Zimbabwe -- Cathy Buckle -- It's all about numbers

Letters from Cathy Buckle ^ | 26th June 2004 | Cathy Buckle

[Clive]

Dear Family and Friends,

As I sat at my desk on Saturday morning I thought it might be of interest to type, for the record, the headline report on ZBC's 8 am radio news because the war of numbers about Zimbabwe's harvest continues. The headline story was as follows:

"The government says internal food assessments indicate that the country will harvest an estimated 2.5 million tonnes of maize. This exceeds the annual national food requirement by six hundred thousand tonnes."

This week James Morris, the UN envoy for humanitarian needs in the region, said that if our government's harvest figures were accurate it would be "one of the most remarkable turnarounds in history." For those of us with eyes to see, these are just numbers and as we struggle with day to day and find ways to bulk out our meals, we worry more about other numbers.

My friend Ernie worries about the number 17 because this is the number of people he is supporting on his wage which is just below the almost one million dollar monthly poverty datum line. Ernie supports himself, his wife and their two children; his widowed sister in law and her three children; his two unemployed brothers; his mother and six other members of his extended family.

For the last three years some of the 17 people that Ernie supports have also received help in the form of international food aid. But now our government says it doesn't need that food aid anymore, it says it doesn't want to "choke" on donor food and Ernie looks at the number 17, puts his hands over his face and tries to come up with another way of supplementing his income. He's tried everything from mowing lawns at the weekends to buying and selling second hand clothes, but in the end there are just too many mouths to feed and too few hours in the days.

I worry about the number 5 because that is how many years Ernie has left before he reaches Zimbabwe's life expectancy which is now just 33 years. I also worry about the number 34 because that is the percentage of our population infected with HIV and Aids.

So many people have asked me why we Zimbabweans don't do something to change our situation here. Listening to human rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa talking on Short Wave Radio Africa last week I found myself agreeing out loud with her answer to this question. Beatrice said that the problem is that we are all so caught up with day to day issues like paying bills and affording food and clothes that we just do not have the time or energy to worry about the bigger issues of governance, democracy and human rights.

How right she is because when it comes down to it, if you are supporting 17 people, you cannot afford to do or say anything that may jeopardize their lives. Everything in Zimbabwe is about numbers these days, and all the numbers are about politics.

Until next time, with love, cathy.

[Clive]

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[pageonetoo]

Thanks, for keeping us aware. There are too many places for us to help, but this is one of them! I wish they would start!

[hershey]

What a sad mess. They're sending the country over a cliff and in the end will blame the US for not stopping them.

[Truth29]

Unfortunately, the problem with an analysis like this is that there is no escape from the trap as long as the people play the government's game. The 17 in this article (or as many as can resist) and the rest of the populace must rise up and over through the corrupt, despotic government. They must worry about their lives in the form of seizing the instruments of government, taking the resources they need in the short term and installing a new government. If they don't, they will just spiral down into even worse privation and mass death at the hands of Mugabe.

[pageonetoo]

...the rest of the populace must rise up and over through the corrupt, despotic government.

I am not an apologist, but it is difficult to fight, when your belly is empty, and you are facing the wrong end of machine guns.

The white europeans who have spent their lives, and certainly made their fortunes (or not), have been forced to leave their homes, or die.

In the meantime, we are fighting another couple of wars, and can't respond her... and it is a shame.

Reverse apartheid and socialism are the downfall of many nations, and governments, in Africa. There seems to be little hope, after all they are only n..gers (sarcasm, with apologies, no offense intended), and even American-Africans don't seem to care!!!