Reporting MacDonald

Reporting MacDonald

RECENT OPINION ARTICLES

• Zimbabwe and software development

• Where is our Mandela?

• The myth of mass action in emerging democracies

• Sadc and human rights - bridging credibility gap

• A tribute to Rosa Parks

• Zimbabwe crisis, Robert Mugabe presiding

• The problem with Africa

• On Mugabe and Katrina

• Musekiwa: Setting the record straight

• Musekiwa a political opportunist

• Zimbabwe tomorrow, the questions

• Zimbabwe: debunking myths

• Biotechnology: Lessons from China

• South Africa should not give Mugabe a cent

• The Zimbabwe we seek

• Murder in the name of Marxism

• For Zim, elections not an option anymore

• Where are the Africans to speak for Zimbabwe

• Two Bobs 'making poverty history'

• Knowing that which I didn't know

• Zimbabwe: talking with one voice

By Conrad Nyamutata

THE sad story of MacDonald Tamburike as reported in The Herald reflects the desperate levels our country has sunk to.

The three-year-old needs to undergo gender determination chromosome tests. In other words, medically, it is not known whether the child is a boy or girl. I am assuming the parents had treated him as a boy judging from the name.

In the depths of desperation, the parents have been driven to publicise an essentially private matter about their child. I am sure it comes with a sense of humiliation. Humiliation because their child has a rare condition which would be frowned upon, and the heartless might subject the child to derision, and indeed the parents. They would also feel embarrassed they cannot afford to pay for the tests - hence the appeal - let alone the operation.

In an ideal situation, I am sure the parents would have wanted to pay for their child's operation quietly. Let us not forget that medical health issues are, and should always be, private and personal matters. More so if they are likely to impact negatively on the subject. To go public about issues like this is clearly an act of desperation.

The Tamburikes are not the first ones. I have read an assortment of appeals - and they are quite frequent - with a sense of deep sadness. Many of these cries for help will be witnessed frequently on newspaper pages in times to come. Some of the conditions have been rare like MacDonald's but some have appeared quite routine you would think our own medical staff could deal with them. But alas!

These simple stories of individual misfortune have obviously appeared more like unfortunate personal circumstances. Yet issues around them are only a microcosm and bring forth a decadent state of national affairs. The appeals firmly point at two things; a desperately ill-equipped health system and a collapsed economy. Ultimately, these factors are an indictment of the poor governance of our country, the bane of our nation for many years now.

Young McDonald cannot undergo these chromosome tests in Zimbabwe because, according to the newspaper report, "no laboratory can do the chromosome tests." Why? We are not told; conveniently, the justification for this deprivation ends there.

Secondly, the child has to go elsewhere for the tests. And unfortunately, the child's parents do not have the foreign currency needed for the test to be done in South Africa. I could go on asking "why?"

Given the desperate shortage of foreign currency and the love for their child, it is understandable that the parents have been forced to take this undignified but necessary measure of begging. Most Zimbabweans have been reduced to beggars anyway, also short of drugs and, according to a medical superintendent of major hospital in Harare, being left to die.

In the discourse of public appeals, if you like - the medical operations have oft been said to need "specialist treatment." And these are often carried out in South Africa.

We ought to be embarrassed, or the powers-that-be, should be ashamed of themselves by now that over the years we have continued to look up to our southern neighbour in this game of public humiliation of desperate individuals.

Yes, the appellants stand to benefit but, if they had a choice, they would never want to go to the media to beg. For goodness sake people should, at least, be able to have some tests locally. Are we becoming content with our poverty and inabilities? This line keeps ringing in my ear:"…because no laboratory can do the chromosome tests" But surely it cannot go unchallenged.

Let us get this right; not everything can be done in Zimbabwe. But it does not mean questions should not be asked. And this where the media come in. Our media in particular should set the agenda which will benefit ordinary people like MacDonald. The media has often been accused of pushing the agenda for the powerful and the elite as well as the rich and big businesses.What we need is an ethos for a truly "people's media." One which can stand up for Amai Ezra in Murambinda.

In reporting MacDonald, we should not just leave him as fodder for the media for the rarity of the child's condition - newsworthy as it is. As the media, we ought to go further in our agenda-setting role for there are issues which must be put on the agenda for sure.

Instead of the "kitten journalism" of scratching on the surface, we need to explore the deeper issues which send the likes of MacDonald into the realm of desperation. We should not be subsumed in the fog of this "human interest story", or appeal, and lose the important meta-narrative here. We need to view these appeals differently, not just as the routine and mundane few-paragraphs stories to fill up the pages. From experience, such 'stories' are unlikely to see the light of day.

Be that as it may, I must point out that it is absolutely noble and commendable to appeal for assistance for this child. Let's face it; R1162 (about £100) is something pretty affordable with the help of good men and women around the world. And I know there are many with big hearts who can help this desperate child get correction of the ambiguous genitalia.

But the moral of my story is that there inherent issues to correct too. Not so ambiguous. The poignant points of this case should not be lost in the emotional surroundings of the appeal. My main point to the media is that, in reporting McDonald, we should not become blind to very pertinent factors that have led the child and parents into these desperate circumstances. Perhaps one basic one: is it really out of order to ask David Parirenyatwa, health minister, why a chromosome test cannot be conducted in Zimbabwe 25 years after independence?

I rest my case. Come in Jeremy Paxman.

Conrad Nyamutata is former chief reporter for The Daily News. He can be contacted on nyamutata@yahoo.com
JOIN THE DEBATE ON THIS ARTICLE ON THE NEWZIMBABWE.COM FORUMS
debate@newzimbabwe.com