Love colourless

Perspective Stephen Mpofu
World history is replete with economic and political paradoxes, some bizarre, some tragic and some laughable still. Perhaps the most ludicrous paradox that Zimbabweans will live to recall for a long, long time to come is one that accompanied the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (Esap) in 1990 when the Government sought funding from the international community for Esap to revitalise the country’s kwashiokered economy, and potential donors said they were willing to provide finance as long as Zimbabwe drew water in perforated cans as its part of the bargain.
But what colour was the donors’ love?

More recently countries that imposed harsh illegal economic sanctions on Zimbabwe converted themselves to “Friends of Zimbabwe,” and one would have hoped that the conversion was accompanied by repentance.

But no, their sanctions have continued to bite much more deeply in an apparent bid to make the economy “scream” as a means to exact regime change that the Western countries had hoped would speedily bring down the government of Zanu-PF as a reprisal for its embarking on the fast-track land redistribution and reform programme that has not only empowered blacks resettled on land that they had wanted the most; it has also given Zimbabweans a brave new future as a benefit of the revolution that brought about freedom and independence in 1980.

By what colour can the love of the friends of Zimbabwe be identified?

In some cases powerful financial donors dangle their carrot to the smiling eyes of smaller countries salivating for external financial injection as a fillip for economic growth and with that social development, full-bellies and political stability.

But lo and behold, Big Brother demands the small country’s sovereignty as disposable collateral once the aid is given.
Again, is the colour of love in this case in point black, blue, red, pink or white?

Perhaps the attitude of donors in the case immediately above is influenced by lacklustre politicians in developing countries who scurry around the world seeking their destiny in foreign powers that they woo to carry them on their backs and into power in their native countries because they do not themselves command overwhelming support at home.

These leaders are, tragically, the Trojan horses that smuggle the enemy into their own countries.  But once in the country, especially one that is natural-resources rich, like Zimbabwe and theirs similarly endowed, it becomes difficult to control the enemy, not to mention giving it short shrift for plundering and carting off the country’s riches.

Which is why it is important for African leaders to derive all of their political support locally with external aid needed only to help with enhancing social and economic development.

Moreover, leaders with an insatiable appetite for foreign king-makers, politically are often amenable to visibility aid which really does little to move the wheels of social and economic development in a recipient country apart from merely making a donor country’s presence more visible in the host or recipient country while the bellies of the masses shrink and shrink for want of real development assistance.

Perhaps a worst case scenario of these paradoxes is one whereby a leader who prophesies to love his people goes the whole hog consorting with the people’s enemy on his heart he desperately wants to have his own destiny tattooed and then expects the enemy to shell out its dinheiro (money), like Father Christmas, to the outstretched hands of people that the enemy loathes or probably even likens to “a pack of hateful hyenas cowering besides stagnant pools to lap up water when no wind blows to spread their stink to others,” as one scribe once wrote.

But no, the people, however lowly one might regard them at first, are much too wise not to give their precious mandate at the polls to leaders with wounded heads.

And while technical assistance is known internationally as one of the best forms of aid, some countries have had half-baked so-called “experts” foisted on them but only for the visibility benefits of the donor because the recipient country or countries were so gullible and less circumspect about the kind of aid given to them.

It is known that in a certain African country foreign medical “doctors” had had to be retrained upon arrival in the country that requested them and this should open the eyes of many other donor-recipient countries to prevent them from being lumped up with dubious experts.

In any case, going back to the main theme of this article, aid, whatever its status, has business trappings to it as it is not charity from some Good Samaritans somewhere. It is business with a recipient country having to pay more than what is lent out with interest albeit some of it modest but still money paid in addition to what was given in the first place.

So the haves have an obligation, though not written down but understood all the same, to share their wealth with those that do not have as much, thereby putting their money, or other assistance, where their mouths are as demonstrated by their loud calls at international fora for equity in social and economic development in the global village.