Whose Falls are they anyway?

Majestic … The Victoria Falls as seen from the Zimbabwe side

“Come to South Africa and see the Victoria Falls.”

This rather incredulous statement is contained in a brochure that I assume was approved by the South African tourism agency. It was the subject of a conversation I had with a fellow countryman the other day.

I had mentioned this to him as we discussed how Zimbabwe could benefit from the 2010 World Cup. ‘How could they?’ he howled, beside himself with anger.

I pointed out to him that the South Africans have been marketing the Falls as their own for ages while we were busy invading farms and beating each other up and starving each other half to death.

We are all aware where the Falls are but with the global soccer spectacle just around the corner, the South Africans are going to make the most of anything that can channel money in their direction. They even have direct daily flights from Jo’burg and Cape Town that make sure that their tourists stay long enough to view the Falls and are quickly whisked out before you can shout “Zanu PF Youths!”

My friend mentioned that it seemed obvious that the South Africans were giving our country a wide berth when it came to benefits. Granted that the bulk of SA’s tourism industry is controlled by whites, this is not surprising, he fumed. We might be the quintessential skunks of the world but allow us to get the benefit of our God given natural resources. A tourist dropping by for the day just to spend on curios and ice cream is not enough.

But then who can blame them? Thina the owners are not marketing our tourist attractions enough. So, what can stop others who see potential in them do it for their own benefit? Aren’t we the ones who frustrated Michael Jackson from building a resort along the Zambezi?

We were so full of ourselves that all potential development fled across the border to Zambia. As I speak, no less than four luxury hotels have been constructed in Livingstone while their airport has been upgraded to take large aircraft. They have even built an international standard stadium that will host any of a number of World Cup-bound teams for acclimatisation.

The way things are going on the political front, in addition to having the likes of Karikoga Kaseke at the helm of tourism in Zimbabwe, we might as well forget getting any of those teams even taking a peak from our side of the Falls.

I will accept the Zambians making the most of the falls because we share this natural wonder, but the South Africans?

Yet we must also look at ourselves and accept that no amount of sweet-talking will gloss over the sorry state of our country particularly when war talk remains part of the discourse. As it is said in the bible, we will reap what we sow, which in our case is absolutely nothing.

By the way, my friend, being of the war talk type, had the last word: “Let the South Africans keep their World Cup, and we will keep our Victoria Falls!”

‘Hate’ is such a harmful feeling

Did I say some time back that Ian Khama and the Batswana ‘hate Robert Mugabe with a passion?’ Well, allow me to re-phrase that statement without it losing much of its currency.

Let us say that Batswana hold a less that flattering view of our Uncle Bob. I regret using the word ‘hate’ because as a prowled the website New Zimbabwe.com before it crashed, I encountered several instances of people who said they ‘hated’ Ian Khama, even if they did not present a plausible reason why.

Hate begets hate. There has been so much of it going around in Zimbabwe I don’t want to be the one encouraging its circulation. I tried to search for reasons and the only thing I came up with is the fact that Khama does to like the GPA experiment one bit.

I recall an outright attack on Ian by Jonathan Moyo which went something along the lines of “what else can people expect from a country that has more goats than people”. I felt that was below the belt stuff … until Moyo scampered back cap-in-hand to Zanu PF. Just typical isn’t it?

As if to rub salt into the wound, the Botswana president repeated his displeasure at Zanu PF’s failure to fully honour the spirit of the power sharing agreement with the MDC factions.

Addressing his nation recently, he said that in the absence of genuine partnership, it would be better for all the parties to go back to the people and conduct genuinely free and fair elections.

Talking about free and fair elections, true democracy is a tangible ideal in Botswana. Batswana exercise one of the basic fundamental rights, that of the freedom of speech. We all know that the same cannot be said about the homeland where there is freedom of speech but not after the speech.

Before anyone officially declares yours truly a cheerleader of the Lt General Seretse Khama Ian Khama, may I be allowed to mention the fact that not everyone in Bots is quite enamoured with their president.

Spencer Mogapi, the vocal deputy editor of the local Sunday Standard newspaper has a beef with the fact his president is not directly elected. In Botswana, the leader of the party winning the elections automatically becomes president. He writes that it is important that the president should earn those powers directly from the people.

“Zimbabwe, a country we would like to portray as run by a red-eyed dictator has a better system. Robert Mugabe may be rigging the elections every five years, but Zimbabweans are, as of law, allowed, from time to time, to go to the polls to choose who they want to be president,” Mogapi writes.

So there you are. Zimbabwe does get the occasional credit even if it is in a hackneyed sort of way. Pamberi!

The xenophobes have it!

We are in the news again for the wrong reasons, this time in South Africa. Zimbabweans have been attacked in South Africa’s Western Cape Province by the locals.

Their gripe is that, wait for it, Zimbos are allowing themselves to be exploited by the local farmers by agreeing to work for peanuts. Yah, you heard me right. The locals claim they don’t want to work because the farmers are offering wages that are well below the government stipulated ones.

But then here come these desperate foreigners to give the farmers a life line. So their cockeyed solution is to drive them out.

We all know how overenthusiastic the South Africans can be when it comes to moering (Afrikaans for hitting) people. The story here isn’t so much the violence but the fact that Zimbabweans have been driven from their own country and resorted to travelling the best of 4,000 kilometres (as the crow flies) to the Cape vineyards for refuge and sustenance! Now who is the criminal here?

Lenox Mhlanga can be contacted at lenoxmhlanga@hotmail.com and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/lenoxmhlanga