The Sunday News
Vincent Gono
THE question of development in Africa can never be fully understood, let alone discussed in isolation of the continent’s historical narratives where its societies have always prided themselves in land ownership. The continent’s paradox of plenty can therefore be unpacked from that premise.
Land was and still remains the greatest resource and the most prized possession for the continent. For from it (land) African societies derive their livelihood. Levels of poverty in the past were therefore historically defined by not owning a piece of the precious resource or not being able to work on it for different reasons that also include insolence.
And because of the abundance of land in most if not all African countries their economies were and are still agrarian or mining-based, all of which are only possible where land is the primary resource. The importance of land to Africans explains why there was a regional spirit of oneness in fighting imperialism to repossess the looted African resources, chief among them the right to land ownership.
Africa’s social development and cohesion therefore, has no basis in the availability of money as imperialists and capitalist economists may want us to believe, money was introduced a little later to a society that was never poor because of its unavailability.
The historical narrative of the continent’s development whose roots can be traced to the availability of land and the ability to work on it inspired the writings and ideologies of nationalist fathers who were not slow to take it up, sanctify it and develop it into a more practical discourse that sought to wean Africa off the dependence on imperialists.
The spirit of nationalism and the fight to free land as the source of the means of production later found expression in the generations that were to follow where the continent’s many iconic nationalists sought to thrust Africa in a crucial economic position that makes it a trade partner with the Western world rather than a liability.
To assert its position, Africa did not just have to repossess land and give it to its indigenous populations, it needed a clear strategy formulation that ensures productivity and self sustenance so that it becomes a competitive partner in the world trade matrix from the use of its land.
Zimbabwe has moved mountains in addressing the land ownership question although more is still in the pipeline to ensure productivity. The country needs to turn the use it or lose mantra into action as well as ensure the land audit is done.
Regional counterparts such as South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and partly Zambia and many other African countries who went through the same liberation struggle route are still hesitant in addressing the pertinent issue.
In Zimbabwe land ownership is no longer a racial question that it used to be where a few whites used to own and control large tracts of land, it is now about how many farms those especially in the echelons of power own.
And President Mugabe has been vocal on the issue calling on the Government to conduct a land audit that will look at how many farms an individual owns, land usage, and size of the farm.
This, he says, will see a lot of land being possessed from land barons who hold on to land for speculative purposes for redistribution to other landless citizens. He recently told chiefs that his Government was seized with the issue of ensuring those who were allocated land were given the proper hectarage, that there was no multiple ownership and that there was proper land usage. This, he said, was going to be uncovered through a land audit.
He was responding to concerns raised by Council of Chiefs president Chief Fortune Charumbira who had told the gathering that there were still some chiefs who have not benefited from the land reform programme.
President Mugabe took a swipe at beneficiaries of the land reform who were leasing farms to former white owners for monetary gains saying they were betraying the struggle and laughing at the noble land reform programme. He said the Government was going to dispossess such retrogressive elements of the land.
Zimbabwe’s land reform got lauding from some regional quarters and international demonisation but due to its long term progressive effects and support by the State it is gaining ground as a noble programme, the only way to empower the continent’s citizens.
And today the chorus of land ownership in Africa is growing louder and louder as a result of the need for Africa’s sons and daughters’ desire to own and control the means of production. And today African governments that are compromised and stubborn and refusing to give heed to the calls by people to give them land find themselves in a precarious position and their future hanging by a thread. The entrepreneurial spirit that Africa was blinded to by colonial education is quickly gaining expression with calls for all systems to be aligned to ensure the destiny of the continent finds residence in its people.
While education in general was and is still not bad to Africa, it was the objective of the colonial education that was retrogressive as it sought to make Africans accept, appreciate and gold coat the dominant position of the colonial powers while subjecting Africans to a culture of perpetual servitude.
The whole purpose of the white man’s school was to eradicate self belief and a sense of equality in the Africans by making them believe they were inferior and not able to determine their destiny.
To cement the claim that the white man was superior in all facets including religion, David Livingstone the man credited with discovering Victoria Falls had to put it in black and white when he wrote, “Africans are merely grown up children. A race that will attain the maturity of other men after being persuaded to stop worshipping hills, woods and the malignant spirits of their own dead.”
It was the duty of the school therefore to teach the Africans to laugh at their culture that was rooted in the abundance of natural resources, their values, their ethos and make them believe that imperialism was at least making them intellectual adults.
Colonial education never taught the Africans the value of land, minerals and any other natural resources and that is why the gospel of value addition and beneficiation took a whole lot of time to unpack and start being preached in the continent.
The continent was content in the sad scenario of being the primary producer of the cheap raw material and buying the expensive finished product. The idea was to tie Africa to the infinite circle of dependence on its colonisers while its people remained labourers in the industries owned by the imperialists.
The writings of nationalist leaders such as Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere of Tanzania were eye openers.
They are still very relevant in today’s Africa as they lay the foundation of development without too much reliance on the former colonial masters in the continent. His writings that were inspired by his beliefs were premised on a number of requirements which involved: Tanzanians and their own resources; a proper understanding of the place of money in development; and agriculture, hard work and intelligence.
Nyerere argued that for development, Africa must first and foremost depend on its local people and its resources.
“It is we, the people of Africa, who experience, in our lives, the meaning of poverty. It is we, therefore, who can be expected to fight that poverty.
Certainly, no one else will do it if we do not.”
The first requirement for development according to Nyerere was therefore not reliance on richer nations and their resources but dependence on the local resources and manpower.
He prohibited the poor from depending on money as the basis of development. He objected to this stance arguing that a poor man does not use money as a weapon. By this, he was suggesting that a poor person who chose money as his “weapon” to get him out of poverty was doomed to failure because he had chosen to fight poverty with a weapon he did not have.
Poverty must be fought with weapons to which Africans could lay claim on and the weapon to fight poverty that most African countries have in abundance is land. Nyerere argued that money donated in terms of gifts, loans and private investments could not be depended upon for development because in the final analysis they would endanger the freedom and the independence of Africa.
He called on public institutions to be given land, something that also later finds expression in Zimbabwe where schools, prisons and hospitals own farms although the question is whether the land is being used ideally to produce for those institutions’ self sustenance and surplus for sale.
Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Rtd Brig Happyton Bonyongwe recently made similar calls to the country’s prisons when he urged them to make full utilisation of the land that they own to produce for their sustenance and the country.
He said there was no justification in the poor diet at the country reform and corrective institutions as they could provide themselves with all the necessary food that they needed as they have the primary resource.
The minister added that the Government was willing to support such noble initiatives that aim at food self sustenance and reliance and urged the country’s prisons to work diligently towards the realisation of that goal.
He said inputs were going to be availed to all the prisons.
In the same vein schools and hospitals both public and private that own land should also work towards self sustenance in food as fulfilment not only of the Nyerere thinking but in ensuring that they do not rely on donor hand-outs.
The Government should also see to it that such institutions are given all the inputs especially that there is enough human resources in the country to execute such work. School children in institutions of higher learning doing related courses should be deployed to do their practical training in these institutions to ensure maximum productivity.
This also dovetails with the notion that education must counteract the temptation to intellectual arrogance that leads to the well educated despising those whose abilities are non-academic but making a balancing act that ensures everyone fits perfectly well in the society. Land ownership therefore remains the pillar of Africa’s economic and social development hence the call to redistribute it as Zimbabwe has done. The continent and its governments should therefore seriously consider giving its indigenous peoples land so that they own the means of production and be in control of their destiny.
Even the Bible in 1 Kings 21:1-3 emphasises the importance of land ownership when Naboth refused to give his ancestral land to King Ahab as it was part of his inheritance.
