(HERALD) NATHANIEL MANHERU:- Indigenisation: Revelling in false, dilatory arguments

NATHANIEL MANHERU:- Indigenisation: Revelling in false, dilatory arguments
Saturday, 01 October 2011 00:00

In Shona we call it "pleasing the jaw." This is when someone raises false or inane arguments, or takes well-worded, meteoric flights of fancy, all to please themselves. Or to fortify themselves on daring acts in futility.

There is lots of that in the current debate on indigenisation. But this week I mean to break those jaws, to break those canine-equipped monuments of delightful fancy. First, our Prime Minister, and his recent fanciful flight to the US.

The master's wardrobe

The Prime Minister's trip was both remarkably ugly and empty. It proved such an ugly leg. And a leg it was, literally, what with the Prime Minister visiting Chicago's Boeing, all to emerge with a donation of thousands of mapatapata, all for Harare's poor, feet-cracking folks, thanks to a compassionate American widow's mite! Assuming those second-hand shoes won't be fast-forwarded into Harare's brisk flea markets,

Harare's thousands poor will soon slide into America's shoes, literally, hopefully to follow different, Zimbabwean footsteps.

It is a perfect metaphor of the MDC-T leader's relationship with the master, is it not? Today it is second-hand shoes. What will it be tomorrow? Second-hand petticoats? God forbib! A dutiful servant's forlorn hope is that some day he gets his master's wardrobe for an heirloom.

So Much ado about . . .

I pity our Harare mayor, Muchadeyi Masunda - Much - as whites and possibly denizens of Chicago would affectionately call him. He had to carry that fabulous heirloom from Uncle Sam, before beating the rough road home, mien quivering with scarcely suppressed anger and bitterness. Kufambira mashangurapata! The bitter mayor came back in a foul mood, publicly castigating God and man for a trip so wanting in purpose.

Typical second hand shoes...all the way from Chicago!

Is it not remarkable that in that captive "pressa" not a single scribe raised that matter with our Prime Minister who waxed lyrical, head barely visible from self-generated fumes of glory?

But the mayor, the mayor. He had to carry the shoes as one remarkable key result to follow the meeting with Boeing and other American business executives! He was asked to, and he had to oblige. I have a little line for my Mayor: Comrade Much, uneasy lies the head that wears a borrowed crown! Indeed so Much ado about . . .

The man who is always evolving

In corridors that matter - both inside and outside of the country - the Prime Minister is known for his fast-paced evolution, ideationally. It sounds good, does it not? Until you get to the gist of the description. He is generally known to wear the personality of the last person he spoke to before your turn comes. And those that meet with him just hope his last contact was not a boring priest of a thousand homilies.

Let those who sell him to the rest of the world know that this is the image he cuts out there. He is perceived as a personable individual, but of zero personality, one with no views of his own, one swept by the latest opinion he will have chanced by in a conversation. Shoot the messenger if you will, but that is the man living out there.

The man is for turning

I was disinclined to believe such a characterisation, which really amounts to a complete write-off for a man seeking the highest office on the land. But I have had to ponder long and hard my own possible fallibility on character reading. Soon after the MDC-T's May 2011 Bulawayo Congress, the Prime Minister left for Cape Town for a World Economic Forum meeting. There he gave a sturdy defence of the national policy of indigenisation. The key word is "national".

He defended that policy, as does a bona fide Prime Minister of a nation that has voluntarily and "sovereignly" decided on a policy course, decided on policy action, mindful of its own interests and the interests of its people. Is that not the bottom-line?

I want to quote him on that fine day: "Indigenisation is not about expropriation or nationalisation . . . it is about setting fair value." Then: "People have raised concerns about indigenisation . . . Across the political divide we agree on the principle of citizenship empowerment." And: "We are trying a model, a matrix that will satisfy both the investor and our desire to see people participate in the economy. We are contributing the mineral resource, you will exploit it and we will exploit it to the benefit of both of us." Then: "Companies want political stability and policy consistency, we have been consistent in the area of indigenisation." He went further to ask why there was no metal exchange in Africa or a cartel like Opec.

Burping stout

What more would one ask of a Prime Minister? What? Tose takarova manja, more so those of us from arid Buhera. We burped soundly - burped stoutly - believing we had finally shaken off and free the round revilement reaped from the man's missteps, reaped by geographical association.

I want to believe that the Prime Minister subsequently reinforced that position on two or more other occasions, including one during which he addressed a local white constituency. It might have been farmers in

Mashonaland West, I cannot quite recall now. Our man had finally turned the corner. Or so we all thought.]

After all indigenisation is national policy. It is being pursued and implemented by the Government of the day, of which the Prime Minister is a part, a third-tier part. Policies are always settled viewpoints. They do not flip-flop like a maiden facing a determined suitor, but vaingloriously playing for time.

Now we have this new view from our Prime Minister, view, tragically, from the same man. The man has now repudiated indigenisation. He now abhors that policy, thanks to this never-never person called "American investors" whom he spoke to last, before convening a Press conference. And we are told about the gravity and severity of the viewpoint of this American non-person.

Meeting after meeting, the Prime Minister complains to us, the American investor raised concerns over indigenisation. The tone of the Prime Minister is clear and unmistakable: "Pity me, my countrymen. The things you ask of me!"

It sounds very much like the indiscrete Prince Charles who upon seeing strange things in his dish at a banquet thrown in his honour in some country that shall remain nameless, quipped: "Gosh, the things I eat for England!" He did not realise the pick-up microphone was on, and the quip was broadcast world-wide! But unlike the proud Prince, Zimbabwe's pillar policy triggered self-hate in our Prime Minister.
It is called self-interest, Sir

Wait a minute. Yes, it would be indigenisation, indigenisation, indigenisation, meeting after meeting. The same way it would have been indigenisation, indigenisation, indigenisation in the affirmative, if an American official were to meet with one Robert Mugabe here. Would that American official go back to bemoan America's mistaken imperial policy, trashing it as "warped"?

America is pushing for her interests, Mr Prime Minister, Sir! What did you want America to do? What you yourself cannot do for your only Zimbabwe? To Flip? To Flop? No, America shall and will pursue her own interests with unremitting steadfastness, with a singleness of purpose.

That pursuit is what you are complaining about, Sir! It is called self-interest, Mr Prime Minister. It is called leadership, all executed in America's national interest. What is your own national interests, Mr Prime Minister? To give, give, give, give, give . . . give and gi . . . ahh? What is your national interest, I ask? How do you pursue it? Defend it? Safeguard it? Enforce it, Mister Prime Minister, Sir?

A sorry people

Mviromviro dzekutengesa is to split hairs. Aa-ah indigenisation is good; what is bad is how it is being implemented! Indigenisation is good, but for the common people, not for a rich few! Indigenisation is good, but for the youthful minister implementing it. Hairs get split and split and split until you need a new generation of microscopic labs.

That is us, a sorry people who deny their God-given inheritance while rationalising about it. Phew, a sorry, miserable people who accept arguments from outsiders about their own long denied, long pillaged heirloom.

What is wrong with us to crave for second-hand mapatapata from compassionate America, while shitting on platinum, gold, diamonds, copper, tin, nickel, iron, bauxite, uranium, vanadium, palladium, many other -diums? Is this not the age of natural resources, the century for natural resource-endowed nations?

Consenting to injury

Let us deal with the false arguments which these jaw-pleasers have been chewing. How does the Prime Minister of this country, the man in charge of implementation of Government policy complain about execution of given policies? Is that not his domain? What are all those Thursday meetings called Council of Ministers meetings all about? Jaw-jawing?

You consent to a particular way of implementing a policy in a body you chair, consent again to the same in Cabinet where you sit in front, next to the Vice Presidents, with the President only an arm's stretch away, and you dare complain about implementation problems?

Or is the man too weak to oversee? If he is, please voter, take note, take good note! And if you do not agree with the way a policy is being implemented, never mind that you oversee implementation, the solution is to repudiate it? And you repudiate it because some country does not like that policy, yet wants your resources towards whose protection that policy is designed? Someone must whisper to our Prime Minister that he who consents to injury must not be heard to complain.

The FDI fallacy

The other argument relates to indigenisation and how this impacts on the poor. On this one I find Zanu-PF culpable. It has allowed this argument to fester and fester, unchallenged. Yet it is a very cheap argument, one purveyed without an iota of good faith.

In the first place, how does an American investor ensure wealth flows to the many poor who are black and African, and in whose name MDC-T shoots down indigenisation as a policy? If FDI transfers wealth to the poor, why has that not happened in the last century-plus we have had this investor in our part of the world? Why didn't that magical investor transform our own Prime Minister into a mining magnet he should be by now? Not for this long-time employee of Bindura Nickel who remained poor man he has been all along before joining politics and Government?

Tun'ombe twaPrime Minister twatakaona patelevision kuMakanda, Buhera, twakatengwa riini? Nemari yepi? Is that all the man has to show for all those years working beneath the earth for a white investor? What does our Prime Minister's own life story tell us about the fate of natives and FDI? There is no link, never was any link, and never will be any link, between FDI and the egalitarian goal of equitable access to national wealth.

In development theory, that is no longer a point in debate. It was settled way back in the 1960s by scholars typified by the likes of Baran. We cannot be that elementary, surely? Reissuing a tired argument? Is that not chewing one's jaw?

When a bad thought wins

Much worse, why do we allow MDC-T to disinherit the Zimbabwean people while invoking their name? They criticise indigenisation for not prospering the poor. What is their counterproposal, their model or matrix, to use the Prime Minister's words?

Surely they should have something much more radical than what Zanu-PF has put on the table, something much more worrisome to foreign investors therefore? We allow them to deny the people in the name of the same people, while pushing for foreign investor interest still in the name of the same people whose interests they repudiate?

No, their real argument is that let the fat cats come from America; they should never grow at home, in the colour of you and me and, astoundingly, in their own colour too! At home it is poverty - not wealth - which we must redistribute evenly. It is poverty which must remain African, which must be black, your black, my black, their black, too! It is a staggering thought, but one winning by default.

Free to become chattels

And anyway, indigenisation does not disallow FDI. It doesn't, and the Prime Minister must know that. It simply puts a 49 percent cap on FDI. Now, what is wrong with that? Or are we about to tell ourselves and the world we are too African, too Zimbabwean, to deserve a 51 percent stake? Haa-a?

Let the point be made here and now: those racists whom our Prime Minister wants to call "investors" are actually saying we cannot partner those blood African bobjans in exploiting their resources! Their real place is in trees, on the margins of the global economy, drawing water and hewing wood. Bloody Calibans! That is it. We dignify that by denouncing our own empowerment policies as "warped"? We dignify such naked racism?

Have we become so inured and conditioned to servitude that we can't visualise anything else better? So conditioned that we dare tell ourselves we liberated ourselves so we become chattels of white investors?

Settling a bill twice

Or the argument that we have no money with which to pay for our 51 percent stake? Nonsense! Not only do we have the money; we have settled the debt a thousand times over. What is a mine without the mineral deposit? And who owns those deposits?
You want Zimbabweans to pay for those piled pieces of decaying, iron-age technology in the name of investments? And pay to a person who has been scoping billions and billions worth of minerals for a penny?

You want to suggest the equipment investors bring here for the sole purpose of exploiting our minerals has greater value than the minerals themselves? Why would anyone bother to haul that equipment here?

Well, if the Prime Minister's wish is to pay for the 51 percent, then he must order Biti to pay. He has the money. Otherwise why would he exceed the national law to want to compensate white farmers to the tune of US$3 billion which they are owed by the British Government at law?

Breeding zvigananda zvedu

I want to address the issue of class in another instalment. But let me just provoke a thought: Indigenisation is not about creating a classless society, wherever that exists on this earth.

The MDC-T cannot be bothered by that, surely? Such a goal is not in their policy purview. It cannot be, given who sired them.

Indigenisation is about creating a genuine national middle class, zvigananda zvedu vatema! Not to import them from America. Vematumbu vedu! You do not have to guess my distaste for that despicable class so given to vapid materialism. I hate it. Given a chance I would annihilate it. Yet I recognise its necessity, its inevitability as an intermediary evil, en route for founding of a more egalitarian society.

In a national post-liberation Zimbabwe, you cannot continue to grapple with the anomaly of a race that is a class, the anomaly of a class that is a race. What will you have done with that Independence towards whose attainment so much blood was shed? Merely to symbolically break that race-class' stranglehold on the politics of your country? And now that the race-class has come back politically, so what is your real gain from that Independence? Nil! So the real way forward is to break that race-class dialectic, so you begin to localise and indigenise contradictions that shape your society.

That way you banish overseas politics that continue to be re-imported into the national body-politic. Tonetsana pachedu sevene vezviro, vene venhaka. The same way we replace the white governing class as a matter of political independence is the same way we must replace the white mining, industrial and commercial class as a matter of national economic Independence. That does not mean an end to history in both cases. That is why we have parties and elections; that is why we have takeovers, combinations and collapses.

Between Mahathir and Malema.

I repeat: there is nowhere in the world where affirmative action has yielded a classless society which, anyway, exists nowhere on this troubled earth. Post-cold war Eastern block chose mafia and kleptocracy to build and found an owning class.

Today countries like Russia do have a stable indigenous middle class, as successor class to the parasitic Soviet State. It has worked for Russia and other old Eastern bloc countries. This is why Russia's dashing tycoons can wreak havoc in London and New York. Malaysia chose an affirmative programme for the Burmaputras. Today it has a bigger, multicultural pool of a dashing middle class, much of it associated with State companies.

That, too, has worked for that country which has really scaled up the global ladder into a middle income country. China is using senior officers from the Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army to go entrepreneurial world-wide, all backed by the Chinese State. It is working for them, which is why China is sole donor to once-upon-a-time great, all-powerful America.

Near to us, South Africa has used white-dominated boardroom deals in the hope of founding its own black middle class. The result has been dual: a fat Ramaphosa on the one hand, an angry Malema on the other.

It is not for me to judge, but the message is very clear: you must empower your people whose only resource and weapon in this critical war is an enlightened political leadership, whether found on the top as in Mahathir Mohammad of Malaysia, or whether fated to emerge from below as in Malema of South Africa. Between these antipodes, where do you stand, Mister Prime Minister? Icho!