IQ Debates
Britain has failed Zimbabwe
18th September, 2007Intelligence² audience confirms 455 to 203 votes in favour of the motion.
The motion was carried 455 to 203 in the hall. Online the voting currently stands at 57% yes, 42% no. If you want to vote, please do so by clicking on the button on the right.
You can read a review of the debate from The Spectator’s theatre critic Lloyd Evans here.
Speakers for the motion:
R W Johnson, South African Rhodes Scholar and for many years a Fellow in Politics at Magdalen College, Oxford. He returned to South Africa in 1995 as director of the Helen Suzman Foundation which he ran for six years. Heavily involved in Zimbabwean affairs, he carried out the first (and only) proper political opinion surveys ever conducted there from1998 to 2002. His most recent book is South Africa: The First Man, the Last Nation.
Peter Godwin, prize-winning Zimbabwean writer and documentary maker. Godwin is a former foreign correspondent for The Sunday Times and the author of Mukiwa: A White Boy in Africa, a memoir about growing up in Southern Rhodesia in the 1960s and 1970s, as the former British colony collapsed to become Zimbabwe. His latest book When A Crocodile Eats The Sun details the ebbing of his father's life, set against the backdrop of modern-day Zimbabwe's apocalyptic decline.
Tendai Biti MP, co-founder and Secretary-General of the Movement for Democratic Change, the main opposition party in Zimbabwe. In 1988 and 1989, Biti led student protests against government censorship in academia. In March 2007, he was arrested after a prayer rally along with many other members of the MDC.
Speakers against the motion:
David Coltart MP, human rights lawyer and the Movement for Democratic Change's Secretary for Legal Affairs and Shadow Minister for Justice and Legal Affairs. He fights passionately in Parliament and the courts for justice and human rights in Zimbabwe.
John Makumbe, senior lecturer in political science at the University of Zimbabwe. Makumbe is co-author of Behind the Smokescreen: The Politics of Zimbabwe’s 1995 General Elections. He is actively involved in civic action and a human rights campaigner of international reputation.
Chenjerai Hove, Zimbabwean-born, widely published poet, novelist and columnist living in self-exile in Norway. In 1989 his novel, Bones, won the Africa Book of the Year, and in 2001 he was awarded the German-Africa Prize for Freedom of Expression and Social Justice by the German-Africa Foundation for his newspaper columns. He is a founding board member of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association and currently guest writer of the City of Stavanger in Norway.
The debate will be chaired by Richard Lindley writer, author, and veteran television reporter and presenter. He reported from every continent while working for ITN before joining BBC's Panorama where he was the first western television journalist to interview Saddam Hussein.
Past events
Advertisement
sponsored links
Test Drive a Land Rover
Great choice of versatile vehicles for the drive of your life..
