Zimbabweans have grown to learn by experience that the Government of National Unity (GNU) was nothing but a marriage of covenience. During the signing ceremony, party leaders gave the impression that the leaders had really cemented a deal of unity. People had a new sense of hope, hope for a better country, a free and prosperous Zimbabwe.

Now reality is surfacing – about two years down the line there are still pending issues. Jacob Zuma and his team have come and left the country countless times. The negotiation teams are always negotiating until no one knows when. The news is that elections will be in 2011 soon after the new constitution. Who confirmed that the referendum will agree to the constitution when the process is marked by some reports of violence and intimidation? Mutambara is of the view that the country is not yet ready for elections next year. True as it might be, his rather more powerful collegues have no option but to call for the elections.

What it all shows is that one hand and one fist are still fighting strong battles when the body they intended to protect is in trouble. The GNU was just a shift of the battlefields and maybe a shift of tactics of attack – war is still on and peace is not guaranteed.

Zimbabwe is still in tatters and our leaders are busy setting ambushes and employing guerrilla tactics against each other. Shame on the poor majority who are fed lies without choice, arm-twisted into doing and saying what they would not if they were properly informed. We wonder when political freedom will exist in this country? We call upon the GNU principals to come back to the basics and consider the reasons, which led into this marriage, which they now tramp upon without achieving its intended objectives.

The role of religion in economic development was the title of the discussion I was at yesterday. The gentleman presenting wanted to highlight how religion and economic development are interlinked and how they affect each other.

First we looked at how economic development affects religion. There are four factors that come into play education, value of time, life expectancy and urbanization. Economic development will likely lead to higher education and with increase in education there is a desire to explain things scientifically. A less developed country would explain any situation using God and religious beliefs. The probability of explaining things using God in a developed country becomes less. People tend to use scientific terms to explain day to day living on any challenge that might come their way. For instance in a developed country if there is famine the explanation would be scientific but in a not so developed country famine might be explained as the anger of God or a lesson that we need to learn from gods especially in our African context.

Then religion plays a pivotal role in the way of our thinking. Value of time in developing countries makes it hard for people to seek religion. People would rather be at work than in church. Thus economics or being more economically developed will affect the way people view religion.

Knowing the life expectancy in any country can also contribute to how economic development can make it hard to find a community seeking for God. In America the life expectancy is around 75 to 80 years and if a male aged 30 still has his grandparents alive he sees no rush of going to church. On the other hand in a less developed country with a life expectancy of 35years like in Zimbabwe, people would rather go to church and prepare to go to heaven.

Urbanization brings many social platforms in a country as it gets developed. Going to church is among many of the options that people choose from. Urbanization brings in nightclubs, movies and many other social spaces. In a less developed country the only social space available to people in that country might be the church or other religious settings.

We then looked how religion affects economic development. Religion is attractive to higher educated societies. There are all these people trying to explain the existence of God, explaining the existence of God takes philosophers. It takes people who have a high education to do that. Then religion will affect economic development through education. Most religions value education, as you have to read the Bible or the Koran. Religious beliefs reinforce religious factors like hard work, honesty, thrift and value of time. So it is true to say that religion does affect economic development. The more people are taught in their religious circles to value time, to be hard working, the more a country can be economically developed.

The Zimbabwean newspaper of 7 June 2010 reports that the Minister Kasukuvere threatened foreign business people with unknown action if they continue working in areas designated for locals by the law. The paper quotes Kasukuvere as saying,

“Come the 30th of June if they are still operating in areas which are reserved for our people by the Indigenisation law they will see what will happen to them. They have come in our country and taken our buildings, displaced our people and even gone to our rural areas to displace our small business traders. How do you come from all that far and come sell milk here in Zimbabwe where do you want milk from our people to be sold to when foreigners are taking the market?”

The head of the Zimbabwe Indigenous Economic Empowerment organization, President Paddington Japajapa, is also reported to have promised to incite local business people to attack foreign owned businesses if Kasukuwere failed to chase them away.

From the look of these threats there are plans to chase these business people the Murambatsvina way, which is grossly inhuman. After all a months notice is unfair. It should be known that these people never entered through closed doors. Neither did they just swarm to occupy these premises without the consent of the owners of the buildings and the government itself.

These entrepreneurs only took advantage of a niche that existed – where were our local businessmen when the premises were taken over?  Where were Kasukuvere and Japajapa? If they the foreigners are selling milk, it means no one was selling that milk before they came.

It seems our local entrepreneurs are not risk takers at all. They have watched the premises being taken by better innovative people. Now they are seeing success and are now resorting to the law to chase them away.

All I am saying is that there is no need to treat these foreigners without respect as if they raided our premises in our absence. There is no need to hate them as if they have not helped us in our times of need by investing in this country.

Whilst Natasha might have enjoyed her FIFA moment, and gotten a real buzz out of the Brazil / Zimbabwe match last week, other Zimbabweans are not so convinced. Teachers and civil servants remain poorly paid. Water and electricity shortages persist. But Zimbabwe paid US$1.8 million to get Brazil to play football here. Below are more responses from our subscribers, most of whom are disappointed by government’s priorities.

Better paying electricity with that money

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Personally I don’t support that otherwise that money should have been injected into the education sector

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Crazy priorities. Upside down. What would you expect?

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Its just unfair

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It is disheartening

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That is total negligence of systems that can rebuild Zimbabwe. It signals failure to prioritise and lack of political to improve e welfare of civil servants.

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We mixed good and rotten tomatoes in the same basket

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That means they like leisure than the people’s needs

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Its not fair enjoying soccer at the expense of other people. Zvinhu zvakaoma vamwe varibusy kuputitsa cash

On Tuesday morning, June 1st, the police blocked public entry to Doon Estate in Msasa because a Chinese Delegation was visiting the sculpture garden housed in the same venue. People trying to get to the restaurant, as well as the coffee and curio shops were turned away and told to come back at 3pm.

This illustrates the kind of abuse of power and position that we have come to experience in Zimbabwe. The authorities showed a total lack of awareness, appreciation and respect for the business owners in this complex who consistently service the few tourists that still come to Zimbabwe, rather than infrequent “VIP” delegations.

The shop owners and business people in this complex already have to contend with power and water cuts – they shouldn’t have to add spontaneous closures on account of delegations to their list of challenges.

Email the Chinese Embassy in Harare (chinaemb-zw@mfa.gov.cn) and ask for their comments on this incident.

One society that we often forget and rarely think of, mainly because, by its very nature it is isolated from our day-to-day association and interaction, is the prison. The conditions in prisons are therefore usually understated unless being narrated by a prisoner.

Recently I met a lady in her fifties carrying a basket of food and a lunch box. She hesitantly approached me and asked, “Son, do you know how I can get to the remand prison near Newlands?”

“Oh yes mama let me show you”, I answered.

She must have realized that I was a bit interested in talking further with her, because she waited a moment longer after I had shown her directions. This was a chance I could not let go. I asked why she was going to the prison at that time of the day carrying such luggage as food. Her face suddenly changed, she turned and spoke slowly with gasps of sighs in between her words. I could see tiny drips of tears making their way along the wrinkles around her eyes. To avoid direct eye contact, she looked down and started to narrate the story of her son who was arrested and sentenced to three months in prison. She said her son was at Matapi in Mbare, and when she got there with the food this morning she heard that he was taken to the Remand Prison. Where he will be taken to after Remand, she is not sure but what she is sure of is that he was sentenced to serve three months and that she was supposed to look for his food daily for that long. She was not sure if she could sustain the three months of moving about every morning, where would she get the money for transport let alone the food itself? It seems the son was the breadwinner of the family and the old lady had to pay for his sins; the whole family behind, so to speak.

The food supply in prisons is reprehensible; families are struggling to feed their imprisoned. A one-year sentence means the family suffers for a year as well. That led me to ask a policeman what happens to those whose relatives are far from the prisons or those who cannot afford to bring food. He chose to use the phrase “survival of the fittest” and didn’t divulge much detail. He was only at liberty to disclose that cigarettes are in demand in prisons. If one has a pack of cigarettes, then he is assured of food as he can trade it with food with those whose relatives can supply it daily.

Zimbabwean prisoners might never face a worse hell than the present. The punishment ripples out to innocent family members who have to supply for food on daily basis. If one member is arrested, practically every family member is in prison. What a horrible state.