By Dave Bloom:
During my recent visit to Harare in April this year, I witnessed the shocking regression in all spheres of life in Zimbabwe, and the government under Robert Mugabe appeared well entrenched and not about to go anywhere. At the venerable age of 93, Mugabe had declared that he was planning to run yet again for the presidency in 2018 – meaning that he would be 99 at the end of that term.
He appeared unstoppable.
I was visiting the city of my birth where I had spent my formative years and as part of my work in preserving the story of the almost defunct Zimbabwe Jewish Community. My wife and I had reconnected with Zimbabwe in the early 1990s, when I was posted there from Israel to manage sub-Sahara operations for Reuters, the news and financial information company. After twenty years, we decided it was time to visit and reconnect with friends and the good memories of our five-year stay.
Former Reuters colleagues gather for lunch reunion in Harare in April 2016. Dave Bloom (seated)
Everywhere we turned in Harare we found evidence of what had become one of the poorest countries in Africa. Once proud and beautiful neighbourhoods in the capital, now no municipal water, no street lights, frequent power outages, potholes, police roadblocks fleecing drivers with spot fines for the most innocuous infringements, and people struggling to get cash from ATMs.
That was on the micro level.
On the macro level, following record inflation in the millions of percentage points, the Zimbabwean economy had shrunken to the purchasing power at the same levels in real terms as 1953. Unemployment had reached the unsustainable height of 95% and over three million Zimbabweans were forced into exile to support themselves.
Harrowing in Harare
Entering familiar suburbia, all the homes had high walls with both barbed and electric wiring with cameras at the entrances. We witnessed at close hand the degradation in the roads and infrastructure. Along our street there were large potholes some of which had been filled temporarily with bricks and rubble. “Temporary fixes” have a different meaning in contemporary Zimbabwe.
On several occasions I was aggressively warned to not take photographs.
An attempt to visit my childhood home in the suburb of Avondale proved illuminating – in a dark sense. I was refused entry, and when I settled for taking a shot with my camera of the building outside, a man in a grey suit and tie approached me rather menacingly asking me to refrain from taking photos. My driver, Julius, sensing my disappointment, offered the explanation:
“The place was probably owned by a “minister” and he did not want anyone with a camera snooping around.”
It felt like the closest thing to a police state I had ever experienced.
It was an encounter that reminded me of that powerful book written around the time of the 2008 elections in Zimbabwe by the famed Zimbabwean author, journalist and former human rights lawyer Peter Godwin. Called “The Fear”, Godwin vividly describes how repression, corruption and intimidation were the hallmarks of Mugabe’s regime.
I was again reminded of this tension in what was one of the most tranquil spots of my past.
High above Harare on the iconic ‘Kopje’ with its commanding views of the city below, I recalled the drive up as the dreaded test of nearly every learner driver. This time I experienced a different “dread”!
Taking a photograph, a soldier jumped out of the bush and ran after the car demanding we stop. He too menacingly enquired why I was taking pictures, this time “in a military zone”. I managed to appease the soldier with profuse apologies and promised not to take any further pictures.
However, “Military zone!!! Is he kidding? There was no sign.”
The only ‘sign’ was in a metaphorical sense – a sign of the times!
The writer meeting with members of the small Jewish community at the Rodis Hall, Sephardic Synagogue, Harare. (l-r) Arnold Joffe, Dave Bloom, Benny and Rose Leon, Sonia Levy
End of an Era
I found the Zimbabwe Jewish Community a shadow of its former self with just 120 souls left in the country. They bravely maintain community life with synagogues in Harare and Bulawayo and even two private Jewish primary schools in each city. There are almost no Jewish children at those schools.
I had grown up in the 1950s and 1960s when the Jewish Community peaked at around 7,500 members with vibrant community services, youth movements, synagogues and sports facilities. On 11th November 1965, Ian Smith’s Rhodesian Front party-led government declared Unilateral Independence from Britain in a failed attempt to maintain white minority rule. The exodus of Jews together with the wider white population accelerated in the late 1970s during the war with the two main adversaries headed by Robert Mugabe of the dominant Shona tribe, and Joshua Nkomo of the Matabeles.
The armed struggle against Rhodesia ensued, and Zimbabwe became independent in 1980 under the leadership of Mugabe.
From Political Swamp, Emerges the ‘Crocodile’
Spanned by 52 years almost to the day, a sudden a series of dramatic events shook the country when a spokesman for the Zimbabwe Armed forces went on television on the early hours of 15th November 2017 to announce the army was stepping in to intervene and “ensure the stability of the country”.
Former Finance Minister Tendai Biti and member of the MDC opposition party in Zimbabwe, eloquently described these events as a “confluence of forces that triggered a coup by the army” in support of Emmerson Mnangagwa who had been fired just 10 days previously by Mugabe.
Mnangagwa, known by his nickname as the “Crocodile”, had been effectively Mugabe’s right-hand man since Zimbabwe won its independence from white-ruled Rhodesia in 1980, but in the last year had been in a vicious power struggle with Mugabe’s wife Grace on the question of who would succeed the nonagenarian.
Biti went on to articulate in a spell-binding analysis of the Zimbabwe crisis to a Sandton audience in Johannesburg on the 23rd November that the Zimbabwe army and powerful lobby of Zimbabwe War Veterans had no appetite for Grace to take over “as if she was entitled to continue the Mugabe dynasty.” She had basically forced their hand by getting her husband to sack Mnangagwa, he said.
Zimbabweans waiting in line for hours to draw maximum daily allowance of USD 30 from ATMs (if they are lucky)
Close Encounter
Several years ago, I was invited by the Israeli Foreign Ministry along with some colleagues to meet with Emmerson Mnangagwa for dinner at a Jerusalem hotel. At the time he was speaker of the Zimbabwe Parliament and was in the country on a conference of Speakers. He was accompanied by a young lady assistant who was very protective of him and she rebuffed in a rebuking tone some of the tougher questions I posed to him about human rights in Zimbabwe.
Two things I do distinctly remember: he was gentlemanly and that he was quite interested in exploring ‘personal’ business opportunities in Israel. At the time I naively found that uncomfortable and puzzling given the official status of his visit and position.
Wingate Park Golf Club was established by the Harare Jewish Community in the 1950s. Of the few remaining Jewish members is Beryl Thal aged 93, who still looks after the club’s gardens.
Concern and Hope
As I watched the news in the last 10 days, I could not help hoping that Mnangagwa has indeed done an about-turn, and felt I was trying to push aside the dark feelings that perhaps we are facing Mugabe “Version Two”. He certainly has a grim task ahead of him to turn Zimbabwe around and clean up the embedded culture of corruption and cronyism – of which he was a key player. In the words of Peter Godwin “If Mnangagwa has any sense, he will appoint Tendai Biti as his finance minister. Biti has done it before and could hit the ground running. And it would convince skeptics (me among them!), and investors that Mnangagwa is serious about putting country before party.”
Arnold Joffe, President of the Harare Hebrew Congregation, said to me “I feel people in general are hopeful that a more rational level-headed policy will now be followed. I believe most Zimbabwean Jewish people share that hope and expectation.”
I thought most poignant was this piece written by the esteemed former Reuters correspondent from Harare – Cris Chinaka who reported on Mugabe for the past 37 years.
“There are two images of Robert Gabriel Mugabe that jump out of my memory to illustrate the contrasting sides of the man who led Zimbabwe for 37 years. The first is of a combative and ebullient 57-year-old, dressed in an olive-green military-type suit in the dying days of what was then white-run Rhodesia. Waving a clenched fist in the air, he was scolding his opponents and rallying his supporters as they marched confidently towards the birth of
Outside of the Sephardi synagogue in Harare
a new nation: Zimbabwe.
The second is of a shrunken 93-year-old slumped in a cushioned seat, snoozing. His wife Grace, more than 40 years his junior, whispers in his ear while placing a colourful cowboy hat on his head as thousands of fawning ZANU-PF party faithful applauded.
In the nearly four decades that separated those two episodes, Zimbabwe had, in the eyes of its critics, declined into the same state as its leader: hollowed out, impotent and for some an object of ridicule.”
There is a general consensus on the streets of Zimbabwe, in the press, and many friends I have spoken to – that the resignation of Mugabe is a huge opportunity for positive change.
Let’s hope this interim government begins that process, and the elections in 2018 are a free and fair reflection of the will of the Zimbabwean people who deserve so much better.
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About the Author:
Dave Bloom, born in Zimbabwe, worked for Reuters for 20 years including a four- year stint in Zimbabwe as regional manager in the early 1990s, and then three years in London as a Marketing Manager for Reuters UK. Today he divides his time between running a software company and as a professional personal historian – recording people’s life stories.
He has lived in Israel since 1973, married with two daughters and seven grandchildren.
Dave continues to represent the Zimbabwe community in Israel through his website www.zjc.org.il and Facebook group
www.facebook.com/zimjewishcommunity
