After the SADC Summit in South Africa this week, the media carried differing interpretations of the results of the meeting. Reports were seen to concentrate more on which party proved best, who got embarrassed, or whom the SADC team least liked. Analysts however, have said that the ordinary Zimbabwean emerged the winner from the recent SADC Summit. Read the story here

From Pambazuka:

Helen Zille the leader of the DA in South Africa believes that uprisings are no longer necessary. She says that there is more power in the vote! An excerpt of the speech reads: “One day, May 18 will be regarded as a turning point for our democracy. It will be seen as the day that South Africa started to move beyond race, the day our democracy progressed to the next level,” said Zille at Frischgewaagd in the North West.

She said she chose Frischgewaagd to celebrate Youth Day because it was the first ward with no white voters where the DA won in the recent local government elections. “We are celebrating June 16 here because this election result represents a watershed, not only for the DA or for Frischgewaagd, or even the North West – but for South Africa,” she said.

“Because we now live in a constitutional democracy, we do not need uprisings to bring change. We all have the power of the vote. And you, here in this far corner of this province, have used your power to bring the change you want to see.”

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There are many reasons why the so-called “Mthwakazians” are a butt of many Zimbabwean political jokes, and you just have to ask yourself why the fight for a separate state or whatever keeps them in the papers is being taken to other “people from the region” who decided to follow their own political beliefs. You can see it here where the Speaker of Parliament, who they refer as “Laughmore”, is ridiculed by “Mthwakazians” who expect him to be in their corner simply because he is “from the region.”

And we read the other, the recently released Paul Siwela, demanding to meet President Robert Mugabe, but we all know the old man has other “more pressing” issues like how to cheat Father Time and remain a sprightly octogenarian for the forced poll. That the issues raised by federalists, devolutionists and other fringe pro-Matabeleland activists are legitimate, you just have to question their political savvy.

Whatever anyone’s feelings, one can only say that Zanu PF has changed Zimbabwe. And whatever anyone feels about land redistribution, it has changed Zimbabwe’s economy. In some far reaching, and unexpected ways.

They have destroyed cheap labour.

While trying to avoid any value judgement on this subject (i.e. is it good or bad?), can I just point out how, and what might need to be done to survive. While I know most ‘cheap labour’ cannot read any of this (it is not mass available), the ‘common people’ are whom I am addressing. The working class. Those people who make a living (or try to) by selling their physical power, their labour, their energy, their daily effort.

The message is, get skilled, or get more skills. The days of cheap labour, the days of a need for unskilled human energy, are over. Labour is no longer going to be cheap, and industry, society, the economy, can no longer afford it.

The only reason labour can be sold cheaply, is because food is cheap. And that is no longer the case. Since large scale commercial farming (itself built on cheap labour) is dead, food is no longer cheap. We can see a majority of food is imported, therefore, most food will now cost the same as it costs in Germany, China, Peru, Australia, the UK, North America, etc. and it is expensive there. Last time I was in Perth, West Australia (for my father’s 70th), chicken cost 8 times what it cost in Harare. And West Australia is a cheap food exporter. Most other food around the world is the same cost. In much the same way, my electricity bill is less than half of my friends summer (he lives in Scotland) bill there.

So, the days when you can feed yourself by being a maid or gardener, or factory floor sweeper, messenger, gate guard, or any ‘unskilled’ labour, are over. And the ability to pay schools fees, feed a whole family, get transport, ZESA, water…. is over.

The amount of jobs for maids, or messengers, will be the same here as they are in the UK, i.e. there are none. Only a small niche, of very wealthy people, can afford maids, or house keepers overseas. And then, they are called ‘butlers’, or some such rarefied term. A messenger boy in Australia (my father in Perth) provides his own car. They are skilled. They provide their own tools. They work all hours. They run themselves as a business.

Not simply, ‘been mowing a lawn for 16 years, so need a raise’. Labour will have to be sold for a very specific purpose. And it will have to compete with many other labourers, who are physically as strong, and therefore able to do the same job. What do you have that makes you stand out? That makes you a better employment prospect than the next person? Mowing the lawn, as an occupation, will be taken over by gardening services. And if you cannot mow 13 lawns in a day, you will lose to someone who can. Gardeners, and all that sort of work, will no longer be paid, just to be there.

You cannot expect to sell something, “because I need the money”. You will have to sell something that is valuable, that people need and want, that is better than what the next guy is selling. There is no surplus cash out there in the market for people to afford to be generous. And ‘assist’ because of YOUR condition. Their condition, and what they had to do to get the money, will make the money more valuable. So you have to offer something valuable to get it. You must be able to mow the lawn, sweep the floor, guard the gate, better than the next person.

As the cost of living goes up (because cheap food has been destroyed), the wage a cheap labourer needs to survive must go up. And in order to get a higher wage, more work, more output, more value, has to be seen by the employer. Because she is suffering the same constraints. Her income is not increasing! So employers will employ less labour, and there will be more competition for those, fewer, ‘cheap labour’ jobs out there.

So, my conclusion, my message, is get skilled or starve. Thanks to Zanu PF, this is what they have liberated us to.

And get involved in your governance. It is your life they are playing with.

Just been going through online comments on the death of former Zambian President Chiluba who “died on the early hours of Saturday [18 June] morning.” The comments are from Zambians themselves and you get the sense that politicians do indeed change how the ordinary African folk – despite all the pretence – approach the concept of ubuntu.

Death, we are always told, is a realm where the living remain “too careful” about what they mouth concerning the dead, and it is all somewhat attached to our umbilical origins that “this is not how our forefathers taught us.” If anything candid at all is ever said, it is within private exchanges in pubs, diplomatic circles etc. But when you get it in writing despite being anonymous, you cannot have it any better than that.  It is interesting therefore that this is one of those few interpretations of existence where African Traditional Religion seeks to have common ground with Christian mythology despite criticism of the early missionaries that they saw all things African as inherently demonic. But who cares, we all live and die! Still, hey, you don’t speak ill of the dead, it just doesn’t jell, we all apparently know that: Ask Cont Mhlanga who tried it at the death of Mackey Tickeys but was soon eating his words! Yet over the years, the death of some political gladiators has been met by ordinary folks jettisoning these ages old strictures and speaking their mind about the dead chap.

So it has been with the Zambians concerning the death of the man once celebrated for representing the people’s pro-democracy movement from that anti-colonialist/nationalist time-warp to 21st century popular democracy. It is interesting in itself to note that shift from the traditional form of reader opinions censored in “family newspapers” [way before the advent of online press] has found unfettered expression online, and no doubt no “independent” newspaper would dare publish sentiments that have emerged in the aftermath of Chiluba’s death. Yet it provides many lessons and reminders about other presidents concerning how their exit from this wretched earth will be recalled in their death. For a peek of what Zambians had to say, you can check it out here. You will laugh, you will cry, you will understand the people’s “grief.”

For example one wrote: “Chiluba was a leader, good at first but later treated us like idiots. He became master dilibler, crooke and everything that caused pain to us. Grabbed somebodys wife e.t.c. Thts wht we shud be saying after death no one shud become a saint after death. We need to be real. MHSRP”.

Another added: “Let him meet his maker. he had the opportunity to take this country to great height but he became greedy. he allowed his love of women and money get the better of him whilst pretending to be a born again christian. that is the worst hypocrisy! we will now see all those that he gave money queuing up to sing praises…at the end of the day he was a thief of the Zambian treasury, a husband to Regina, a pain to Vera, a father to Vera;s children and a few others we wont mention. He has gone to meet people like Paul Tembo, Ronald Penza, wezi kaunda, Ngenda the lawyer who all died mysteriously, Levy mwanawasa…his day of judgement is here. jah rule!”

And for us Zimbabweans we just have to throw-back to a week ago for Tekere obituaries, and have to wonder what will be said about his remaining erstwhile comrades. Bad governance, kleptomania, human rights abuses have all bred traits among “ordinary” Africans that have inverted ages-old traditions that orbit around seeking to understand and coming to terms with death – especially that of politicians. One only has to recall how the death of Laurent Kabila was greeted in the streets of this country and the reaction of a chap named Chenjerai Hunzvi before he knew of course that his own end was nigh.

Sad indeed.