The Chinese ... and Zimbabweans ... are like Oxygen

I needed to have a fag. So I walked out of this spanking new African air terminal in order to find space to satisfy my nicotine addiction.

Outside I came across a scene of busy endeavour. Workmen were painting roof trusses destined to be hoisted up and added to the sparkling new airport edifice.

As I lit up one of the workmen turned to face me. I recognized him instantly, or rather I recognized the look in his eyes. All Zimbabweans in the Diaspora have the look. The eyes have “a homeless” glaze tinged with “perhaps you will accept me in any case”. It can be likened to the "the dark brown taste of being poor[1]” look the children had at the Coloured orphanage I attended as a child. It is the look of “displaced” human beings.

“Mankwanani shamwari” [Good morning friend] I venture in my best Shona. Soon the whole group stops painting, and gathers around me. They are all from Zimbabwe, the country of my birth. Instinctively I first share my fag before offering out others. It is an act of bonding.

A spirit of comradeship quickly overtakes our group. As Sam Nujoma, President of SWAPO in Namibia, once said, “we are together, we are the same … we are from each other”.

The mood is also slightly conspiratorial.  So conversation is just a bit stilted, especially as we are approached and then “watched over” by their foreman, a Chinese gentleman with a kindly facial expression.

There are sniggers about Gideon Gono bedding Robert Mugabe’s wife, Grace. “Gideon is now the new jongwe (cockerel)”. “Mugabe killed Tsvangirai’s wife, now see what has happened to his wife”.

Four of the group are university graduates … now working as semi skilled painters, in a foreign country. They are philosophical and stoic about things. They say they are being treated well in this country and that the government “is good”. Why do I feel slightly uncomfortable about the expression of gratitude?

They go on. It is better than being burnt alive and thrown off trains in South Africa, to which I am about to fly. I feel worse.

The Chinese foreman also wants a fag. My inner self is a conflict zone. I decline. They prevail upon me to relent saying “never mind … just give him one”. Now feeling ashamed, I comply.

In impeccable English, one of them, gives me a clear dissertation of a new reality. First it was Cecil John Rhodes and gang, doing it in Africa on behalf of British imperialism. There were others, like Rhodes, doing it for France, Belgium, Italy, Germany …. the list is long.

Well, now we have the Chinese.

“It is different. But it is the same. The Afrikaners were right … we are ordained in the Bible to be hewers of wood and drawers of water … in our own continent… even though Africa is so incredibly rich in natural resources … our own leaders are making sure of that …”

I am feeling nauseous. But there is much laughter as someone quips –“but are they (the Chinese) not supposed to be communists? We have a new socio economic philosophy – communist capitalism”.

There is a lament and much bewilderment about the support that Mugabe continues to be given by African leaders, led by South Africa. Mandela made a grave mistake in choosing Mbeki over Cyril Ramophosa, as his successor. The problem was that he consulted African leaders like Mugabe. They had not forgotten how their then most senior colleague, Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia, had been done in by “little” Frederick Chiluba, a labour man, like Cyril and Tsvangirai. These leaders have a pathological fear of “the working class”.

Their support, it is observed, will strengthen, now that Mugabe has diamonds. Zimbabweans will not benefit from this wealth. It is being turned into “loot” to be shared amongst corrupt leaders.

The Chinese foreman smiles more broadly, and the twinkle in his eye brightens, as he acknowledges the presence of diamonds in Zimbabwe.

The group assures me that the foreman is “a good man”. So is the Company that employs them. It is all better than being back home in Zimbabwe. “They are helping us. We can send money home … where our families are starving.”

Soon I am on my flight to South Africa. A white man is seated next to me. In exasperated tones he brings it to my attention that the majority of passengers in our part of the cabin are all Chinese. I tell him that it was the same on earlier flights I made to Australia, New Zealand and Namibia. He is not happy.

I am quiet, struggling with the inner pain I feel about those I have just left and the millions of others in the Zimbabwe Diaspora. As one of them had said – “we Zimbabweans are now like oxygen … everywhere”. “Just like the Chinese” had been the prompt riposte.

As we land in Johannesburg the air waves carry a story that the Vice President of China has just landed to engage with our leaders in promoting “mutual interests …”

Later the air waves switch to report that ABSA CEO, Maria Ramos, is appealing to South Africans to up our game if we “are to match the Asians”.

On the way home my mind plays out a panoramic picture of incredible beauty and ambience. It is called “World’s View”. It is situated in the Motopos Hills of Zimbabwe. It nettles the grave of Cecil John Rhodes.

Near the grave is a monument to the Alan Wilson patrol. They were slaughtered as Ndebele warriors tried to stem the tide of British imperialism. As the vanquished British soldiers lay dead on the battlefield, the Ndebele impi honoured them with the salutation “They were men of men and their fathers were men before them." The salutation is inscribed on the monument at Motopos.

I ponder about this new invasion. The invaders are welcomed. They do not come in ox wagons armed with rifles. They arrive, first class, by air. They glide around in shiny Mercedes Benz motor vehicles. They carry briefcases. There are no battles or fights … just hand shakes and smiles on knowing faces.

In 1996 Thabo Mbeki made a stirring speech titled – “I am an African”.  What did it mean when Rhodes arrived? What does it now mean, particularly for us Zimbabweans, or the millions of still impoverished South Africans living under cardboard, corrugated iron and plastic … or other Africans in “our Africa”?

What, in the name of heaven, does Mbeki now mean when he touts an “African Renaissance” with his Thabo Mbeki Foundation? Was it not under his presidency that South Africa became the most unequal society in the world? Did he not deny over 320, 000 HIV/AIDS victims medication, resulting in their deaths and over 2 million households now being headed by a child?

I am an African. My family is African. We do not live at home. My family is spread over Canada, Brazil, England and Australia. Fellow Zimbabweans are spread all over the world 

… like oxygen … like the Chinese.

Now are you too feeling just a bit nauseous?

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[1] Attributed to Ruth Gordon Jones (October 30, 1896 – August 28, 1985), better known as Ruth Gordon, an American actress and writer.