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Sacrifice for whose bigger picture?
Leigh Price
October 01, 2004

People ask why we don't sacrifice for the bigger picture. The problem is, whose bigger picture? The problem is, ZANU PF may be violently abusing its people but the alternative seems just a bleak. All activists who currently 'fight' for Zimbabwe would, if Zimbabwe was peaceful, be fighting another cause - no doubt the cause would be the same as that of other activists the world over - the fight against the neo-colonial, globalising tendencies of the current world order. Remember Seattle? Remember the anger with regard the world trade organisation, the world bank, etc. The problem is, that Zimbabwe is probably the only country in the world currently refusing to enter into a co-dependent relationship with these organisations. At huge personal cost to its people, yes. But, we are still doing it; admittedly in an abusive, poorly planned, desperate way. To put it bluntly, in peaceful times, the anti government activists in Zimbabwe would be fighting for the same things that the Zimbabwean government is currently fighting for. Our agendas are not that different.

Because we seem to only think in opposites, should MDC get into power, it seems it would immediately return Zimbabwe to the fold, a servant to the Western economies, providing raw materials, cheap labour, easy markets and places to dump their toxic waste. Like any good servant, we'd get 'looked after' should we do this. But do Zimbabweans want servant status, no matter how safe this might be? Surely we can come up with a creative alternative; surely we do not HAVE to choose between these two extremes? It is the idea that we do indeed have to choose, that I believe is creating the apathy in Zimbabwe at the moment.

What we need is a politics which allows people to have both, which would allow Zimbabweans to proudly stand apart from the Western countries and refuse the worst aspects of globalisation, yet to do this in a way that is not repressive. Unfortunately, the deep polarisation of Zimbabwe at the moment, between pro and anti government stances, refuses the possibility of discussion that might allow a unified vision. We need to stop hating each other. This means really listening to government, to hear their side of things; as well as insisting that we are ourselves heard. The NGO bill makes perfect sense to a government trying to prevent the country being colonised by the agendas of the aid/donor organisations, a government who can think of no other way to stop the colonisation than with violence, and who are so full of fear that they are blinded to the good that many of the NGO's do. The agendas (of some, though not all, donor organisations funding NGOs) really are a problem (speak to any Zimbabwean who has tried to get money from an AID organisation for a project - years ago, as a student at UZ, I remember the joke about US AID - its symbol of a hand shake being reinterpreted as "the hand that won't let go"!) Perhaps, if we could admit some similar concerns, we could offer some other ways to avoid the harmful effects of aid, ways which do not infringe human rights. I am in no way an apologist for the current ZANU PF approach to government, but I think that if we could listen to them just a little, stop vilifying them, and say, 'OK - yes - you have a point', perhaps we could begin a dialogue and perhaps, through discussion, we could find a way forward that we could all follow with a full and sure heart.

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