Please let something be done for Zimbabwe

I received a letter from Zimbabwe recently. It was from the headmaster of the school where I spent nearly 3 years, and came almost exactly 15 years to the day I left. The school, the country, the continent has remained in my heart all this time, so I am really hoping that the events this week mark the lowest point in Zimbabwe's history and that the only way now is upwards and onwards.

I rejoice that the corner may be turning. But it is a shame that it was only yesterday, with the news that cholera is killing Zimbabweans and threatening South Africa, that the regions leaders started talking having to do something.

I rejoice that the UN did pass a resolution in 2005 that they could act against a country's leader if the people are suffering. But why has it taken so long?

I rejoice in the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, advocating military action if necessary. But how has the region allowed Zimbabwe to become a basket case rather than the bread basket of Southern Africa?

What has led up to the current situation is a complex story. Mugabe urged reconciliation, even after his violent putting down of the Bulawayo uprising in the early 1980s, but the white Rhodesians did not play ball. Doris Lessing's 1957 book Going Home sheds much light on what Mugabe had to work with, describing the whites as adolescents, selfish and immature, unable even to see that their attitudes were leading to a poorly educated and less productive workforce. Unfortunately, Mugabe became more entrenched against the whites and the UK to the point of not acting in the best interests of the country: a journalist said as much to me in 1991, by which time Mugabe was sufficiently sensitive to criticisms to close the road passing the presidential palace in Harare overnight.

The story is also compounded by Mugabe being the Father of the country. A teacher said to me in 1992: “The question is, if a family is suffering because of what the father is doing, how does the family tell the father that things need to change?”

There is the problem. In Mugabe's eyes, he is leader still, and, in the face of unrealistic self appraisal, there has been no telling him. The African leaders, this year at least, have talked with him -- man to man, leader to leader, chief to chief -- with no obvious result.

I have to say that I believe another course of action, i.e. military, must be taken if Mugabe does not hand over home affairs to Morgan Tsvangirai very soon. And the Africans need to do it: I was glad to see Saddam Hussain removed from power, but not what happened afterwards. I trust the African leaders to appoint another chief to father the Zimbabweans; I don't want the UN, the USA or the UK to be involved other than to support the African leaders in their decision to step in.

I've taken comfort in having proof that the postal service in Zimbabwe was still working in October. The letter itself did not give much information about how things were: it was more of a "Hello, just found you in my old address book. I am still here. It would be nice to know how you are." Whether my friend will get my reply by Christmas I don't know.

Talk until you are tired

"Talk until you are tired" is the translation of the words printed on a kanga I was buying in Dar es Salaam in 1989: Mtasema mtachoka. With many of the kangas in East Africa having a jina, they were clearly important for communication. I didn't want to be in ignorance; I asked the shop assistant.

She paused and laughed, clearly having difficulty. She explained: "It means that you keep talking about things that matter to you, whether it is a certain problem or just things. It is very important to talk as much as you can. You have to keep talking until you cannot talk anymore because you need to sleep."

Talking until you are tired is a way of life. It is the only way to sort things out. I spent 3 years in Africa, where women talk all the time as they walk, wash clothes in the river, wait by the bus stop. Men sit in groups in the evenings and talk. Great efforts are made to talk to the right people: in a country without a fit-for-purpose telephone system, people made long journeys, over the hill on foot, by bus or by train, and I am sure they still do.

Now, I'm blogging until I am tired. There is much to talk about. I'm writing from a UK perspective and I'm hoping, not least because the seed of this blog's attitude originates in Africa, that the blog will generate a collection of world views simply because there are issues that affect us all.