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Zimbabwe's New Middle Class Have One Ambition: A Ticket Out
The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 10-29-2002 | Peta Thornycroft

Posted on 10/28/2002 6:14:16 PM PST by blam

Zimbabwe's new middle class have one ambition: a ticket out

By Peta Thornycroft in Harare
(Filed: 29/10/2002)

Zimbabwe's black middle class lives in a street near you in London, according to one economist, Farai Zizhou. "They spoke with their feet," he said.

On a recent evening at Harare International Airport, an Air Egypt cheap flight to Cairo was full. Hundreds of people milled around the check-ins, all on their way to London.

George Satande, 36, a partner in a pharmacy in Harare's leafiest suburb, manages to pay the bills only because his wife, a nurse, works in London. "It's strenuous trying to make an honest living," he said in an empty restaurant which had run out of a popular brand of beer.

He epitomises middle-class Zimbabwe. He cannot afford to buy a house in the suburbs where he wants to live, and earns the monthly equivalent of four tyres for his Japanese pick-up truck, about £200.

But he has a full-time housekeeper, medical aid, a car he cannot afford to maintain, access to satellite television and will not send his children to the local government school.

"Most of my colleagues have gone. Those who remain, like me, are getting money from outside. We had such dreams. We thought we had a rosy future. Now we do not know how it is going to end." He was among the first batch of pupils at independence in 1980 to be educated at a formerly whites-only high school and he regrets the passing of the educational standards he remembers.

"I have sent one of my kids to my old boarding school, but the fees are a killer."

The better-equipped, formerly whites-only schools charge per term what the genial chemist earns in a month. He has seen the trauma of the past 32 months of land invasions through the deluge of prescriptions for drugs which pass across his counter.

His is the last pharmacy before the once-prosperous Enterprise farming district 30 miles north-east of Harare, now a dust bowl of unkempt barren fields where the green flash of new crops is rare.

The farmers have gone, their workers homeless and destitute. "I have seen farmers with sudden ulcers, asthma, tension-related illnesses. My white customers, the farmers, became my friends. And they have gone or are going.

"I would love to go to Australia, or the UK, but it's difficult. Instead I have a few beers with the guys, watch sport on television, particularly Liverpool."

Farai Zizhou, acting chief executive of the shrinking Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries, said the middle class is largely missing but those who remain earn a maximum of £850 a month.

"We have no foreign investment, unemployment is very high, yet because of the brain drain there is a serious demand for skilled people," he added.

The single middle-class victory has been school uniforms. Earlier this year the government said all children should wear the same uniform. But the chattering classes in the suburbs rattled their supermarket trollies in the malls and won. Children will continue with the British legacy of blazers and grey flannel trousers.

British-educated Matthew Chiweshe (not his real name), 35, married with a 13-year-old daughter at a private school, founded his graphic art studio four years ago and is now the leading designer in the advertising industry.

"Until recently advertising was dominated by whites because of our own sense of inferiority. I have a friend who is important in Zanu PF [the ruling party]. He says I am too 'white', yet when I go to his house, what do I see? Doilies on his tables. Everything in his house is foreign.

"We are messed. It started with colonialism and what is happening on the white farms is part of that. I manage financially. I built a house eight years ago and have a company car and my wife works, but I would like a decent, sound system. I can't afford a holiday overseas."

Hunger does not affect the middle class but they are starting to see it, first hand and uncomfortable. Mr Chiweshe's maid gave him disturbing news the morning we met in a suburban coffee house: "Her sister arrived today. She hadn't eaten for a week, because there isn't any mealie [corn] meal.

"There is obscene wealth in Harare. Where does it comes from?" Mr Chiweshe is not talking about whites, because most have gone.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: africawatch; ambition; class; middle; out; ticket; zimbabwes

1 posted on 10/28/2002 6:14:17 PM PST by blam
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To: Clive
Ping.
2 posted on 10/28/2002 6:14:48 PM PST by blam
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To: blam
I have a friend who is important in Zanu PF.

So which way did he vote?

3 posted on 10/28/2002 6:37:56 PM PST by Flashman_at_the_charge
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To: blam
"Until recently advertising was dominated by whites because of our own sense of inferiority. I have a friend who is important in Zanu PF [the ruling party]. He says I am too 'white', yet when I go to his house, what do I see? Doilies on his tables. Everything in his house is foreign.

I think he's learning first-hand that while all of the animals are equal, some are just more equal than others.

4 posted on 10/28/2002 7:58:40 PM PST by BradyLS
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To: BradyLS
It's sad. He should get out while he can.
5 posted on 10/28/2002 8:00:44 PM PST by BradyLS
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To: blam; *AfricaWatch; Cincinatus' Wife; sarcasm; Travis McGee; happygrl; Byron_the_Aussie; robnoel; ..
-
6 posted on 10/28/2002 8:09:34 PM PST by Clive
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To: BradyLS
Bump.
7 posted on 10/28/2002 8:10:30 PM PST by First_Salute
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To: Clive
Bump!!
8 posted on 10/29/2002 12:27:33 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: blam
"There is obscene wealth in Harare. Where does it comes from?" Mr Chiweshe is not talking about whites, because most have gone.

This man, who doesn't give his real name, surely knows the truth. The *obscene* wealth IS obscene because it comes from plucking the drying bones of Zimbabwe and it's all going into the pockets of his Zanu PF friends.

9 posted on 10/29/2002 5:23:15 AM PST by xJones
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