAfrican'' solution, whatever that means.
It was not the type of engagement which we saw in Egypt and other frail states. There were no fists, I did not see anger. I saw tears and uneasy shuffling. People were whispering to each other. A hush-hush public. As if they were part of the show itself.
What is sometimes difficult to understand, especially when you hear about the political environment in Zimbabwe, is that you can actually 'live a good life' in Zimbabwe. If you have money that is... The question I ask is 'to what extend can you enjoy Zimbabwe's beauty if you are aware of what is going on?'
Zimbabwe Defense Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, some two weeks ago, has threatened to seize foreign owned companies’ shareholding unless they urgently denounce sanctions put in place by Western countries. Addressing a ZANU PF meeting in Mutare, Mnangagwa said that companies’ bosses will soon be summoned to appear on national radio and denounce western sanctions, if not they will lose 90% of their shareholding.
In order to escape my office I regularly do airport transfers for our clients. Our clients are people from all over the world. They work for NGO’s and governments and visit Harare on certain “missions”; we have the occasional tourist and also business people who are sniffing out the opportunities Zimbabwe has to offer. They al have their own perceptions of Zimbabwe.
I remember answering the not-so-simple-question of what I did learn during
the years that I studied mathematics. My answer - I think it was quite
brilliant - was this: to make things simple and to keep them simple.
The "thing" of Zimbabwe is quite complex.
Southern African Development Community members this week threw their weight behind Zimbabwe’s US$8 billion aid appeal. Unsurprisingly, they did not commit any of their own money to the desperately-needed financial package required to lift their neighbour out of the economic quagmire resulting from three decades of corruption and misrule by Robert Mugabe and his thievocracy.
