Apparently the MDC has said that they’ll write a new constitution when they’re in power. Hmmm. That would like, when? And, in any event, the current constitution makes it very cushy for those in power to stay in power, and what real guarantee do we have that the MDC will be any different from ZPF. We don’t want promises, or assurances. We want a new constitution. Before the next election.

Beit Trust Scholarships for Postgraduate Studies Zimbabwe 2012
Deadline: 31 August 2011

The Beit Trustees offer annually to graduates under the age of 30 (or 35 in the case of experienced medical doctors), who are domiciled in Zimbabwe, four Scholarships for postgraduate studies in your subject of choice to be taken up in the United Kingdom, Ireland or South Africa. In addition, two awards for a one-year taught masters degree will be offered at the University of Leeds, known as the Beit-Leeds Scholarships, one similar award at the University of Reading, known as the Beit-Reading Scholarship and one award for a one-year taught masters degree at Rhodes University, known as the Beit-Rhodes Scholarship.

The extent of a Scholarship is:

* University fees and cost of tuition in UK, Ireland or South Africa
* Personal allowance covering full support
* An economy class air passage for the initial journey to the place of study and return passage when employment is taken up in Zimbabwe

No allowances are paid for spouses or other family members.

Prospective applicants, who must hold a degree class of 2.1 or better, should obtain application requirements from: The Beit Trustees’ Representative, P. O. Box CH 76, Chisipite, Harare. Tel No: +263 4 496132, Fax No.: +263 4 494046 or email: beitrust [at] africaonline [dot] co [dot] zw

Only those applicants who state that they will return to work in Zimbabwe upon completion of the Scholarships, and who can, if short listed present themselves for an interview in Harare towards the middle of December 2011 will be considered.

Men. Poor, sweet babies. Their masculinity threatened by women who earn a decent dollar and live independently. Sistas wear the pants in Kenya. Zimbabwean women in the Diaspora doing it for themselves.

The world arguably needs a new Marx, but it keeps creating Malcolm Gladwells, pirouetting around their flipcharts and ignoring the real problems. More from The Guardian

Got an extreme opinion? Then share it with Rejoice Ngwenya. XO2 is a new e-discussion forum for sharing liberal opinion & life-changing ideas on free markets, effective democracy, property rights, good governance, human, economic and political rights. Email your opinion to epolitrix [at] gmail [dot] com

I’m Neo-Liberal, Like You
Rejoice Ngwenya, XO2 this Wednesday!*

Virulent opponents of neo-liberalism will advance a myriad of ‘empirical evidence’ how this ideology is responsible for Africa’s woes. Central to this diatribe is an argument by leftist ideologues that the continent’s economic decay was triggered by our succumbing to IMF-prescribed ‘neo-liberal’ Structural Adjustment Programs. I have listened with a keen sense of bewilderment when so-called pan-Africans froth at the mouth laying the blame on this ideology even for Africa’s inability to mitigate natural disasters!

According to Wikipedia, neo-liberalism is used “to describe an internationally prevailing ideological paradigm that leads to social, cultural, and political practices and policies that use the language of markets, efficiency, consumer choice, transactional thinking and individual autonomy to shift risk from governments and corporations onto individuals and to extend this kind of market logic into the realm of social and affective relationships.”   So what is it about such pleasant ideology that African intellectuals find revolting? Or it is a case of whenever a political system appears to challenge nationalist dogma; it is easy to blame it in on ‘agents of Bretton Woods institutions’! Whenever habitual critics of liberalism are sobered down to rational debate, one gets horrified that their paranoia is founded on populist conjecture rather than facts. Such critics, given a chance, would slide into gluttonous self-abandonment only equal to those they label as ‘capitalist pigs’!

If you are African, and you consider as repulsive the brand of economic models that sent countries of Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda and Robert Mugabe to the gutter, you are a liberal like me! Liberalism is, at least from a simplistic world view, a natural instinct of true democrats. Those who resent a life of excessive state control, rabid public expenditure and populist subsidies; and who love to choose goods and services in an open market, believing that individual liberties are supreme – are on my side of the liberal ideological divide.

Fine, all types of economic systems are susceptible to failure yet critics of neo-liberalism from ‘troubled’ African countries would rather do exile in ‘liberal’ Europe than ‘socialist’ Cuba. Classical hypocrisy! In South Africa, ANC party hardliners who want to rub hot pepper on political competitors first accuse them of ‘neo-liberal’ tendencies. If you really wanted to be accepted in the circle of the ‘concerned social beings’, the fashionable thing is to label someone a member of the ‘neo-liberal’ Democratic Alliance. Simply because the DA is ‘led by a white’, there is very little effort required to disown us African liberals as agents of ‘Apartheid imperialism’!

In Zimbabwe, liberalism is associated not only with social injustice and collapse of social service infrastructure, but also corporate failure. The ‘hottest’ case at the moment is imminent demise of ReNaissance Merchant Bank largely due to corruptive bad governance. As a liberal, I insist that free market economy laws take precedence and ‘allow’ this bank to close before the contagion of incompetence spreads. Going the ‘Obama route’ of dispensing public funds to bail out blatant greed is blight to liberal ideology.

Adam Haupt, a Mail & Guardian blogger recently wrote: “If it [DA] wants to claim that it has broken with its racially divisive past, then it should take a long and hard look at its own neo-liberal economic policies.” He continues: “The real way to build an inclusive society is to ensure that all people are involved in securing social justice. You cannot leave it to the market to generate a better life for all…”

According to this Haupt school of thought, neo-liberalism is a scenario where heartless free market policies isolate the poor blacks, abandons them to suffer in silence, discarding them to endure the vagaries of white capitalist greed! This is the tragedy with so-called African ‘liberation scholars’. They are purveyors of radical activist paranoia that drives innocent citizens towards leftist dogma with senseless accusations of an ideology they choose to misunderstand.

State-run companies Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority, National Railways Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation are basically bankrupt. People of Matebeleland and Manicaland are persistently mourning how Harare has ‘centralised’ every aspect of national governance thus resulting in ‘marginalisation’. If you strongly feel that citizens in those regions be allowed to exploit and distribute their own local resources, you are a liberal like me who believes in devolution.

Human rights activist Elinor Sisulu is quoted:”South Africans must take note from Zimbabwe that media freedom is not just a liberal democratic notion, but a matter of life and death.” Progressive Zimbabweans are mourning about ZANU-PF’s hegemonic hold on public media. Zimbabwe boasts some of the most repressive media laws in the world, with no local private radio or television station. And so if you strongly feel citizens must be free to operate their own local broadcast networks, you are, after all, neo-liberal like me!

Yo!

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