Opinions

Mourning the loss of ‘the Zimbabwe before’

In print | November 1, 2007

What I loved most about my mother’s stories of “The Zimbabwe Before” were the rays of warmth that would stream out of her eyes when describing the Zimbabwean community. The community that she portrayed had the friendliness of Noddy’s town, Toyland, of Enid Blyton’s magical children’s novels. As a child, every grown-up you met was an uncle or aunt whom you simply had not had the pleasure of meeting before. The other children on the streets were siblings with whom you did not have the convenience of living in the same house. For adults, other adults were the people who you could pop over to and borrow hupfu (maize meal) from or leave your front door open to, so that they could watch your pot of sadza on the stove while you went shopping.

The Zimbabweans had pride and strong resilience born from the versatility in their interactions with each other. I think what made the Zimbabwean community prosperous was that there was an unwritten understanding that if the situation was going to get better, it had to get better for everyone. There was an idea that all the bellies in the community had to be full before one could say that he or she was no longer hungry. Whether this mentality is reminiscent of a cultural ethos that is finally catching up to the 21st century or not is irrelevant. What is relevant is that today, this mentality is simply a fading watermark conveyed only in the stories that parents tell their children when describing “The Zimbabwe Before.”

Arguably, the current conditions in Zimbabwe have made it difficult for people to maintain this concept of “collective improvement.” A large percentage of the educated professionals, nurses, doctors, teachers, economists, journalists and the like have left Zimbabwe in order to fill the bellies of their families and themselves. This is because the professionals have realized that with the skills that they have, they can emigrate and provide a better standard of living for their families. The desire to think not only of themselves can be suicidal. The desire to want to stay in Zimbabwe and impart their skills into the community is suicidal because of the current standard of living. The current standard of liiving is exemplified by the fact that the aisles of the majority of supermarkets are bare. “Individual improvement” means survival, “collective improvement” means agony or death.

If we focus only on the Zimbabwean public health sector, the side effects of the current Zimbabwean community’s inability to think of “collective improvement” are the most painful. Almost all specialist doctors in Zimbabwe have had to emigrate in order to survive. As a result, it is not uncommon for people to die of curable conditions or to be misdiagnosed in the miraculous event that they are tended to by a doctor. In the early months of 2005, a vehicle struck my great-grandmother and her leg was badly injured. She was taken to Parirenyatwa Hospital, the main hospital in Harare, the capital, and the first things that my family members were told – even before the routine questions of “Name? Address? Is she allergic to anything?” – was that my family would have to find the bandages and medication needed to treat my grandmother. The nurse, who kindly went a step further than required, hinted that if my family wanted her to be attended to within the week, it would be a good idea for us to try to supply our own doctor because not only was there only one plastic surgeon in Zimbabwe, Parirenyatwa is almost solely run by junior doctors. Maybe this headline from the British newspaper The Telegraph exemplifies the situation better: “Welcome to Zimbabwe’s NHS: where the hospital curtains are used for bandages and Anadin is often the only drug left.”

My question to the 1.2 million members of the Zimbabwean community living in South Africa, the professors and lecturers at various academic institutions, the teachers working as maids in foreign countries and perhaps even students like myself at foreign universities, is this: Are we as guilty as our political leaders of the crime of greedy self-interest if we leave Zimbabwe and concern ourselves solely with our own survival?

I think the majority of Zimbabwean expatriates do think of themselves as being guilty of this crime and you see it in the methods we use to cleanse our consciences. Just as Lady Macbeth washed her hand persistently, Zimbabwean expats try to cleanse their conscience continually. You see it in the courageous articles written by the community in The Zimbabwean (www.thezimbabwean.co.uk – notice the ‘co.uk’ at the end), you see it in the articles posted on www.zimbabwesituation.com and you see the desire to rekindle a sense of community on the numerous blogs about “the good old days.”

Zimbabwean expats also show that they have not forgotten those who have been left behind. Studies conducted by the United Nations have shown that expats throughout Africa send an obscene amount of money back to their extended family remaining in their home countries. In fact, many families in Zimbabwe survive only because their family members in outside countries send money and food home. In South Africa and the United Kingdom, there are companies that are making deliciously obese profits by accepting money from expats and then delivering the goods to the family members back in Zimbabwe.

Who would ever have guessed that the Noddy days would end and that a sense of community, or just wanting to stay in your home country, could be synonymous with a desire to commit suicide?

Perhaps my question should be directed to the ruling elite in Zimbabwe and that is: “What have you done to Zimbabwe?”

Chenge is a first-year. You can reach her at cmahomv1@swarthmore.edu.