Zimbabwean

By Tony Saxon

28 July 2011

The Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture David Coltart has expressed grave concerns over the deteriorating standards of the country’s education system.

Speaking after a tour of schools in Masvingo last week Coltart said there was need to revamp the country’s education system and restore Zimbabwe’s status as a leading education provider.

“As government there is great need to improve the working conditions of teachers in a bid to revamp the education system whose standards are slowly deteriorating due to shortage of personnel and resources,” said Coltart.

He said his ministry was working hard to restore the education system to the standard it once was.

“There is a strategic plan of action in place that is going to help to restore the education system in the country and this prioritizes the welfare of the teachers. We are also intending to provide primary and secondary schools with text books,” he said.

The education minister added that they were finalizing with UNICEF the contracts that will assist in the provision of the text books on a one-to-one ratio.

He revealed that the ministry would also initiate the provision of clean safe drinking water and build ablutions at various schools. Coltart said the ministry had embarked on a computerization programme that would see most schools getting computers.

Senator David Coltart

The Annual Acton Lecture on Religion and Freedom

26 July 2011

New South Wales Parliamentary Building, Sydney

“The Kingdom of God is forcefully advancing and forceful men lay hold of it”

This coming September will be the 10^th anniversary of the horrors of 9/11, one of the world’s worst assaults on freedom in the name of religion. The greatest freedom is a life lived without fear. The 9/11 attacks left people, particularly those in the West, with the sense that there was nowhere safe and that no-one is immune from attack. The random and massive attacks on civilians far from any theatre of war in New York and subsequently in London and elsewhere have severely curtailed freedoms of people across the globe.

The West’s reaction to these assaults on freedom has been dominated by an extreme, but understandable, preoccupation with “security” which ironically is meant to protect “freedom”. Australia itself has been drawn into costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which have also taken the lives of young Australians; the United States has diverted a vast amount of its international resources and attention to the same wars which have undoubtedly had domestic consequences such as its now massive domestic debt. Despite these massive efforts to protect freedom I read a report last week that said that the US is more unpopular than ever in the Middle East and presumably it follows that the security threat against US citizens is just as grave; if that is correct it is a tragic indictment on Western foreign policy.

But the indictment against the West’s foreign policy goes further than that – despite the infusion of trillions of dollars of Western Aid into Africa, for example, in the last 50 years much of it has been squandered – there being no better example of that than my own country Zimbabwe. In the 1980s for example hundreds of millions of dollars were spent in building up the infrastructure of Zimbabwe’s education sector and most of these buildings are now in a serious state of disrepair and the education sector is in crisis. This has happened because ironically Lord Acton’s adage that “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely” was not a part of Western foreign policy. Money was poured into Zimbabwe unconditionally in the face of massive human rights abuses including a genocide in the 1980s and very little was spent in attempts to promote freedom in Zimbabwe. As a consequence power was abused and inevitably the economy collapsed, in turn rendering the deterioration, if not total destruction, of much of what had been built up with Western aid.

I would argue that key Christian principles have been disregarded in the formulation of Western foreign policy for decades, and from Vietnam to Afghanistan it does not appear as if many lessons have been learnt because mistakes are repeated. The reason I focus on the West is partly because it remains the most powerful collective of nations in the world and partly because it is rooted in Christendom. I should also stress that I do not solely blame the West – far from it because of course for example in my own country we must take our own share of the blame for the near total destruction of Zimbabwe’s economy. But tonight my remarks are directed towards a Western audience and so that will remain my focus. I need also mention that even the use of the phrase “the West” is flawed because it is obviously not homogenous and the foreign policy of countries differ and some Western countries’ foreign policies do not suffer from the problems I speak of.

I need to place my remarks this evening in a personal context. At the outset let me say that I do not consider myself “ religious”, in the sense that I do not slavishly follow a particular denomination or sect. But I do believe in a personal God who is the very essence of freedom. Thirty years ago I came to place my trust in the historical Jesus Christ. I was challenged by the point made by CS Lewis that this historical man (for no one seriously disputes the historical fact of Christ having lived) was either who he said he was or a lunatic. Given the deep wisdom of his teaching it was impossible for me to think of him as a lunatic. I was also deeply moved by Frank Morison’s book “Who moved the stone” – which in essence forced me to consider the historical reality of Christ’s crucifixion and the growth of the church out of what, if one doesn’t believe in Christ’s resurrection, was an absolute disaster. The historical fact of Christ’s crucifixion is also a constant reminder to me that the desire for justice is one of the most constant elements of God’s character. For it is in the cross that we are reminded that the death of Christ was the sentence for all the evil perpetrated by mankind down through the ages.

By church I do not refer to the physical church of historical times and today but rather of the body of all the individual people who have placed their trust in Christ over the ages. The church is comprised of those who have placed their trust in Christ not in the physical institutions created by man. Whilst I appreciate the great architecture of magnificent churches and, for example, the glorious singing that takes place within them I fear that the very institutions of the church sometime work to undermine Christ’s teachings that God’s kingdom is not something that you can watch for and see coming (Luke 17:20) and that there should be a clear separation between church and state (Matthew 22:21). In short I do not advocate for any form of official statist theocracy or the rigid application of Christian principles in the formulation of foreign policy. Likewise I do not believe in ”Christian states“ or that the church can dictate to secular governments what their foreign policy should be.  I would simply argue that certain Biblical truths have been neglected in the formulation of Western foreign policy.

Lincoln’s second inaugural address delivered on the 4^th March 1865 makes some profound statements relevant to this topic today. His focus in the address was on the cause of the American Civil war, namely  slavery,  which constituted a “peculiar and powerful interest” to both sides in the conflict. Lincoln observed that both sides “read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other.” He also noted somewhat wryly that the “prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully..(because) the Almighty has his own purposes”.  In addressing the causes of the war Lincoln referred  to Christ’s statement recorded in Matthew 18:7 – “Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come”.  He assumed that God viewed slavery as a sin and that the civil war was the “woe due” to those, both North and South, responsible for that sin. He concluded with these memorable words:

“If God wills that it (the war) continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn from the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether”.

These thoughts are rather unfashionable, and certainly politically incorrect, today – the thought that there are certain sins so objectionable to God that He is prepared to work great suffering on those responsible for them no doubt offends many modern thinkers. It is hard to imagine any current American political leader who would be prepared to advance such thoughts. But the fact is that Lincoln clearly believed in the notion that God abhors and judges sin of nations, not just of individuals.

What is also noteworthy is that earlier in his address Lincoln observed that the South wanted to “strengthen, perpetuate and extend” slavery and that the North merely “claimed no right more than to restrict the territorial enlargement” of slavery; in other words because the North did not abhor slavery sufficiently to be fundamentally opposed to it, its sin was indifference. That observation, tied to the lament that God had given “to both North and South this terrible war”, indicates that Lincoln believed that God wanted to punish both acts of commission and omission and in the case of the North, the North’s indifference to the suffering of slaves – and that God was delivering judgment on the North as well for this indifference.

Lincoln is arguably America’s greatest President. He is universally revered in the US and throughout the West for his great wisdom in steering the United States through its gravest hour.  If he were alive today and applied the same principles what would be the national and international sins of the West – those Lincoln would fear would be the object of God’s wrath and judgment? Might he have argued that America’s costly wars in Vietnam and Iraq were the “woe due to those by whom the offence came”?

It is in this context I venture to suggest that critical mistakes, if not sins, have been committed by some countries in the West in the formulation of their foreign policy since the 2^nd World War. It is my belief that Christ’s teachings have some profound statements to make in the formulation of Western foreign policy, which are designed to protect freedom.

“Blessed are the peacemakers”

The first concerns a reliance on military might over principle and morality. I vividly recall the triumphant “shock and awe” demolition of Baghdad in 2003 followed by President George W Bush’s claim that the war in Iraq was effectively over. I fear that we see a similar attitude being displayed now by NATO forces in the demolition of Tripoli. I should stress that I am not a pacifist and nor do I hold, for example, any brief for Colonel Gaddafi, indeed I loathe what he has done in Libya and the negative influence he has had throughout Africa. I recognize the extreme dilemma the world has faced in dealing with dictators like Gaddafi but nevertheless my fear is simply that the West appears to trust more in its own military superiority than it does in the consistent moral force of principle. A resort to force seems to be the rapid default position of some countries in the West when their national interests are threatened and yet when force is crucially needed but there is no national interest at stake, as was the case in Rwanda, that superior force is not employed. The West’s failure to take any action to prevent, stop or minimise the genocides which took place in Zimbabwe in 1983 and Rwanda in 1994 are the modern day equivalent to the North’s indifference to slavery in Lincoln’s time.

Although Martin Luther King spoke these words over 40 years ago in the context of the Cold War, they are arguably even more applicable today:

“The large power blocs of the world talk passionately of pursuing peace while burgeoning defence budgets bulge, enlarging already awesome armies, and devising even more devastating weapons.”

I also wonder whether some of the new devastating weapons which were not around 40 years ago are even effective and perhaps may ironically make the West more insecure. Drones and Stealth bombers cannot prevent the atrocities we have seen perpetrated against civilians in the last decade and may even inflame terrorists to do more “remote control” killings of their own. My argument is not that the countries which have them should abandon these technologies but rather that I think it is misleading to think that these are primarily where the West’s security lies.

A related concern is that because the West trusts in its military might it pours a vast amount of its resources into the military rather than directing more of its resources into what ultimately are the root causes of most international turmoil today, namely poverty and a lack of education.  Once again King is devastating:

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defence than on programmes of social uplift is approaching spiritual death”.

I wonder how different the world would be if all the money paid to prop up and arm corrupt regimes had been, for example, spent on building a free press and in constructing schools and hospitals in the benighted countries some Western countries have fought wars  in since the 2^nd World War .  I  spoke at the outset about the recent survey done in the Middle East which shows that the United States is more unpopular there now than ever – in other words for all the billions of dollars spent in fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the root objective, namely to make the United States safer, has perhaps not been achieved. For so long as there is a perception that the West is motivated by self interest, such as securing sources of oil, rather than by a genuine desire to uplift the people of those regions the fertile ground for Al Qaeda and other terrorist organisations will grow. It seems to me that the West’s greatest long term security lies in doing what it can to remove the sting of grinding poverty and ignorance, in the breeding grounds of terrorism, which motivates terrorists and provides terrorist leaders with deep reservoirs of angry young men. That is why fair trade policies and development assistance, particularly investment in education – of both women and men – is so vitally important to the stability and security that the West seeks so desperately.

History shows that when raw military power is used aggressively in pursuit of a flawed cause it ultimately fails. All the military power of the Nazis, the Soviets, the Americans in Vietnam, the Rhodesians in Rhodesia against nationalist guerrilla forces and the Apartheid regime ultimately lost to the sheer will and courage of weaker forces who had a more just cause. Going back to Lincoln the American civil war is also instructive – the South clearly had the better Generals but that didn’t help them to prevail; the North had overwhelming economic might but initially it lost a series of battles. One could argue that it was only after the Emancipation Proclamation was effected on the 1^st January 1863 that the North started to get the upper hand and major victories such as the Battle of Gettysburg  in July 1863 gave new impetus to those on the side of right. The point is that mere military superiority alone is not sufficient to win wars; ultimately history shows that there needs to be a superperior moral principle for a cause to prevail.

Some argue that if we are to prevent war and to deter evil regimes it is important that democratic nations should maintain military superiority; that in turn is used to justify massive military budgets. I do not advocate for a massive reduction in military spending but think at the very least that Western development budgets need to be substantially increased. And we need to remember that even the shocking state of ill-preparedness of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth in the face of rising Nazi power was ultimately sufficient to allow good to prevail over evil. In short in the most important war the world has waged in the last hundred years military under spending by those on the side of right did not prevent God’s justice from prevailing.

Coming closer to home many people in Zimbabwe fret about the fact that Zanu PF still controls the military which in turn has vastly more raw military power than what is at the disposal of those fighting to bring about a more democratic order. However for all that Zanu PF and the military establishment has thrown at us in the last 10 years and for all the resources they have at their disposal, the fact remains that they are weaker than ever, and getting weaker. Our campaign, which is based on non violence, has been long and hard but I am more confident than ever it is going to succeed.  As long as we strive to do what is right the raw military might will not prevail over forces for good.

War and the use of violence are manifestations of sin; it is our failure to resolve disputes between and within nations peacefully which results in war. War and the use of violence have been glorified by politicians down through the ages but stripped of its propaganda it is as much a consequence of the fall of mankind as is disease. It should accordingly be a last resort, which is rarely the case.

Peaceful means of resolving strife should also be given a chance. In 2008 in Zimbabwe we chose a flawed political settlement precisely to avoid Zimbabwe being plunged into a civil war. Sadly some Western countries have not supported that process and in doing so are undermining our chances of making this non violent process work.

“The kingdom of God is forcefully advancing and forceful men lay hold of it” 

My second concern relates to what I perceive as a failure to trust that God will ultimately honour, and be on the side of, good. Many in the increasingly secular West do not even believe in God so it is not surprising that there is so little reliance in the notion that ultimately a sovereign God will prevail in attaining justice and equity on earth. I have no doubt that it is the same lack of trust which contributes to massive Western military budgets – the feeling that unless man alone plans for the future there can be no security.

In Matthew 11:1-19 Jesus makes the interesting statement that “the Kingdom of God is forcefully advancing and forceful men lay hold of it”. Jesus makes the statement in the context of John the Baptist’s prophetic ministry and his harassment. What he highlights is the principle of the universal experience of opposition which characterised John the Baptist’s entire life culminating in his beheading. John experienced opposition throughout his ministry but it did not stop him from continuing, and it never confused him. He did what was right, suffered for it and God did not rescue him on earth. Jesus states that this is what all Christians must expect.

As happened to John and as has happened in countless circumstances since then God’s judgment is often delayed. Evil men – the forceful men laying hold of God’s kingdom, go from bad to worse, doing what they like, boasting of their distain for God, and apparently getting away with it. Christians cry out to God for help, and His answer is often unendurably slow – that has certainly been the case in Zimbabwe.

But God’s blessings are often “hidden”. Even in the time of His ministry on earth the miracles that Jesus did were never so blindingly obvious that they compelled belief. If people were determined not to believe, there was always a way in which they could explain away what Jesus had done, and so justify their unbelief. That is true today in a different way today as we consider God’s means of dispensing justice in the world. If we have eyes to see we can witness to wonderful ways in which God has delivered justice in His time. The last hundred years have witnessed the collapse and destruction of Nazi fascism, Soviet Communism, Apartheid and the downfall of numerous dictatorial regimes. Virtually all these evils have only been defeated after long and tortuous struggles and many have been brought down by inferior forces. Indeed the parable of the mustard seed and the invocation for us to be salt and light are reminders that God very rarely uses the strong and powerful to achieve His purposes – he generally uses the weak and insignificant.

Jesus had all the power to confront Herod but he turned his attention to 12 simple, humble and timid men – who ultimately turned the world upside down and changed it forever. Paul almost certainly met and challenged Nero – the greatest and most awesome ruler of his time. Slavery was eventually defeated through the efforts of relatively powerless men like Wilberforce over decades. Lincoln himself is a case in point – at the 2nd inaugural address a journalist Noah Brooks described him as a “tall, pathetic, melancholy figure”; he came from a poor background and yet God used him mightily. In short God tends to do the unexpected and uses the most unlikely cast of characters.

This method and our need to have eyes to see God’s means are wonderfully summed up in the following poem of Arthur Hugh Clough (1819 – 1861):

Say not the struggle naught availeth,

The labour and the wounds are vain,

The enemy faints not, nor faileth,

And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;

It may be, in yon smoke conceal’d,

Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,

And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,

Seem here no painful inch to gain,

Far back, through creeks and inlets making,

Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,

When daylight comes, comes in the light;

In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!

But westward, look, the land is bright!

We have certainly often wondered in Zimbabwe whether our struggle has been in vain – often it has seemed that there is no hope in the offing. We have seen the Zanu PF regime seemingly get away with terrible acts including a genocide in the 1980s and the systematic and brutal repression of democratic opposition in the last decade. Sometimes it has seemed as if God was just not listening but as time goes on it is apparent that God is working slowly and deliberately in Zimbabwe. I have absolute confidence that good is prevailing in Zimbabwe. But mine is a confident hope mixed with a sober realism that forceful evil men will continue to do whatever they choose until good prevails.

In short if we have eyes to see God’s kingdom is indeed forcefully advancing – God’s standards of justice are ultimately respected – God does hear the cries of those who appeal to Him against injustice. We can take heart that history shows that in His time God and good does prevail. But through it all we must always expect “forceful men to lay hold of it”. The emergence and strength of evil men and evil regimes is part and parcel of the forceful advancement of God’s kingdom. Opposition is in fact a sign that God’s work is succeeding. Violent, evil people attack God’s kingdom and those who are doing His will precisely because it is forcefully advancing. And what is more we must always expect a resurgence of evil – it is never fully quelled.

The challenge is for the West to have more confidence in the goodness, sovereignty and power of God despite the presence and resurgence of evil. The West must resist the temptation to resort to the tactics of evil men, such as the use of torture and extreme force, knowing that ultimately the best way to deal with “forceful men” is by upholding goodness.

If the West focuses consistently on using non violent methods in the resolution of conflict wherever possible it will not have to spend as much on building the armories it has and in fighting many of the wars it has. Its foreign policy needs to move away from what is perceived as the pursuit of self interest to the consistent application and support of God’s standards of morality. I use the word “consistent” because over the last few decades there has been a shocking inconsistency by the West in the application of international mores.

Many of the wars fought by the West since the 2nd World War have occurred because of the appeasement and sometimes encouragement of dictatorial regimes. Since the 2^nd World War many corrupt and violent regimes have prospered because of either Western support or indifference. Saddam Hussein was supported by the US in its fight against the Iranians as were the Taliban in their battle against the Russians. The cosying up by Britain to Gaddafi to secure access to Libyan oil bolstered and strengthened him.  In Zimbabwe the West looked the other way when Zanu PF committed a genocide in Matabeleland and even rewarded Robert Mugabe with a knighthood in 1994 – this was mainly because they were more focused on keeping Mugabe out of the Soviet sphere of influence. In all these cases the ultimate cost to both the West and the innocent citizens of those nations ruled by violent men has been enormous.

In short the West should never be on the side of the “forceful men seeking to lay hold” of God’s kingdom and its principles of morality. At the root of this is the Judeo-Christian teaching of the Psalms and Romans 3 that “there is no-one who does good” – or in other words that all politicians or military leaders throughout the world, if left to their own devices, ultimately have a bias towards exploiting or abusing power to their own benefit. It was the belief of Chamberlain in the ultimate goodness of man that influenced him to appease Hitler. I reiterate that I am not a pacifist. Using every last peaceful means to prevent war does not stem from believing that people are basically good but rather because of knowledge of man’s propensity for evil . In this regard the threat of war and capacity to conduct war are necessary means to prevent forceful men from achieving their goals.

I have no doubt that if the West changes it will be less likely to be dragged into the intractable messes it now finds itself in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. I recognize that sometimes there no choice but to intervene, as in the case of Libya, to save the lives of innocent people, but the West needs to learn from its prior mistakes. If it does so it will also find that it does not have to spend billions of dollars sorting out the mess created by dictatorial regimes in future.

What then about existing powerful non democratic nations run by “forceful men” which the West is dependent upon for fuel or trade? In practical terms it is very difficult for the West to avoid dealing with these nations.

However I would suggest the following. Suffering for doing good is a theme in the Bible. If a nation suffers for example economically, for doing good, it is submitting itself to the will of God.  1 Peter 3:17 states that. “It is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil”.

In my own country Zimbabwe we have suffered decades for doing wrong. The oppressive white minority government, by not giving black people a fair deal, drove the moderates in the black community to support violent and extreme nationalists and the entire nation then suffered a decade of civil war. The greed and poor governance of the last 30 years has led to the catastrophic state of our country. But through it all God has been faithful and ordinary Zimbabweans I believe now are far wiser. They can see the extremes of both white minority rule and black majority rule and have opted for a peaceful solution to our problems. While we have a long way to go I believe that we are headed in a better direction now than ever before in the last 50 years. It is still fragile and pray that by God’s grace we can steer a peaceful transition to democracy.

The point I am making is that although we have suffered for doing wrong our nation has come out stronger – and that was certainly the experience of post civil war America and post apartheid South Africa. All the more so if the West suffers for doing good by taking a more principled stand, which may have dire economic consequences, against all “forceful men” and their governments irrespective of their power.

 “Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has ten talents”

It is a fact that all but two of Jesus’ parables are about money and possessions. God cares very deeply about the stewardship of the good gifts He gives to individuals and Nations. He desires that we use our money wisely, generously and in the common good.

The harsh reality of the world today is that there remains a huge gulf between rich and poor nations. Some of these inequities are perpetuated by Western dominated trade policies and by , as I have already elaborated on, Western pursuit of self interest. In a recent meeting I attended in Morocco regarding education in Africa, a graph was displayed which shows that Africa’s tertiary institutions and their related research capacity are in fact weakening. Many of Africa’s best brains end up in the West strengthening already powerful nations. At the same meeting it was shown that most African Nations are spending far greater percentages of their national budgets on education than most Western Nations but that despite that the investment is simply not enough to enable African countries to catch up. As a result African children are lagging behind their counterparts elsewhere in the world and it makes the prospect of African development harder to achieve.

When I consider the billions of dollars spent in fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the billions of dollars spent in bailing out the AIG company in the United States and the billions of dollars spent bailing out profligate Greece in relation to how much is spent by the West on education in Africa I am appalled. The West has an moral duty to be better stewards of the enormous wealth it has.

Firstly, the amount the West spends in reducing the inequalities in the world is pitiful in relation to what it spends on defence and itself.  Denmark spends approximately .7% of its budget on development aid and for such a small nation it has done remarkable things in developing poorer nations. However nations of the world with far bigger economies than Denmark spend a fraction of that on developmental assistance and often the assistance given is conditional upon contracts being awarded to their own nationals. Furthermore the situation is compounded when one considers trade barriers such as the EU’s protective measures and subsidies in the agriculture sector which prevent countries in, for example, Africa from fully exploiting their comparative advantages. As stated above if the massive amounts of money spent on military defence were reduced and reallocated to international development assistance then targets such as the Danish target of .7% would be relatively easy to attain.

I have no doubt that if there were this change not only would huge strides be made towards reducing the inequalities in the world but also the world will be made a safer place in future.

Secondly, the West has to be wiser in how it spends development assistance and the parable of the talents is a useful guide. The last 50 years of developmental assistance are littered with stories of aid being wasted on profligate and corrupt governments and in many cases there is little to show for the aid money that has been spent. Far too much money has been spent on inefficient central government projects including building up the military. I suspect that a vast proportion of the United States assistance in both Iraq and Afghanistan has been and is being spent on building up the military rather than on constructing schools and supporting the private sector in those countries. I can say with absolute certainty regarding Zimbabwe when the Zanu PF government was still in favour with the West in the 1980s and 1990s that hundreds of millions of dollars was spent propping up central government and little if any was spent in supporting the private sector and promoting, for example, a private media. I find it ironic that every time the police in Zimbabwe have come to arrest me they have done so in Landrovers supplied by the British Government in the 1990s!

In other words development assistance should only be spent on governments that spend that money in the right way. If governments are faithful in the “few things ..then they should be ..put in charge of many things” (Matthew 25:23). And if governments cannot be entrusted with talents then developmental assistance should be directed to those responsible people who live under irresponsible governments. In the 1990s when the World Bank and IMF were pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into Zimbabwe propping up a patently corrupt regime we found it impossible to raise any money from Western Governments to research and write a human rights report exposing the genocide committed by the Zanu PF regime. Eventually Amnesty International provided us with US$ 10,000 and the entire “Breaking the Silence” report was financed through that grant.

Furthermore developmental assistance needs to be more targeted towards building the skills of the coming generation and of ensuring that there are jobs for the generation in the private sector. There needs to be a massive investment in the education sector throughout the third world, in building institutions which foster democracy and in private sector industries and businesses.

Conclusion

There is interconnectivity between all the points I have raised this evening. If the West takes dramatic steps to change its foreign policies the world will become a better place and meaningful freedom will be realised. Western nations need to reduce their defence budgets; they need to trust more that the consistent pursuit of principle provides greater security than bombs; they need to rechannel the money saved from defence spending into reducing inequalities between nations; they need to be principled and firm in how and on what that development aid is spent.

Indeed Lincoln’s closing remarks in his second inaugural address are apposite:

“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”

It will only be through charity, firmness in doing right, binding of international wounds or inequities and care for the destitute of the world, that a just and lasting world peace, and therefore freedom, may be achieved.

Senator David Coltart

Sydney 26 July 2011

• Encouraged by Zimbabwe's performance against Australia A – 10 of Aus team have played for Aus test side and we are missing 5 key players #
• Waiting for news on Zimbabwe's World Cup final match against Australia in polocrosse in UK today – any news out there? #
• Enjoyable evening with Australia A cricket team – nice to hear Greg Chappell being highly complementary about Zimbabwe cricket #
• “@zimcricket: Word is that Taylor and Taibu will be back from injury for Zim.” Taylor yes but not Taibu – remaining concerns re thumb #
• " I hope God will help us as these people are busy working for Satan" Bingu wa Mutharika Malawian President – talks today about protesters #
• Malawian President says those protesting are working for Satan – see full speech at http://t.co/oMMuNaC #
• Check this video out — Hon. Mr David Coltart, Minister for Education, Sports, Arts & Culture Zi… http://t.co/tBrUN4n via @youtube #
• Come on Zimbabwe – time for a few wickets #
• I am shocked and deeply saddened by the Norwegian tragedy – I remember their wonderful generosity to Zimbabwe's Education Transition Fund #
• Good to see Ray Price getting back into form – great figures Pricey against the Australians #
• Much better day at the office Zimbabwe – now get these last two Australian wickets! #
• Ray Price – you beauty! Great figures – just missed out on his 5 against Australia today. Good to see you back in the thick of it #
• Ray Price – all rounder deluxe! #
• Disappointing end to Australia A series with Zim collapsing but there are many positives to take us forward – thank you Australia! #

The Australian

By Bruce Loudon

23 July 2011

IT’S about the last thing you would expect him to be, but David Coltart is an optimist. After more than 30 years fighting for human rights and democracy in Zimbabwe, constantly locking horns with Robert Mugabe and defying the worst Mugabe’s brutal regime could throw at him, including death threats, it would be no surprise to find him in despair.

But he’s not: far from it. And as he provides rare insights into what it’s like these days to be both a committed opponent and member of Mugabe’s cabinet under the power-sharing arrangement that governs the country, Coltart – Minister for Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, and political fighter extraordinaire – is dismissive of the doomsayers.

“Look,” he says, “I’m under absolutely no illusions. This [power-sharing arrangement, which has brought members of Coltart’s Movement for Democratic Change opposition into government alongside Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF party] is a very fragile set-up. Anything could happen. But at the moment it’s working. We will inevitably go through more upsets. But things have at least stabilised.”

And he says – remarkably, given his chequered past relations with him – that although Mugabe is 87 and seen by many to be on his last legs, possibly suffering prostate cancer, “anyone who is contemplating the future of Zimbabwe on the basis that Mugabe is not going to be around for very long is making a mistake”.

“No, Mugabe is no monster,” he says emphatically when I ask about the notorious reputation of the man who has held Zimbabwe in his thrall for 31 years. “He is no Idi Amin. Yes, he’s 87 and, yes, he may tire quickly. But he remains a wily political operator. He’s remarkably fit, remarkably fit. He’s lucid.”

Despite his decades of indefatigable opposition to Mugabe’s despotic rule Coltart speaks almost generously of the old man’s efficient management of cabinet meetings, of the extent to which, despite expectations to the contrary, he retains tight control over government – in Coltart’s case, taking keen interest in his education portfolio and supporting his initiatives against others in government.

We are speaking on the eve of Coltart’s departure for Sydney. On Tuesday he will speak on politics and religion at a meeting in the NSW parliament organised by the Centre for Independent Studies. For those seeking insight into Zimbabwe and Mugabe, there could hardly be a better source, for Coltart, a 54-year-old white lawyer and committed Christian, has been fighting for justice in Zimbabwe since Ian Smith’s time.

In the 1980s Coltart played a key role in uncovering the Gukurahundi massacres carried out in Matabeleland by Mugabe’s North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade, acts of genocide that remain among the worst atrocities committed by the regime.

“No, Mugabe is not Idi Amin,” says Coltart, a senator whose nomination as education minister was initially forcefully opposed by Mugabe. “But he and ZANU-PF are responsible for some terrible things that can never be forgotten. He’s not a monster but he is a very, very complex man,” he says, echoing a widely held view that many of Mugabe’s excesses stem from what he suffered decades ago under white rule, one instance being when his three-year-old son died and Mugabe, then in prison, was not permitted to attend his funeral.

What about Mugabe’s religion, I ask. Wasn’t he reared a devout Catholic and educated by Jesuits? How does someone with that background gain such notoriety as a tyrant? Is he still so religious?

“Not noticeably,” Coltart says. “But it’s all part of the complex person that he is.”

He recalls how last year when Coltart’s daughter had a serious accident, Mugabe went to great lengths to inquire about her welfare, despite their longstanding political animus.

It is in this mood of co-operation, fragile though it is, that lies the real cause for Coltart’s optimism. Despite the doomsayers and extremist factions within ZANU-PF who are seeking to undermine it, the power-sharing government, he says, is working reasonably well and, importantly, gaining public support.

“In 2008, when the power-sharing deal was done, Zimbabwe was facing total collapse. There was hyperinflation, a cholera epidemic, a collapsed economy, rioting by soldiers, real prospects that Zimbabwe would disintegrate,” Coltart says.

“It’s not a perfect arrangement. Far from it. But it has stabilised the economy.

“There are far fewer human rights abuses than there used to be. Dramatically fewer. Fewer people are being murdered.

“This isn’t Somalia. There is an inherent strength in Zimbabwe. We have rich natural resources. Geographically, we are in the heart of Africa, something that makes what happens in our country important to the whole region.

“We’re making progress. It’s not perfect. But gradually, step by step, we’re getting there. Yes, I am an optimist, if a cautious optimist, but I’m a realist, too.”

Coltart puts Zimbabwe about where South Africa was in the 1990s, before Nelson Mandela’s release and the advent of democratic rule. Importantly, he says, the power-sharing arrangement, as it inches forwards, is winning backers even among elements in the army and police that are hardline supporters of ZANU-PF.

So, what happens now? What about Mugabe’s reported determination to force another election this year before a new constitution can be drawn up that will ensure free and fair elections, and in that way grab another five years in power?

Coltart has no doubt that if free and fair elections are held the opposition will be swept into office. That’s why ZANU-PF wants a new poll now. But South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma and the South African Development Community group of nations he leads have made it plain they won’t countenance such undermining of the power-sharing arrangement. They’re determined to ensure there is no election before a new constitution is in place.

So what about sanctions? And what happens after Mugabe?

On sanctions, Coltart declares himself a sceptic and a cynic. They simply don’t work, he insists. Just as they didn’t when Smith declared independence.

He points out that despite atrocities such as the Gukurahundi massacres, Mugabe was awarded a knighthood by Britain in 1994, becoming a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath. By contrast, after 15 white farmers were killed by ZANU-PF mobs in 2000 sanctions were imposed.

There is, he says, no clear line of succession from Mugabe. ZANU-PF, he maintains, is not a homogeneous body. It has rival factions. There would be a battle for the leadership. Coltart says he is aware of reports that the army, a notorious mainstay of the regime, is preparing to impose its chief, General Constantine Chiwenga, as leader, but says he believes this would be opposed by elements within ZANU-PF.

Coltart’s message is that Zimbabwe has come back from the brink, that it is no longer headed towards the sort of trainwreck that has been seen in places such as Somalia. Equally, the message is also that a nation that has been ravaged by decades of Mugabe’s misrule has got a long way to go before it returns to the prosperity it once enjoyed and that was the envy of Africa.

That Coltart, indefatigable campaigner for human rights and democracy, and Mugabe, the notorious tyrant, can work together is at least a promising sign in a country in which there has been so little hope for so long.

The CIS Acton lecture on religion and freedom is next Tuesday at NSW parliament, 5.45pm-7pm.

Newsday

Sport Comment

22 July 2011

Football in Zimbabwe cannot be a matter of life and death. Certainly not.

We find it strange some people would want to target one member of the Zifa investigating committee in the Asiagate match-fixing scandal and single him out as somebody who has put their lives at risk.

The committee has four members — Ndumiso Gumede, Eliot Kasu, Benedict Moyo and Fungai Chihuri — appointed by the current Zifa Board to look at the issue of match-fixing that rocked Zimbabwe since 2007 following numerous trips to Asia.

Why would one person, or a group of persons, threaten Moyo?

Was it because he was the secretary of the committee or was it just personal hatred?

The document has been dismissed as having flaws because the interviews were not conducted under oath and even the Education, Sport, Arts and Culture minister David Coltart has admitted the porous document would be difficult to use to arrest and prosecute people.

Former Zifa chief executive Henrietta Rushwaya said if people have evidence a crime was committed, they should testify in a court of law.

Other accused like Godfrey Japajapa, Methembe Ndlovu, Luke Masomere, Kudzi Shaba, Nyasha Mushekwi, Method Mwanjali, Sunday Chidzambwa and Hope Chizuzu have denied some of the accusations levelled against them.

So why would one want to spend a good Saturday chasing after Moyo?

Why would one not want to spend that energy clearing his name?

See — whether a crime was committed or not, and whether people’s names have been soiled or not — the real issue lies in those with the power to make decisions.

And in this case, the Sports and Recreation Commission — under the leadership of lawyer Joseph James and its parent ministry under another lawyer, Coltart — is better placed to give the nation direction.

Coltart has already done so.

The police and Fifa, empowered by their statutes, can also take action, and Fifa president Sepp Blatter has already threatened a life ban on alleged perpetrators if found guilty.

The Parliament of Zimbabwe was on Thursday told security is needed for members of the committee, which means they took the threats against Moyo seriously.

However, Zifa president Cuthbert Dube has been silent since the release of the report.

“As we speak now one of our board members is in hiding because there are people baying for his blood. We need Parliament to assist us to have legislative support which will be foolproof in making people who deface football accountable for their mischief through the statutes.

“It will protect the game of football because without that, our game will be susceptible to the machinations of fraudsters.

“We also want assurance of security for the Asiagate investigators due to the death threats to some of our members,” Zifa chief executive officer Jonathan Mashingaidze said.

We believe it is time people put their heads together and came clean on why the attacks on the committee are centred on Gumede and Moyo only.

Are some people afraid of Kasu because he is a soldier or Chihuri because his surname sounds familiar?

A note to the Zimbabwean parliamentarians: Bulgaria’s parliament has approved legal amendments to make match-fixing and corruption in sport a crime with penalties of up to six years in prison.

Lawmakers voted on Thursday to add a whole new chapter “Offences against Sports” to the penal code under which those convicted of match-fixing or bribing would also face fines of up to $10 800.

Last year, authorities investigated allegations of match-fixing in eight football matches, but legal proceedings stumbled over lack of provision in criminal law.

The new legislation was expected to also counter illegal online betting which had gained immense popularity in the country.

Newsday

By Veneranda Langa

22 July 2011

Zifa yesterday appealed to Parliament and the government to intervene and craft legislation that would impose deterrent sentences for match-fixers and to protect those involved in the investigations of the infamous Asiagate scam.

Zifa chief executive officer, Jonathan Mashingaidze and board member (finance) Elliot Kasu told the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Education, Sport, Arts and Culture chaired by Mutasa North lawmaker David Chimhini that they wanted Parliament and the government to intervene so those implicated who might want to use political clout in order to avoid the course of justice are dealt with without fear or favour. They told the committee that they had also asked Interpol to investigate the cases of match-fixing because they were twofold; those of a criminal nature and others were offences in contravention of Fifa rules and regulations.

“Asiagate is of serious concern because no sponsor will finance the sport of football where results will be determined by morally unscrupulous individuals who sacrifice patriotism for only $5 000 in this circus of madness,” said Mashingaidze.

“Espionage took place over the past four years, where these match-fixing syndromes would move in the company of the mafia and people who wanted to exploit the economic meltdown of Zimbabwe and it was easy to induce a player to make the country lose,” he said.

Mashingaidze said the post investigation process will involve prosecution of the masterminds of the scandal so that there was finality because Fifa president Sepp Blatter came to Zimbabwe and declared that all those found guilty would be banned for life.

“As we speak now, one of our board members is in hiding because there are people baying for his blood. There will also be need for psychotherapy for those players who sacrificed their psycho values for the sake of dirty money,” Mashingaidze said.

He continued: “We need Parliament to assist us to have legislative support which will be foolproof in making people who deface football accountable for their mischief through the statutes. It will protect the game of football because without that our game will be susceptible to the machinations of fraudsters. We also want assurance of security for the Asiagate investigators due to the death threats to some of our members.”

Kasu said when the new Zifa board came into office people knew that there were nefarious activities happening, but were not bold enough to crack them, resulting in a lot of cases pending from the previous board.

“These included unsanctioned trips to Asia. When we started investigating, a lot of people involved in these scandals tried to instil fear in us, but we said if football has to be sponsored, we needed to clean our house,” said Kasu.

He said the methodology used to come up with the report of the Asiagate match -fixing scandal was to interview players, the technical teams, journalists and other people involved.

Kasu said they could not manage to visit all the places involved, but some of the people interviewed gave written testimonies that were signed.

“However, there is misconstruing from the press where they think we look at the number of trips a person participated in these match fixing deals. Instead, we look at how many games a person participated in because people are trying to hide behind that,” said Kasu.

He continued: “There was no single cent that went to Zifa and it means this money was going into people’s pockets. About 80 players participated in match-fixing, including technical members, coaches, referees and even current board members,” he said.

He said $28 million had been made available to Interpol to curb international match-fixing and Zimbabwe should try to tap into that amount in its quest to put an end to match-fixing syndicates.

On Wednesday, Education, Sport, Arts and Culture minister David Coltart, while admitting flaws in the second Asiagate report, said he would call in the police and the Attorney-General to assist and assured the nation that action will certainly be taken against alleged perpetrators of the scam.

www.kubatanablogs.net

 21 July 2011

A recent headline in The Herald caught my eye: 15,000 teaching posts vacant.

It brought to mind a recent post I’d seen on Twitter – despite the high levels of unemployment there, an IT company was struggling to fill 20 vacancies.

In Zimbabwe, unemployment is estimated at 90%, with the majority of Zimbabweans surviving in the informal sector, and with tremendous pressure on wage earners to support large extended family networks.

Meanwhile, many of the country’s brightest and proactive young people have left the country to pursue economic opportunities in South Africa, the UK and elsewhere. The brain drain included many of Zimbabwe’s qualified teachers, who left the careers they had planned and studied for to find better paying jobs outside of the country. Despite government initiatives to lure these qualified teachers back to the country, the teaching vacancies persist.

In a country with such massive unemployment, how can 15,000 posts go vacant?

As The Herald article points out: “Most teachers have been driven away by low remuneration and frustrating bureaucracy.”

Drawing on The Herald piece, a story from VOA Studio 7 quotes Education Minister David Coltart as saying that “the lack of respect for teachers in Zimbabwe, poor housing especially at rural schools and political intimidation of teachers have all contributed to high vacancies.”

Zimbabwe used to have one of the best education systems in Africa. Other posts on this blog have talked about the esteem in which teachers were held in their communities. But now Zimbabwe is in a bind. Without a robust economic engine of production, how does the country generate the revenue base to enable government to increase teachers’ salaries (and those of other civil servants)? In the meantime, what does it say for us as a country, if conditions for those in the teaching profession are so bad that our young people would rather leave the country – or start their own businesses – than contribute to educating the future of Zimbabwe.

Financial Gazette

21 July 2011

THE three parties in the coalition government yesterday shrugged off their political differences to attend the burial of the late national hero, Andrew Sikajaya Muntanga, at the National Heroes Acre, in a rare show of unity. Although Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was conspicuous by his absence, some of his party officials were present at the national shrine and so were officials from the Welshman Ncube-led formation of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara was also in attendance to bury the first legislator for Binga.

Muntanga, who was a Binga legislator from 1980 to 1985, died last week at the Medical Centre in the resort town of Victoria Falls after a long battle with heart complications.

Ministers David Coltart (MDC), Joel Gabbuza Gabuza (MDC-T), the current Binga House of Assembly member, were some of the former opposition supporters that braved the chilly weather to pay their last respect to the fallen giant from Binga.

Douglas Mwonzora, the MDC-T spokesperson, said the Prime Minister did not attend due to other pressing commitments.

“The Prime Minister did not attend; there was an (MDC-T) standing committee meeting and the party caucus, which coincided with the burial. Also we are planning for a memorial service of one of our late members, Rwisai Nyakauru where the Prime Minister is going to attend,” said Mwonzora.

In the past, the MDC formations have boycotted the burial of national heroes at the national shrine, arguing that the events were being turned into ZANU-PF private functions or political meetings at which President Robert Mugabe has on several occasions attacked his opponents.

But in a clear departure from his favourite pastime, President Mugabe shied away from attacking his partners in the shaky coalition government and the West.

In a toned down speech, President Mugabe instead heaped praises on the late nationalist, disappointing those who were anticipating his usual bashing of Prime Minister Tsvangirai, the MDC-T and the West.

In a brief mention of the Gukurahundi massacres, in his gravesite eulogy, President Mugabe said the period was nasty before brushing off the issue in which civil society organisations claim more than 20 000 people were killed in State-sponsored violence.