Black History Season 2011

The Diaspora, an indispensable member of the Zim family

By Chofamba Sithole

The ongoing constitutional reform exercise comes at a time when there’s been a marked transformation in the spatial distribution of the Zimbabwean nation. Estimates vary, but there’s a general consensus that up to a quarter of Zimbabwe’s population – over three million people – now live in exile.

The Zimbabwean Diaspora is scattered across four continents, but with discernible concentrations in South Africa and the United Kingdom.

Driven by the country’s protracted economic and political crisis to seek opportunities and refuge elsewhere, Zimbabweans in exile have nonetheless remained connected with their homeland.

The majority lead parallel lives in which they exert themselves emotionally and materially to sustain livelihoods both in their countries of domicile as well as in Zimbabwe.

These binding ties mean that the Diaspora, quite rightly, considers himself an intrinsic and indispensable member of the Zimbabwean family and not merely a disparate person who traces his or her origins to Zimbabwe.

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Diaspora can also discuss new constitution

(IRIN) – The parliamentary committee in charge of reviewing Zimbabwe’s constitution is actively inviting feedback and recommendations from the millions of Zimbabweans living abroad.

“Our resources could not permit us to travel all over the world to solicit the views of Zimbabweans on the contents of the draft constitution; this meant that we could only conduct outreach programmes in Zimbabwe,” a co-chair of the Select Committee of Parliament on the New Constitution, Edward Mkhosi, told IRIN.

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Stay put, Zimbabweans tell diasporans in survey

(The Zimbabwe Independent) – MORE than eight in every 10 formally employed workers in Zimbabwe will not encourage their relatives in the Diaspora to come back home despite being relatively optimistic of the inclusive government formed in February.

An employee confidence survey carried by Industrial Psychology Consultants, a human resources think tank in June shows that 83% of workers in the survey sample — drawn from industry and commerce —would advise their relatives and peers beyond the borders to continue working outside the country.

Interestingly this poll was conducted in the same month Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai –– during his three-week international tour seeking to engage Zimbabwe with the West and the United States –– failed to convince Zimbabweans in the United Kingdom to come back home.

“When asked what advice they will give to their Diaspora relatives at this stage of our economic development, 83,1% of the respondents said ‘hold-on there. It is still a long way to go’ and 16,9% said ‘come back home now, employment opportunities are available’,” reads the survey.

“While the economy seems to be stabilising the majority of respondents feel it is not yet the time to advise their Diaspora relatives and friends to come back home. There is still a lot of work to be done on the ground by the inclusive government to increase the confidence of the populace.”

An area of major concern for employees according to the survey is that the economy is not creating more jobs as shown by 59,6% of formally employed not feeling that they were secure in their current jobs and were actively searching for other job opportunities. With manufacturing industry operating at 10% capacity and most banks on flexi-time, workers in the two sectors seemed hardest hit by the transitional period.
Low salaries, the poll further stated, would make it difficult for companies to attract skilled labour that moved to more economically active countries.

“While the government and the private sector have been holding conference after conference, including rebranding of the country in order to attract foreign investment thereby creating employment, very little is happening on the ground to impact positively on the lives of the working population. The government has been very slow to implement key initiatives to inspire confidence in working population,” the survey said.

However, at least half of Zimbabwean workers continue to pin their hopes on their current employers while the other half considers moving on.

An estimated 50,7% of employers interviewed in the survey feel that the future of the employees was bright, compared to 49,30% who said they do not see a bright future for their employees.

When asked if they were confident of finding a new job in the current environment, 76% of the respondents said yes. Out of these, 83% aged below 25 years said they were confident of finding a new job compared to 87% in the 26 – 30 age group, 70% in the 30 – 40 age group and 80% of those above 40 years.

Eighty percent of the respondents said they were confident of getting a new job compared to 66% for the females out of the hopefuls, while 78% of the managerial employees also indicated that they were confident of getting a new job.

When analysed by marital status 76% of married employees said they were confident of getting a job compared to 82% for the single (never married) and 67% for the single (married before).

At least 34% of the interviewed workers view career development as the major source of stress followed by 28% who view “lack of job security’ as another stressor. More than a 10th of workers according to the poll are discontent over management style with 6% worried about “lack of communication on the developments in the company”.

The cited top stressors seem to cut across all the demographic categories like age and gender. “Those with post graduation qualifications are more worried about job security (36%), while those with first degrees (40,4%) and those with diplomas (47,9%) are worried about developing their career. Employees with ‘A’ Levels are stressed by lack of job security,” the report said.

When analysed by industry, the results indicate the top stressors for the major industries are as follows: manufacturing employees are stressed by the need to develop their career (27,3%), compared to “lack of job security-actively looking for a job” at 4,6% for the financial services employees. In mining the major stressor is the need to develop their careers at 30,8%. This same stressor is true for those in the NGO or diplomatic sector at 40%.”

Diaspora expertise should be harnessed

By Senator Obert|ZimDaily

Unofficial statistics state that more than four million Zimbabweans are living in the Diaspora; the majority of them in South Africa and Botswana; and several thousands of others in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia.

The relocation of these millions of Zimbabweans into the Diaspora was a direct result of the economic meltdown as well as the deteriorating human rights situation particularly from the late 1990s onwards.

A good number of these ‘Diasporans’ as they are passionately known,  consist of highly qualified and experienced professionals such as lawyers, medical doctors, nurses, accountants, engineers etc.

Thus, over the past decade, Zimbabwe has suffered from a debilitating brain drain the real effects of which are yet to be felt.

As I write this article, I am on a short private visit to Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and during my short stay here, I have come across several Zimbabwean professionals who are based in this coastal humid city.

Zimbabweans living in the Diaspora are abound with skills, job experience and resources.

As our country goes through this transitional phase, I am of the humble view that these non-resident Zimbabewans can and indeed, should, play a crucial role in the rehabilitation of our motherland.

We all know that as a country today, Zimbabwe is hardly generating foreign currency; especially in the formal agricultural, mining, manufacturing and industrial sectors.

Our export capacity is virtually close to zero and somehow, the diamonds at Chiadzwa as well as the platinum at Selous have not really benefitted the country’s formal export sector.

Sometimes, I really agonise and wonder where all the foreign currency from Zimbabwe’s rich mineral resources is going whilst the majority of the people live in abject poverty.

I trust that the all-inclusive government will immediately formulate and implement policies that will ensure that Zimbabwe’s mineral wealth is not privatised by a few well-connected and corrupt individuals.

Surely, reports that a very senior politician has been directly linked with an attempt to illicitly sell almost four tones of gold do not help in convincing prospective donors that Zimbabwe should be given a bail out package.

On the other hand, reports that another very senior politician recently bought a three storey luxury house in an upmarket district of Hong Kong also do not help in sanitising the image of Zimbabwe and also in trying to convince a very skeptical world that the suffering of Zimbabweans has been caused by so-called sanctions imposed by Britain and her Western allies.

My argument here is that if Zimbabwe would honestly and properly harness all her resources, both within the country and in the Diaspora; we will not be suffering the way we are today. Indeed, we will not be going around with a begging bowl asking for urgent humanitarian assistance.

Somewhere down the line we allowed corruption and greed to dictate our national politics and the direct result of this is what we have today i.e. mass poverty, hunger, destitution, dejection and despair.

Zimbabweans in the Diaspora have been playing their part in supporting families back home. Without this support from their children and other relatives in the Diaspora, most families in Zimbabwe would have literally succumbed to starvation. I am inclined to believe that Zimbabwe somehow kept on going on thanks to the Diasporan dollar.

Prior to the formation of the all-inclusive government, it is common cause that the former government run by ZANU-PF had virtually abandoned its core duties of running the affairs of the State.

The country was on virtual auto-pilot and a total breakdown of the State was imminent. As we try to extricate ourselves from this situation of utter hopelessnes; I maintain that we need to harness the expertise and the resources from the Diaspora.

It does not make any sense for us to ignore the very positive role that the Diaspora can play in reconstructing Zimbabwe.

Infact, the all-inclusive government should deliberately craft policies that are specifically targeted at harnessing the Diasporan expertise.

Although the majority of Diasporans seem not to be too happy with the form and content of the all-inclusive government, I remain convinced that these non-resident Zimbabweans are patriotic and that they will want to play a meaningful role in the rebuilding of their country.

On our part, we should not miss this golden opportunity of engaging the Diasporans in the task of reconstruction.

But as I have already suggested above, we should do this in a holistic and systematic fashion. There is absolutely no doubt that if this task is done properly and efficiently, Zimbabwe will be able to raise millions of United States dollars from her non-resident citizens.

Perhaps, the envisaged new people-driven constitution should also explore the possibility of granting non-resident Zimbabweans the right to vote in future national elections. Of course, logistically, this task will be very cumbersome and expensive but it can be done.

There is need to give non-resident Zimbabweans that feeling of belonging and what better way of doing it than by granting them the opportunity to vote in future national elections! If other countries can do it, why can’t Zimbabwe do it too?

Egypt is largely a desert country with very limited arable land. However, Egypt has arguably the second biggest economy in Africa; after South Africa. Egypt has managed to industrialise largely through taping the resources and expertise of non-resident Egyptians.

As a die-hard football fan, I know that one of the twenty teams in the English Premiership, Fulham, is owned by an Egyptian, Mohammed Al-Fayed. Al-Fayed, also the owner of the fashionable Harrods departmental store in London, has played and continues to play a prominent role in the economic development of his motherland, Egypt.

As Zimbabweans, we can study the Egyptian example and seek to ascertain how exactly they have managed to meaningfully involve the Egyptian Diaspora in the economic development of their country.

Whether we like it or not, the world is globalising and thus, it is becoming smaller and smaller.  It has already been stated, several times before, that it is Zimbabwe that needs the world and not the world that needs Zimbabwe. We should, therefore, wake up and smell the coffee.

As such, we should quickly learn to grab all our opportunities instead of always running around with a begging bowl. A begging mentality will not take us far. It will relegate us to the position of mere spectators in the global environment.

Zimbabwe should refuse to be a nation of beggars; surviving on hand-outs from well-wishers. We should strive to be up there with the movers and shakers of the world’s economy because that is precisely where we belong.

The brain drain that Zimbabwe has suffered from has to be urgently addressed. The all-inclusive government should also try to lure back some of our professionals who have now settled in the Diaspora.

Of course, it is not going to be an easy task to lure back professionals to a country where there is no access to safe drinking water, affordable and quality education for their children, efficient and reliable public transport as well as respect for basic human rights and private property rights.

In essence, therefore, we should rebrand Zimbabwe as a country that can once again be trusted. Presently, Zimbabwe has a rogue image out there; the image of a renegade State where the law of the jungle is fully operational; a lawless country where might is right.

Zimbabweans that are living in the Diaspora, particularly those living in developed countries, are now accustomed to a certain way of running public affairs. They live in countries where politicians and other public officials are held accountable for their deeds and actions.

Thus, the rampant pilfering of public resources should never be tolerated by the all-inclusive government.

Public servants are there to serve and not to be served. Corruption and greed should be ruthlessly nipped in the bud.

More importantly, Zimbabweans, both resident and non-resident, should embrace a new culture of openess, honesty, integrity and mutual respect. Ubuntu as they call it in Zulu.

The politics of hate and polarisaton has wrecked havoc with our way of doing business. We take the first opportunity to overcharge and profiteer. We would like to charge top dollar for a shody service.

In short, we would like to get rich quickly; we would like to reap where didn’t sow, this ” chikorokoza” habit should simply stop if Zimbabwe is to catch up with the rest of the world.

The task ahead of us; though arduous is definitely not insurmountable. Where there is a will there is a way.

What this year’s Christmas meant to the Zimbabwean Diaspora

By Sarudzayi Chifamba-Barnes

In Shona, we have a saying that a mother with a child strapped on her back is burning on her backside, while the child is burning on the stomach. Amai vatsva musana, mwana atsva dumbu.

This has been the case with this year’s Christmas and New Year for many Zimbabweans in the Diaspora, who have been providing financial and medical assistance to families and relatives left behind in Zimbabwe. Christmas is a time of celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ with friends and relatives and buying presents for one another, but this year’s Christmas has been tough for many Zimbabweans back home and in the Diaspora. With the cholera epidemic and  hunger, coupled with the  credit crunch  gripping our host countries and first world economies  sliding into recession, surely it was not easy, and can not be easy for Diasporas to continue repatriating funds and food to starving relatives in Zimbabwe.

Many Zimbabweans in the UK admit that this year things have been very difficult for them, and they have not been able to celebrate Christmas as they have done in the past. With job cuts and rising costs of living, it is difficult to look after themselves and their families in the UK, let alone relatives and families left abroad. It is even worse for people waiting for their asylum cases to be decided, and those whose claims have been refused, as most of them lead a life of destitution and survive on handouts from friends and churches.

This year the Zimbabwe Association (ZA), which is a charity working for Zimbabwean asylum seekers and refugees in the UK, organised an event called Singing for Our Supper on the 13th of December 2008. “After years of being stranded in the limbo of a seemingly endless asylum process, hundreds of Zimbabweans in the UK are now destitute and without support… Zimbabweans will sing a combination of well known carols….throughout the UK”, read their  press release statement for December 2008.

Molly, a Zimbabwean living and working in Surrey, works in a nursing care home for the elderly. She said this year’s Christmas was a hollow event , and instead of sitting around with friends and celebrating, she went to work to ease away the pain of not being able to send money to relatives in Zimbabwe as she has usually done. Rather, she worked for five long days, 12 hours per day for the entire Christmas period. She blames the UK government and other western countries for failing Zimbabweans here and those back home..

“I think instead of talking about sending aid to Zimbabwe, this government should help the situation by giving all the Zimbabweans in this country the permission to work. Every Zimbabwean in this country looks after more than three families in Zimbabwe. That way, it will be a new form of aid, that will reach the people, and not this bilateral aid which goes through the government and ends up lining up the pockets of corrupt political leaders,” she said.

Chipo is a Zimbabwean freelance journalist based in the UK, and  works in old people’s homes. She says this year’s Christmas was a  nightmare, as she could not afford to send money to her parents and siblings in Zimbabwe.  She has been the bedrock of the family since she came to the UK in 2000, remitting money, clothes and food to her extended family members, but this year’s credit crunch meant that like many people in Britain, she has to revise her expenditure by tightening her purse. She  feels guilt for letting her family down at a time when they need her most. She failed to secure them  maize seed and fertiliser for this planting season, meaning  another year of economic hardship for her since without a good harvest, the burden of feeding the family in Zimbabwe can only be worse for her in 2009.

“With this year’s winter  being  the  coldest in Britain, buying gas and electricity alone has become a priority, and  takes a lion’s share of our [my husband’s] earnings. We spend £50 per week on electricity, compared to £20 we spent per week in the summer. Things are now very expensive in the shops, and we have resorted to buying only necessities. We have had to pull out our children from nurseries and make do with cheap unregistered care, which is a risk on its own,” she said.  This year she did not buy Christmas cards for her neighbours and colleagues, something she has never done before, and had to wait for the Boxing Day bargains to buy her children clothes. She lost a family member to cholera just before Christmas, and to her Christmas was a mourning period. Worse still , she can not afford to buy the medicine that helps to control her ageing mother’s blood pressure, something she has always done.

Cleo is a Zimbabwean who works in Angola. He admits that this year has not been easy for him either, and  he says the amount of money  he spent sending to Zimbabwe this year alone was five times more than he did in previous years. He lost a  cousin’s child to cholera, and his nephew and nephew’s wife are currently in hospital because of cholera. “So I can say this Xmas is the worst ever because the amount that I have spent sending home is more than 5 times I used to send ,because of the ridiculous prices being charged in Zimbabwe. Previously, sending hard currency was great but now we have to send groceries plus cash because ma one (it’s tough)” he says.

Sarudzai Mubvakure, a UK based Occupational Therapist and writer of the debut novel, A Disappointing Truth, The Tragic Story for Sarah Witt, said it is becoming difficult to look after loved ones in Zimbabwe   without putting a strain on herself, because of the US dollarization of the Zimbabwean currency.  “For instance I paid £100 pound sterling for a bag of mealie meal, a bag of rice, a bag of beans, a bag of sugar, a bag of flour, five bottles of cooking oil and three small bags of matemba. I thank God that I was able to provide however, I still believe that   £100 should have gone further than it actually did,” she said.

Tinashe Mushakavanhu is a PhD student (literature) at the University of Kent, and for him, this year’s Christmas was filled with sad memories of a grandfather who succumbed to the cholera epidemic. Even an invitation to celebrate Christmas with friends in Wales did not ease the pain as he found it strange to celebrate Christmas in the time of cholera, and  often wonders if cholera will not strike another family member again. “It’s strange to celebrate Christmas in the time of cholera, to celebrate when there is pain and sadness in your heart. For me, Christmas, was a time to reflect on the year, the struggles I went through while in Zimbabwe and that triumphant moment when I arrived at Heathrow Airport, because I knew I was free to dream again….Christmas in this year of cholera was never the same for our family. We lost our grandfather, the great patriarch of the family to cholera, a few weeks ago. He was in his late 70s. This was a man who was supposed to live up to 84, or even beyond, and enjoy the privileges of old age but lack of sanitation, lack of clean of water, lack of drugs in hospitals has certainly not helped the situation,” he said.

Viola is a Zimbabwean nurse working in the UK. For her, Christmas passed in a blur as she sat with her patients consumed with guilt and pain, since this year was the first year, in the  fifteen years of her working life, that she failed to buy groceries for her elderly parents in Mhondoro.

Thandiwe, a law student and self employed Zimbabwean living in the UK says that the dollarization of the Zimbabwean currency and the high prices charged by people in Zimbabwe has meant that instead of sending the usual £100 per month to her parents, this year she has had to send on average £300 per month, putting her life here on-hold. “It’s difficult to cope with the cost of living in Zimbabwe. How can a president declare himself a president when he sits and watches his currency and financial system overtaken by the Rand and the American dollar, and yet he continues to pay people in the useless Zim-dollar? Certainly this year has been very hard for me, and I can not envisage what 2009 will be like” she said.

Mathew lives and works in Coventry. He said  this year was difficult for him to even manage to buy himself a bar of chocolate, because his mind was with the people suffering in Zimbabwe. He remitted over £1000 to relatives this month alone, as they all look up to him for financial support. This also includes cousins who fled the political and economic meltdown in Zimbabwe to South Africa in search of greener pastures, but found the pastures dry because of the asylum process in South Africa.

Emmanuel Sigauke, a Zimbabwean writer and lecturer of English at  Cosumnes River College in California, says that although all his  Christmases tend to be low-key, this year things are also hard for him as  it has become increasingly difficult to help everyone who needs help back home. He now prioritises between those relatives who are completely dependent on him, and has recently asked one relative to move from Harare to the rural areas “since I will not be able to continue paying her rising rent. Of course, she informs me things would be worse in the rural areas.   I have also begun to dread that phone call from Zimbabwe that comes in the middle of the night when I am asleep. I just can’t afford to help everyone who calls me,” he said.

Given such a situation and the current predictions that the UK and USA economies will shrink further this year, one is left to wonder who will extinguish the fire burning both the mother and the child on her back . Even the old adage  kutsva kwendebvu varume vanodzimurana (when one man’s beard catches fire, another man is ready to extinguish it)  is now hard to contemplate since it will  now be a situation of each man for himself and God for us all. – The Harare Tribune

GZF UK Response to Zimbabwe Talks Deal

Following developments back home, it is paramount that the Diaspora community responds with one and unified voice.

I now invite you on behalf of the Global Zim Forum to a make an organisational contribution with a view of the GZF – UK making a press statement, with your blessing, on Monday, 15th Sept 2008, afternoon after the official release of the details.

We are organising a meeting tomorrow, Sat 13th at Zimbabwe Houise at 13:00hrs and it would be good if your organisation was represented.

If you cannot make it, you may wish to contribute in writing on the following areas:

1. A comment by your organisation on the deal and potential implications for your work and constituants.
2. How do you want to see the British government’s response being to the deal and the situation in Zimbabwe going forward.
3. What do you expect from the new GNU on the following:
Dual nationality debate for Zimabweans, restoration of the right to vote by people in the diaspora, diaspora remittences
4. The role of the Diasporans in the rebuilding of the country.
5. The asylum seekers’ issue: what advise should be given to the British government about failed asylum seekers.

Please note further that the UN Watch, in collaboration with Global Zimbabwe Forum Co-ordinator in Geneva Daniel Molokele, may be organising an event at the UN on the human rights situation in Zimbabwe on Friday 19th Sept.

There may be an opportunity for the Zimbabweans living in the UK to voice their views.

I hope the meeting tomorrow will at least produce a team that is mandated with speaking on behalf of the Diasporans in the UK.

It is important for us to maintain credibility and avoid giving the our hosts, especially the Foreign and Commonwealth Office mixed messages.

The push for democracy may also suffer if there are comments to the media that do not reflect the Zimbabwe we really want.

In the spirit of Democracy, Freedom and Respect for Human Rights.

Thamsanqa Zhou
GZF – UK Co-ordinator

07951401510

[email protected]