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Friday 9 January 2009

A Matter for Debate

Lloyd Evans reports from the inaugural Spectator / Intelligence Squared debate and finds that he is still undecided on the question of whether or not Britain has failed Zimbabwe.

Peter Godwin, a Zimbabwean journalist, opened in support of the motion with an unsettling quip: ‘If we were in Zimbabwe you wouldn’t be able to go to supper until till you’d voted the right way.’ Listing Britain’s historic failures he described how colonial disengagement was cooked up by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and in particular by its snobbish mandarins who looked down on the white settlers and didn’t believe them capable of governing themselves. The rushed process of decolonisation led directly to Ian Smith’s act of rebellion. And Britain’s neglect didn’t end there. Even while Mugabe’s mass killings were being reported in The Sunday Times (Godwin knows about this, he was the reporter) the dictator was being feted by the British establishment, given an honorary degree from Edinburgh University and, in 1994, a knighthood.

In reply we heard from John Makumbe, a Zimbabwean lecturer in politics. A large man with a quiet and powerful presence he outlined the achievements of British aid in Zimbabwe. He spoke of irrigation programmes, action on human rights and successful campaigns against sexually transmitted diseases. ‘This has made Zimbabwean women the top users of the female condom in Africa,’ he said. Pause. Twinkly smile. ‘I hope that’s not including my wife. She has no business using one. I’ll call her later.’

Next up Tendai Biti, an opposition MP, who took issue with Makumbe’s reassuring words and joked that he should collect ‘a commission for doing a fine propaganda job on behalf of the Foreign Office’. Biti drew our attention to the scale of the crisis. There are shortages of everything. Life expectancy is 34. With inflation at 12,000% Zimbabwe makes the Weimar Republic look like a model of fiscal rectitude. He blamed Britain for the Lancaster House conference which had been ‘marred with blunders’ and had created ‘a loose dishonest constitution’. A disproportionate influence over government was given to the tiny 1% white minority. And worst of all, the constitution failed to limit the terms served by its presidents. Mugabe has profited from all these shortcomings. 

Then a complete change of accent and mood with Chenjerai Hove, a columnist and poet living in Norway. He pared everything down to dramatic simplicities. What is the point, he said, of ejecting an oppressor if you retain the tools of oppression? ‘Go away, but let me keep your prisons, your handcuffs and your secret police.’ He argued graphically that Zimbabweans should take responsibility for themselves. ‘In 1980 Prince Charles gave us our flag and the right to manage our affairs. We didn’t expect bed and breakfast as well.’ And he read a stark, moving poem which concentrated the blame in one direction. ‘On your way to the house of power you left footprints of blood … a trail of widows, a trail of orphans, a trail of pain.’

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