Saturday 9 June 2012

When the Natives Are Restless

23 April 2000

Dear friends


Words cannot express how good it is to be back home after having spent four days in Johannesburg. It is always good to see the beautiful city lights for a change. To go to the cinema, eat out a few times and browse through the ever more wonderful stores of the Golden City’s beautiful malls. But only for about two days...

After that, one just becomes tired of all the noise, of having to breathe air that you can see. Air which leaves a thin, sticky black film on your car. With crime everywhere these days, Johannesburg makes an interesting little study for those interested in the behaviour of domesticated wildlife. I visited some distant family members who live in a pretty descent neighbourhood. They live in a large, well-burglar-proofed house, yet have been robbed several times over the last two years. Even the washing is stolen off the washing lines, so it can’t be hung outside anymore. They now have garden services to keep the garden in order, because all their tools and lawn-movers have been stolen twice.

They say they lock the security doors behind them when going to check the mailbox – and only when there are other people around to watch out for them. The lady of the manor saw two or three black figures sneaking around to her back door a few weeks ago, armed with a pistol. She called the police, and they arrived in full force, even with a helicopter. They told her she did the right thing, and added that they were “itching to shoot somebody” that morning. The thugs that would probably have attempted to break in, managed to escape...

These good folks have been trying to sell their nice home for quite some time now, but nobody wants to buy big homes except at give-away prices. Their daughter and son-in-law have just had their fourth car stolen. One family I met told me that they had been waiting eight months to get into a descent cluster home in a security complex. No shortage of regular homes, but a big demand for secure living areas.

The millionaire mansions of Johannesburg I drove past are beautiful to look at, but you just can’t seen them anymore. All hidden behind very high walls with electric fences and razor wire on top. Security gates with closed circuit TV cameras peeking down at you. Ferocious dogs, patrolling the immaculate gardens of the high and mighty. Private security firms waiting on the street corners, 24 hours a day, waiting for an incident to happen, since the police just don’t have the money, the manpower, or in many cases – the will – to respond anymore.

Middle-class people can’t afford this, of course, so they mostly put their trust in their insurance and hope that the neighbour’s house looks more inviting than their own. And what do the poor do? They rob the rich, and then rob each other for sport, profit or survival, whichever comes first.
An urgent warning from a crime-weary home-owner in a Johannesburg street that I drove past often.


Another friend I saw in Johannesburg, never drives or goes out without his .45 Glock at his side. It sleeps under his cushion. And I didn’t need to ask what the pickaxe handle with the leather thong around one end, next to his bedroom door was for. I just knew: Here was one person who was determined not to become a victim or one of our national statistics.

So. Now you know. It really is good to be home again! But having driven home on Friday was another challenge. It being “Good Friday,” thousands upon tens of thousands of people have been streaming out to go on their “Easter holidays.” This is a time when the natives like to celebrate a religious holiday which has no bearing on their own faith, by getting rip-roaring drunk and fighting or killing each other for any good reason they can think of.

The neighbour-doctor came to say “hello” last night. He said he had been sewing up knife-wounds, patching broken limbs, and tending to wounds inflicted by chain-beatings and broken-off bottle necks, from four that afternoon until four am. During all this time, he saw only one single case which wasn’t violence-related. He says he is getting desperately tired of having to sew up people that act irresponsibly and then demand treatment without either paying or thanking him for it.

But then, he gets a small salary and plenty of experience so that foreign hospitals will have a greater demand for him in the future. No wonder he is really good with his hands. He gets a lot of practise. His hobby is making rifle stocks from solid blocs of wood, using only chisels, files and a single drill-press. He says the principles are basically the same as those applied in orthopaedic surgery. It keeps his fingers sharp and his creativity honed.

Back home, there was more adventure waiting. The dogs had chased a mongoose into an outside toilet, and it was squealing insults at the canine house-defenders and daring them to do something about his presence. I had a guest who came along for the weekend, and he first walked into this unfamiliar, furry little creature full of bad attitude, and then squashed a very sticky tree frog that was sitting on the handle of his door handle as he tried to close the door to his room. Both resulted in yelps of surprise and alarm.

The next morning my sister (who is also visiting for the weekend), unknowingly stepped over a snake in front of our folks’ kitchen door. It was a spitting cobra, which immediately reared up, flattened its head, and began hissing and swaying, daring anyone to come within striking range. With no men-folk around at that time, my mom had to beat the life out of it, while grandma gave instructions and lamented the fact that she couldn’t beat it herself, owing to arms full or arthritis. Such is life on the frontier. You think you get away from trouble by leaving the city, and then you run into trouble of a different kind – literally at your doorstep.

I was spat in the eyes by an Egyptian spitting cobra quite a long time ago, and it is no fun at all. Try to imagine someone dripping Tabasco sauce into your eyes, and you get some idea of what it is like. For some reason we had lots of those critters where I grew up. After we’d moved out of the old house where I was born and my grandparents moved in there, Grandpa killed 27 snakes in that house in one year. No wonder we got so used to snakes. 


They say snakes and bad luck favours certain people. Of course, sometimes you’re just asking for trouble. Like this morning. I heard some voices a distance downstream, and went to investigate. Some young fools were playing in the Elephants River. Loudly shouting, laughing and shrieking with delight as they ran in and out of the river, pelted each other with clay and sand, and generally doing what excited people like to do on a Sunday morning’s outing. They obviously had not seen the big black crocodile that was lying on the sandbanks, one hundred metres from that same spot, earlier this week. That one was more than big enough to make a mid-morning snack out of a full grown man.

In fact, the crocks have been fairly visible these last few days, and a family of hippos was lying just a short distance downstream. But as if crocks and hippos hadn’t been enough, they also seemed to have forgotten about the meanest critter of them all: the lowly little bilharzia snail. The creepy little bug that gets passed on to human through contact with water, is so small that it enters through the skin, and then multiplies in your liver and makes you quite ill.

Modern drugs can kill bilharzia quite efficiently, but these people will probably return to wherever they had come from, and by the time they get sick, it might take a long time for their doctors to put two and two together, and find out that they’ve got bilharzia. In Southern Africa, all rivers that flow east carry bilharzia. That’s just the way things work. So for reasons of dangerous critters and common sense one would do best to stay out of the lowveld rivers.

Speaking about the Elephants River – if you care to disregard this advice and swam up the river for a few miles, and then turn off to your right, that’s where two more people had been murdered on their farms this week. A farmer and his wife – as usual. Just two more statistics. “Havs,” killed by the “Have-nots” because they were farmers, and had more material possessions than others. This African thought pattern keeps on repeating itself over and over.

Even among themselves: You never build a nicer house than your tribal chief, because then you’d get into trouble. The rich are always hated, and those that have moderately more than others, are regarded with suspicion, jealousy and are despised. Occasionally murdered too, after which they are relieved of their possessions. No wonder so many animals are camouflaged out here: In Africa it pays to maintain low profile.

So what’s happening in Zimbabwe this week? Well, only what has finally been shown on international news recently: some white farmers murdered, held up, assaulted, beaten, kidnapped, and one or two of their wives raped in a country which has up to 80% HIV infection rates.

More farmhouses have been burnt down, and loyal black farm workers have also been widely attacked, beaten and their homes burnt down. The classic definition of democracy in Africa is as follows: “Democracy is the right to intimidate others until they agree with you.”

A lot of farmers have been sending their families across the border to farms in our area, where they have been sympathetically welcomed by strange farmers. Meanwhile, most of the white farmers seemed to have evacuated their farms and moved to the safety of the big towns and cities. They’ve come together in groups of five, and are desperately trying to maintain some kind of a presence in order that their farms won’t be completely swamped. Already no farmers have planted their winter crops, and they are threatening to burn down their own dried and ready tobacco harvests – the country’s main source of income.


President Robert Mugabe has branded all white farmers as “enemies of the state” and has said that they deserved what they got, for having been the cause of his failed land reform programme. He doesn’t mention though, that nearly three-quarters of the foreign aid donated for his country’s land-redistribution programme, has gone into his own pocket, and those of his officials and that he is personally probably the biggest landowner in the country. Or that while the blacks occupy the vast majority of farmland, the infinitely small number of whites of the country, feed virtually the whole of Zimbabwe...

The situation there is interesting. Mugabe has to hold the new general elections within two months, and the feeling is that he won’t win unless he pulls a grand coup of sorts. The man who has bragged as being the “richest man in Africa” and has become a virtual military dictator, is in danger of losing his seat. He seems to be playing a very dicey game, though.

Zimbabwe used to be one of the only three success stories in Africa, but over the last ten years, he has single-handedly ruined it. The Zimbabwe dollar is pegged artificially at about 35 US cents, but in reality it has become worthless. Their inflation rate is 60%. They continue to face severe fuel shortages, and owe the South African electricity supply company 108 million Rands in unpaid bills.

It seems that he has simple stacked everything on one card: If he loses the gamble, he can retire to Cuba, Libya, Iraq, South Africa, or perhaps even to his castles in Britain or Europe, and live his life in unimaginable wealth. If he wins, he gets to steal his country blind for another couple of years. At the same time, he gets to ruin his worst personal enemies. I was told way back in 1988 already that he harbours a bitterness and a hatred against white people that knows no reason.

It gets even more bizarre, though: The only independent newspaper in the country has also received death threats and has been bombed yesterday – believed to be the work of Mugabe’s army. The latest news is that Mugabe has ordered the squatters to pull out again, but no-one’s listening, and Mugabe is only smiling at this. The Farmer’s Union are saying that Mugabe is supplying the AK 47 machine guns that the land-grabbers are armed with, and is still giving them every assistance in their task.

I know a farmer up there who has been driven off his farm three times already. Each time when he moves off, so do the squatters – in order to go and occupy new farms. The moment the farmer moves back, so do the squatters! That poor man and his wife are quite old already. If they lose their land, they won’t be able to sell their home or equipment, or even take their money with them when they leave. They will have absolutely nothing in the world, and be too old to make a new beginning. It is really quite sad.

Meanwhile, the farmers have been queuing up at the British consulate to apply for British citizenship. Britain has said it is prepared to fly out British descendants, and will evacuate them militarily if needs be. Those that have had no recent British ancestors will have a massive problem: Where will they go and who will take them with no money? They now own fairly worthless farms, previously worth large amounts of money, but Mugabe won’t let them take their saving out of the country. Their money has become worthless anyway, and many of them are too old to make a new beginning elsewhere. Even worse, is the fate that might face their loyal black workers who will have to stay behind.


But let’s just ask how this has been possible? How could a nation of several million blacks, hold up a mere 1,000 white farmers hostage, and claim that they’ve stolen most of the country from under them? How do they get away with it, and how did they manage to drive these men and women off their land? Well, in the early 1990's Mugabe virtually disarmed his citizens, except for a few professional hunters and farmers, who were allowed a small number of firearms. When they were attacked, they simply had no means of fighting back against AK 47 assault rifles!

The few hunting weapons that have survived are woefully inadequate. More disconcerting to me, is the fact that the South African government is desperately trying to finally push through firearm legislation that will be even worse than that of neighbouring Zimbabwe. The unofficial object is to disarm the country as much as possible, in the vain expectation that this will end violence. Of course, those of us who know better, realize that this will only strengthen the position of despotic governments, and have no positive influence on crime. We believe the disarmament drive is for dark political reasons, rather than crime-prevention.

South African politicians have long been clamouring for the same kind of thing to happen in South Africa. Squatters in the eastern Transvaal and the Cape have already threatened to follow Mugabe’s example, and have made a half-hearted attempt near Wakkerstroom. Quite simply put: Mugabe wants to enrich himself by stealing land, and wants to buy votes with it. So do our own government members, and so have others throughout history. The Zimbabwean experiment is in my view, a very significant sign for southern Africa’s future.

Having said this, it is perhaps good to think of what Thomas Jefferson once said: “No man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”

The strange thing is that all this time, the South African government has maintained a thunderous silence on the entire matter, despite heavy criticism from even our most liberal media. When the presidents of Namibia, South Africa, and Mozambique came together two days ago for a peace-meeting in Victoria Falls, they uttered not a single negative word about Mugabe’s land-grabbing. In fact, they concluded the meeting by saying that they had full confidence in Mugabe’s upholding of the law!

Yet, he is still defying his own high court and his own laws which have twice ruled that the squatters have no legal claims to the land, and have to be evicted. He still continues with hate-speech, inciting hatred, sanctioning violence and spreading a spirit of racism in a country that used to be one of the most peaceful in Africa.

Today however, comes the most astounding news: Mugabe has finally agreed to start cutting back on his land-grabbing, inflammatory rhetoric and to hold the expected elections. In exchange for what? Well, in a deal brokered by South Africa’s president – Britain, Europe and America have agreed to fund his land-reform programme, and that the IMF will make hundreds of millions of Rands in loans available to Mugabe once more, as well as certain other favours.


Somehow I can’t help but come to the conclusion that Mugabe has won the game quite nicely. His gamble seems to be paying off. He held up his own citizens as hostages, dared and defied the entire world, and then watched with great satisfaction as they gave in and meekly paid up on the ransom. Of course, he gets even more than just a moral victory: With millions that could come pouring into his country again, his bank accounts in Switzerland and Liechtenstein will probably respond very buoyantly, and if he gets to make a few promises and throw a few millions at the right officials, he’ll get more votes too.

South Africa president Thabo Mbeki, Joachin Chissano of Mozambique and Sam Nujoma (the Namibian president with an eight grade education), has today called Mugabe a “champion of the rule of law” and praised him as being “committed to ending the violence” – [which he had caused in the first place!]

Oh well. The Zimbabwean story has been predicted a long time ago. Last night on South Africa TV, a Zimbabwean farmer was interviewed. I conclude this topic with his words: “Where to now? A living in Botswana perhaps? South Africa is out of the question, because indications are that the same will eventually happen there too...” Indeed, some of us have long suspected that Mugabe, Mbeki and Nujoma have been working together very closely, and share the same goals. Time will tell...

Well, all of this has been a bit of serious news so far. Amid all of the gloom and doom, however, there is still plenty to smile about. Like yesterday morning, for instance. Members of the local ultra-light aeroplane club like to fly up and down the Elephants river in the early mornings. This, for some reason, really freaks out the poor cats. A few days ago they decided that the safest place to hide from aerial attack was in the engine compartments of motorcars.

As before, the white cat dove underneath my car yesterday, only to emerge with quite a lot of oil and grease on its coat when all was safe again. This seems to be becoming a regular thing now, and it seems to me that I can count the number of aerial passes, by the amount of oil smudges on the poor, frightened white cat’s fur. I tried washing them a while ago, but it doesn’t help much and the cats absolutely abhor the experience, so I’ve given up.

Let the cats have their fun! One of these days I’ll get to a place where I can get the engine cleaned with water which is not as corrosive as the water that we have here, and get that old oil washed off on one side of the engine. Until then, I bid you good-bye and hope you’ll have a wonderful week.

As always,
Herman

Picture of Joseph with his new washing machine. When after years of good service it finally died, Joseph asked if he could have the corpse. He said he knew “a doctor who will know how to fix it.” So he loaded it onto a wheelbarrow, and cheerfully disappeared into the bush with it. I was just in time to grab a camera and snap the moment. There was no time for a flash or anything, that’s why it is dark and grainy.

I’ve often wondered how Joseph got that big machine to his home, for it was an old washing machine, extremely heavy and it must have been quite a job transporting the machine along game trails through the thorny bush. Somehow he must have forgotten that the machine needs electricity, and I didn’t want to spoil the moment by telling him.


It reminded me of a cartoon of Hagar the Horrible, though. It shows his wife, Helga, pounding a pile of washing with a big rock, with the twisted remains of a washing machine below it. In the speech bubble she angrily mumbles more-or-less the following: “Hagar always buys me useless gifts. Some labour saving device, this has turned out to be!”

No comments:

Post a Comment