Genesis

I wanted to post more frequently but life happened and here we are. One world cup down another to go, what’s the bet we choke again?

Wow, I can’t believe that it’s almost July already.

More to follow.

Looking back at 2020, I can remember a very normal January. I watched 2 Super Rugby exhibition games at FNB stadium with 3 friends and had an absolute blast. After the game we all agreed that this should definitely become a tradition. As it turned out, fate would decree that this would not be the case. I am not sure if I will ever get to watch a live rugby match ever gain, the same goes for watching a movie in a cinema.

February was also a pretty normal month. The only clues we received about what would become the scariest year in over a century was articles in the media about a flu like virus that had broken out in a city in China. The articles talked about desperate efforts being made to contain an as of yet unnamed virus. Said virus would eventually be called Covid-19 – a novel Coronavirus. To the uninitiated novel means new.

Chinese New Year would see the virus spreading like a fire consuming a dry forest with howling winds added into the mix. The world looked on in disbelief as the virus spread to every corner of the globe – even Antarctica fell victim to this thing. In the future people who look back on this time will see how the leaders of the world failed their people so badly that they should’ve been charge with Genocide. In the United States Donald Trump would tell reporters that this was just a slightly worse case of the flu and that it would simply disappear. Four hundred thousand people died by the time Donald Trump left office after losing in the 2020 elections to Joe Biden. It was later discovered that he’d been told about the virus but had opted to do nothing about it.

Here in South Africa, during the course of March, a very serious Cyril Ramaphosa would call a press conference and place the country under what has become known as a hard lock down. Only people designated as essential would be allowed to go to work. Everyone else, would shelter in place. Alcohol and cigarettes were banned [South Africa being only the second country to ban cigarettes – the reason for this has never been discovered]. The bans lead to the creation of ‘secondary’ markets that almost a year later, are still thriving. The lock down did not have the desired effect of curbing the spread of the virus. But it did seriously damage the already fragile economy. Companies like Greyhound and Ster Kinekor have filed for business rescue – to name but a few.

Around the world incompetent and corrupt governments took full advantage of the chaos caused and furthered their agendas. Other countries leaders underestimated the effect of the virus and only took action when daily death tolls topped thousands. America currently has the highest number of infections followed by India, Brazil and The United Kingdom – the one thing that these countries all have in common is absolutely useless leaders – things have taken a turn in the USA as Trump lost the election and was replaced by Joe Biden who has signed a record number of executive orders in an effort to make america great again…

I started at a designated disaster recovery sight in March of 2020 which was great fun. While we worked our country struggled to cope with the virus and the effects of the lock down imposed by the president. Initially I believed that the ANC had turned a corner. Then reports started surfacing of how the funds that had been set aside to buy the required masks and gloves and hand sanitizers was being stolen. In one case a guy won a tender to supply PPE’s to someone. He was given over a hundred million rand. He then went and bought cars with the money. There were photos on the news of the cars being repossessed. Now I ask you – what kind of rotten soul steals money during a pandemic – money that is supposed to be used to buy equipment that will save peoples lives !!! If it were up to me, this crime would be seen/treated as treason and the punishment would be death.

Towards the end of May I was able to get my team set up to work from home. We started doing so in groups and by the end of May we were all working safely from our homes. This was not without its teething problems, but we got it done.

Under the ANC and the useless state owned enterprises we had other issues to deal with on top of the virus which was eventually classified as a global pandemic by the World Health Organization [WHO]. Load shedding reared it’s ugly head again. SAA which was in Business rescue was about to submit its turnaround strategy when the lock down kicked in. Eventually SAA was given yet another lifeline and is still around – I have no idea how the ANC can see that keeping SAA alive during a time when no one is flying anywhere – makes sense.

The remaining months of 2020 were consumed by work, going out masked up to do shopping and hearing about people who’d contracted the virus passing away. Some were able to shrug it off. As I write there are a number of Vaccines programs rolling out worldwide. A lot of people seem to think that this ‘thing’ will be over in a few months. I am not one of those people.

Almost all the major movies that were scheduled to roll out in 2020 either got bumped to 2021 where they will air on TV and in cinemas. Some of the best known directors like Cristopher Nolan took offense to this idea – seems they’d prefer people put their lives at risk and watch his movies in a cinema. His latest offering – tenet – is such a steaming pile of WTF that I only made 45 minutes into it before I started questioning my sanity.

On a personal note I had high hopes that 2021 would be not necessarily a significantly better year than 2020, but just a tad better. I was 2 weeks into the year when I woke with what I thought was the beginning of a stroke, but fortunately turned out to be a thing called Bells Palsy. It has been 3 weeks of not being able to blink my right eye, eating very slowly and on occasion having to tape my eye shut when I sleep. My recovery has been very slow, and I’ve learnt that the key is patience, LOTS of patience. My family and friends have been very supportive, something that I am extremely grateful for -even if some of them think my new ‘look’ is a vast improvement…

So, in closing. What is the new normal ? Will we carry on working from home ? Will masks and video calls become the way we live going forward ? The virus has reshaped the world, Billionaires have become even richer as they take advantage of Covid-19 some of them even using their wealth and private planes to skip the queue and get the vaccine before people who actually need it. The cult of Donald Trump is growing by the day as people consume the fake news he and his army/factory of trolls warp peoples minds. And yet, amongst all the chaos, the Prime Minister of New Zealand somehow managed to stop the spread of the virus in her country dead in its tracks [no pun intended]. She reacted promptly and New Zealand has passed through this storm relatively unscathed.

If you read this, I really hope that you’re safe and healthy.

This is the way.

so Eskom is granted an increase to help it out of the hole it dug itself into – all the while handing money out to flunkies for free ??????? on Friday, some Eskom saboteur switched the power of to a about 200 suburbs just for the fun of it. which means we don’t only have to live with the load shedding sword hanging over us but also the threat of some Eskom minion losing his cool and deciding to punish the very people that are going to have their increases wiped out by this increase ?? all these enquiries won’t CHANGE A THING – we’ve seen them before and we’ll see them again. They just air the dirty laundry, then pat themselves on the back for a job well done, cash in their pay check and then move onto the next mess. #fightthefuture

It was a typical Sunday morning, hot, humid with a bit of cloud about. My phone pings, I take it out of my pocket, glance at the screen and am about to put it back in my pocket when I see the word – shedding in the message summary. I stare at the screen for a full minute before I unlock my phone and read the full message header. Eskom has declared stage 2 load shedding – this comes into effect at 1 o’ clock – I glance at the time, it’s about a quarter past 12. While I am shocked, I am not surprised. On the previous Thursday, CR gave his state of the nation and mentioned that Eskom would be split up – the room filled with cheers, people clapped, tweeted, blogged and breathed deeply, finally, something was happening with Eskom. The party died abruptly on Sunday as the power utility tumbled into stage 2, which would be followed rapidly by stage 4 [a stage we’ve never ever been at]. Since Sunday, SA has been in the grip of power outages that have left people stuck wherever they were when the power went off. Eskom is the master at creating debt and turning the lights off – often later than advised and for longer than advised. Once the absolute best and cheapest power generator of electricity on the African continent – it is now so deep in debt and so far behind with its rolling out of new power stations that comparing the past Eskom with the current Eskom just doesn’t make any sense. I have no doubt that the current situation is the result of load sabotage – because that’s the kind of mentality that prevails in SA today. The unions hold a gun to the ruling parties head and say give us what we want and we’ll get our members to vote for you. Our government has discovered a cure for the so called Midas touch – everything that they’ve touched, has turned into shit. You can call the last decade whatever you want – but the best description is: the lost decade. Where the ANC just sat back and let the rot run riot. This is an election year and new lies are being hauled out to ensure that the ANC stays in charge. Next week we’ll hear Tito deliver the budget and learn where money will go to and to patch which hole etc. We’ll here things like the fiscus has shortfall of and will be fixed by… SA has such great potential, but with political parties clamouring for their time at the money trough, and the people believing the lies they spew – what kind of future lies ahead ?

The last day of the first month of the new Year heads towards sunset. This has been a very hot month with some incredibly powerful storms and some heavy rain. As I write, outside, the clouds are re-gathering as the next storm begins to build.

With the rain falling in abundance every Thursday afternoon which is when my garden service is supposed to come, I’ve had to mow the lawn myself. Whilst being very cathartic mowing in this heat is very energy draining. Before I hired the garden service, I used to mow at least once a week. Now, I’ve lost that fitness I acquired during those years.

Last year was a year of 2 very distinct halves for me. I hope that this year will be a better year, with some positive changes. I can’t help but feel that as each day passes the world is becoming a more and more chaotic. I also feel that the chaos that has settled in is guided by a hand that actually desires this chaos, they may even have gone as far as to engineer it…..

Tempus Fugit.

Source: Daily Maverick 29 Oct 2018

The VBS heist shows the dots of corruption connect with a much more comprehensive critique of the shallowness with which we are seeking to redress the injustices of our colonial and apartheid past.

The rubbishing of South Africa’s first black government was also said to be part of the agenda. The host of the radio show — Stephen Grootes — tried to reason with the callers. He pointed out that the media was hardly white controlled, that the editors of the main newspapers were black, that the Governor of the Reserve Bank that commissioned the report — The Great Bank Heist — was black, as was the report’s author, Terry Motau.

He also asked if the reporting was factually wrong and, if not, was the media not supposed to report the facts? But nothing he said weakened the “white conspiracy” position of the callers.

This got me thinking. My reflections led via…

• the largely ignored question of why the ANC has so recently and enthusiastically accepted a critique of colonialism seen almost exclusively as a white crime, and,

• having made the discovery, to become ardent supporters of a racialised decolonisation project that subsumed apartheid, and,

• why, even long before this discovery, it had adopted racialised policies and practices at the same time as celebrating the non-racialism enshrined in our Constitution, as a Founding Provision, 4

… to what appears to be an all-embracing racism that has brought us to where we are today and keeps us locked out of a non-racial future.

Race is so deeply woven into and explosive of the South African social fabric that there is an urgent necessity for any analysis helping to forge the key to unlocking the racial prison that is today’s South Africa.

My understandings of the heist and, more particularly, of the unsupported insistence that any scandal attached to VBS is a racist invention by the white media against a black bank and government, includes the following.

It begins with a simple proposition put baldly for the sake of clarity: A black identity, rooted in a rigid dualism that sees everything as either black or white — respectively, good or bad — creates intolerable stress on any negative perception of blacks. (The search for an exclusive identity is now a dominant, worldwide feature. Why this should be so is not explored here.)

For those inclined to dismiss the dualism as being too simple, let me invite examination of: (a) the sleight of hand that gives “race”, an effective genetic reality, even when, as is most likely, “race” is accepted as being nothing more than a highly malleable social construct; and, (b) the crudities of the all-embracing, “racial” stereotypes that have become dominant; stereotypes that allow for no exceptions because to allow for any deviation is to destroy the stereotype: If you’re “white”, you’re inescapably doomed — or blessed — to be “white”, whatever that means.

Regarding the denial of the heist, it must be recalled that Grootes’ attempts to counter the denial with a string of facts made no difference. 21

Even allowing for the different meanings of and intensities attached to being ‘black’, by people who embrace blackness, the blackness of the bank heist must create a sense of unease and, therefore, a disposition to look for other explanations. 5

Like the rotten apple one advanced by the well-known political journalist Ranjeni Munusamy. In her view, the heist was the work limited to “a group of gluttonous people”. Or, listen to the Deputy Finance Minister, Mondli Gungubele, for a variation of the denial Grootes encountered: “There is nothing black about this [heist], this is theft… it’s criminal. There is no worse way to insult black excellence [than] associating black people with what has happened at VBS. It has nothing to do with black excellence and has everything to do with thuggery”.

Alternative, non-racial, stereotype-free explanations for the VBS heist and the rampant corruption it represents are available. It goes like this, in my version:

By the early 1990s, at the latest, the ANC had abandoned any idea of even a moderate Keynesian transformation. The ANC’s new commitment was not only to safeguard capitalism but to help it grow so as to facilitate the creation of black capitalists. Preserving capitalism necessarily also meant the perpetuation of individualism, inequality and poverty. This was the new context immortalised by the ANC’s then national spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama saying he hadn’t struggled to be poor, as justification for being part of a lucrative BEE deal.

Would-be black capitalists, in an environment promoting individual wealth, face a challenge: How to become a capitalist without capital? We now know the answers: BEE, access to public money and affirmative action. All three are utterly dependent on one thing: Race.

This is explicit in the case of BEE, which, under capitalism, can only be black elite empowerment. Affirmative action can take a number of forms. In its South African iteration, it is not only explicitly racial but gives a post-apartheid institutionalisation to all the colonial/apartheid-invented “races”. Finally, we have come to know access to public money as corruption.

All three of the challenges to becoming a capitalist without capital draw heavily on white guilt and various forms of the idea of transformation as reparations for the injustices of the past. Until a few years ago, these injustices were apartheid-linked. Then, thanks to the student uprisings, the ANC (re-)discovered colonialism. And, hey presto, an additional 300 or so years were added to supposedly white crimes and, thereby, a still further boost for the claims of black entitlement.

What needs emphasising is that the crimes of both colonialism and apartheid were very real; it’s the racial colour-coding that is sloppy and/or opportunist. Also meriting emphasis is that the routes taken to create what former president Thabo Mbeki called the “black bourgeoisie”, is, in essence, no different from what capitalists everywhere in the world have done since the birth of capitalism itself some centuries ago.

This is to say, corruption is no more a “black” condition than colonialism or apartheid were features inherent in a “white race”.

Nevertheless, the cry for decolonisation is an idea whose time has truly come: It simultaneously adds to both black grievance and white guilt. The absence of a proper idea of what decolonisation means in practice compounds the effect on both.

This lack of clarity makes it much easier for the black bourgeoisie to use colour as a most convenient cover for advancing their own class interests, and, moreover, to do so to the accompaniment of applause from a working class (including the unemployed and otherwise marginalised) that sees itself as black. Just as “white” slavery and then capitalism bought off the white working class with privileges by association.

“Race”, however, serves as more than a club beating white guilt to open access to wealth and status. Its additional — and crucial — role is a protective one: it provides moral legitimacy to otherwise illegal or immoral behaviour.

How else to explain the number of participants in State Capture that goes far beyond just Zuma and the Guptas? I suspect that, for most of the actual participants, as well as many black observers, race serves a self-protective purpose: Effectively: “We are only taking back what the whites stole from us”.

The VBS scandal, I’m suggesting, highlights the self-reinforcing role race plays today. Race is essential for the black bourgeoisie, whether real or aspirant. It is the circumstance of being capitalists without capital; or, small capitalists in a world of big capitalists; or, recent professionals having to confront old professionals on their road to the top that constitute the primary energy driving the use of race.

However, the more race is used the more it is normalised and the more it is normalised the more it is evoked when needed to defend actions taken in the name of transformative decolonisation. More specifically, race is used when economic sectors or institutions or professional bodies are accused of still being “white dominated”. The race card is invariably evoked as the first defence by those accused of corruption or other forms of impropriety: “I’m being attacked only because I’m black”.

No surprise, therefore:

• when, in response to VBS being placed under curatorship, in March this year, Tshifhiwa Matodzi, the chairman of VBS, who allegedly stole R326-million, claimed it was all a racist plot. “In the end, we were faced with a well-organised and powerful system which does not tolerate growing black banks and black excellence”;

• that this claim was supported by the Black Business Council, which dismissed the initial reporting on the bank as “intimidation” intended to “retard the growth of black-owned businesses”;

• that Werksmans Attorneys were attacked for their report on the bank, that, according to a senior bank executive, embodies “the very essence of whitism”.

Apart from the fightback by powerful people fighting to keep themselves out of prison, race is, additionally, almost certainly behind the selectively unenthusiastic implementation of the justice system. When the lack of enthusiasm is not because the implementing officials are themselves involved in questionable activities, the ambivalence is because of an empathy, whether conscious or not, with those considered to be implementing their own, unilateral reparations against the white colonisers. This is probably why the ANC’s own Ethics Committee has been such a failure.

In summary: the more the three (race-based) solutions to being a capitalist without capital are used for illegal or socially disapproved purposes the greater is the use of race in legitimising those purposes; a legitimisation that includes inaction.

The good news is that this self-reinforcing use of race and racism is not impregnable.

First and foremost, what is required is a critique of the almost unchallenged notion that a race-based transformation is a necessity. Moreover, it is invariably just accepted that this transformation takes place within the very capitalism guaranteed to leave poverty and inequality untransformed, for the vast majority.

The logic of this transformation is that monopoly capitalism is fine provided only that it becomes “black” rather than “white”. CEOs and their obscene pay are similarly fine provided only that 80% of them are black. This is to say, capitalism can “empower” only capitalists and “affirm” only an elite.

Black Economic Empowerment, like affirmative action, even when at their most successful, are guaranteed to leave most black people poor, even those lucky enough to have jobs. Apart from the fact that inequality is a global feature of capitalism, we already have more than 25 years of our own experience to confirm this reality.

BEE/affirmative action are a perfect scam. Not only do they enrich a tiny elite — almost two-thirds of the richest 10% of South African households are black — but they use the permanence of black poverty/white success to justify both their continued existence and, indeed, their demands that the legislation be enforced with even greater vigour.

This is a Left understanding of the marriage between capitalism and BEE/affirmative action. Exposing the role of race in these nuptials is therefore an urgent task that falls to the still largely silent Left.

It should be noted in passing that this strategic intervention against systemic corruption must also address the connection between outsourcing and corruption. Outsourcing virtually invites corruption by companies all essentially offering the same services at the same price. Corruption offers the often needed “competitive advantage”; public contracts always being “highly lucrative” makes the chase worthwhile. The alternative of “in-sourcing” reduces the market for corruption.

The required strategic intervention against corruption is by no means restricted to socialists. A critique of racism remains central to that strategy. However, the critique must be a principled one that does not leave the exposure of black racism to white racists.

One link between race and racism seems to be strangely neglected. Decolonisation is emptied of its energy without a White Enemy. Most conveniently for the decolonisers, they have an obliging Other. White guilt makes it very easy for them to be attacked. Many of the white beneficiaries and defenders of apartheid are still alive. But, people — deemed by others to be white — seem ready to take on the guilt arising all the way back to 1652! This is an extraordinary perversion of a natural justice all of us take for granted.

Thus, for instance, when Floyd Shivambu angrily reminded his accusers that he was not responsible for whatever his brother might have done, they backed off. But the “white race”, in its entirety, is expected to accept — and does largely accept — responsibility for the actions of people from the 17th century; people about whom they are likely to have as much knowledge as they do of the Man in the Moon.

Lawyers, regardless of colour, ought to be reminding everyone that the law — rightly — does not allow for such never-ending, transgenerational guilt, regardless of what might be its popular appeal.

It would be nice to think that the VBS heist may yet become recognised as a decisive turning point. The heist shows how a black identity makes it difficult to acknowledge a black owned and controlled bank shamelessly robbing black clients. That the clients were desperately poor, adds to the difficulty.

The heist further offers an understanding of the extent to which a black identity is mainly driven and sustained by a racialised access to scarce resources. Making race the road to riches is legitimised by a racism normalised to render all white people inescapably and permanently guilty of the crimes of apartheid. The fortuitous and recent arrival of the ideology of decolonisation further fuels this legitimisation.

“Connecting the dots” has become a popular challenge. The VBS heist shows the dots of corruption connect with a much more comprehensive critique of the shallowness with which we are seeking to redress the injustices of our colonial and apartheid past.

What passes for “transformation” is its opposite: the permanence of an economic system in which transformation can never be more than elite empowerment. DM

Source: Decolonisation: The perpetuation of normalised racism?

I worked in markets when the Rand got slammed and Tito just sat there doing nothing. Speculators came in and had a field day with our currency. On Christmas eve 24 December 2011 Tito ‘hinted’ that the SARB might intervene and the bloodbath stopped. But by this point the local market had been slammed and a lot of importers had panic bought cover that would hurt for a long time to come. I had hoped that the appointment of Tito as FinMin would be a turning point for SA after all the $hit Zuma put SA through. But instead of a humble approach to fixing a hole that the cANCer has dug SA into, an arrogant cocky cowboy stepped up to the podium and proceeded to release a LOT of hot air.

Tito I know that you’ll never see these words as you’re too busy eating avocado sandwiches and patting yourself on the back for a ‘job well done’ yesterday. I take offence at the suggestion of anything being for ‘Mahala’ we pay so many different taxes and you chuckle heads just BURN the money or give it away. The term ‘Civil Servants’ is an oxymoron – we all know how ‘hard’ these uncivilised servants ‘work’ – the ANC vote buying program has become to big to hide now. ignorANCe and arrogANCe go hand in hand. The only thing that is free is the air that we breathe and that’s because you can’t figure out a way to charge us for it. Sanral and the JRA are the WORST part of the roads agencies.

The ANC made a deal with the devil and now WE the TAX paying slaves have to cough, YOU stand there and heap insults on us when you should be on your knees thanking us for keeping this economy going. You can skin e-tolls any way you like, but we all know that it’s a scam. You found a way to impose yet ANOTHER informal tax and rushed it into production. It blows my mind that you can’t fix holes in the roads, keep the lights on, unblock drains, fix the street lights – etc. but when it comes to stealing money, you guys are WORLD LEADERS. Then you sit there and frown when you count the tax money and realise that oops there isn’t enough to go around, so we’re gonna have to increase VAT the petrol price, Rates, the cost of electricity etc. etc. etc.

YOU wanted to be in charge, now that you are, you are struggling to carry away all the stolen loot.

Apartheid isn’t dead, it’s just under new management.

Its just after 5 o’ clock in the morning on February 17th 2018. Last night our new President Cyril Ramaphosa gave his first State of the Nation address. For the first time in nearly a decade, South Africans are filled with hope. The Jacob Zuma era, is over. 9 years of lying, stealing, bullshitting and laughing at the nation he swore to protect and defend, are over. Like with removal of Robert Mugabe, I keep wanting to pinch myself just to check that this is real, that it isn’t some dream that I’ll wake up from and discover that these 2 major events didn’t happen. Mugabe tore Zimbabwe apart for 37 years, Zuma tore SA apart for 9. Now both countries are rebuilding. Zimbabwe has quite a journey ahead of it as does South Africa. But eat least the journeys have begun.

I will never understand why dictators choose to rape and loot their own countries as opposed to building them up. I suppose it’s true that absolute power does indeed corrupt absolutely. Men of weak character are easily addicted to power and all the so called benefits that comes with having power. And as time passes, they seem to see their actions as being in the best interests of their countries and the people over which they rule. When the time comes for them to step down, their addiction to power is such that they just can’t let go.

But for now, there are 2 less of these vile creatures in power. Hopefully other countries infested with this blight will see what’s happened here and in Zimbabwe and strive to remove the shackles placed on them by corrupt leaders and the supporters that keep in them power. Maybe one day, this continent from Cape to Cairo will be one where democracy reigns and everyone is free at last.

One can only hope.

These are not my words, but they struck a chord with me especially in light of what’s happening here in South Africa and what is being debated by the ruling part whose only goal ahead of the elections in 2019 is to stay in power no matter what it costs.

I can confirm the veracity of the story laid out below. It comes a week after the Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa gave investors in South Africa who pledged $4 billion in new investment, an assurance that land invasions were over and property rights would be respected. This was the immediate response to that statement – which I believe is Government Policy and the only explanation I can give for this behavior is faction fighting within Zanu PF itself. Whatever the reason, from every perspective – natural justice, constitutional law, human rights, common sense, the national interest – this behavior is totally unacceptable and the Bishop and his thugs MUST be brought to book and the Smart family restored to their homes.

Eddie Cross

MP for Bulawayo South

OPINION

The Bishop and the land grab

Ben Freeth |

05 July 2017

Ben Freeth tells the story of the takeover of the Smart family’s farm east of Harare

Zimbabwe: Jambanja by Bishop Trevor Manhanga

Another high profile cleric takes over a white-owned farm and evicts farm workers

I spent several hours with three shell-shocked generations of the Smart family last week who have been violently evicted from their farm in the Rusape district east of Harare by a top cleric, Bishop Trevor Manhanga, Presiding Bishop of the Pentecostal Assemblies of Zimbabwe church.

The handling of the on-going eviction story of the Smart family and their workers by this prominent bishop is fundamental to understanding where we are – and more particularly where the church is – in our dealing with justice and injustice in Zimbabwe today.  I encourage this report to be sent to Christians and church leaders both inside and outside Zimbabwe. The church ought to be the moral conscience of the nation, and it needs to act immediately.

The facts of the case – very briefly – as relayed by the Smarts and others are as follows:

The Smart family bought Lesbury and other farms in the Rusape district and developed them over the last 80 years. By the year 2000, they had bought approximately 8,000 hectares of land which they were farming very productively.

Soon after the land invasions began in 2000, they came to an agreement with government, offering 90 percent of their land to government and retaining 700 hectares – of which only 120 hectares is arable. No compensation was paid for the land they gave up, but the government agreed that they could continue cropping on the remaining 120 hectares left to them.

The Tandi people who traditionally reside in the district have a good relationship with the Smarts as neighbours and they have coexisted very successfully.

In 2016, approximately fifteen years after the government agreed that the Smarts could continue farming on their much reduced land area, Bishop Manhanga arrived with an offer letter – but no demarcation map – and said he was taking over 100 hectares of the remaining 700 hectares of Lesbury. [An offer letter is a letter signed by the Minister of Lands offering a certain piece of “acquired” land to a “beneficiary.” This piece of paper gives the offer letter holder carte blanche to do what it takes to force the owners of the property out of their home/s and take –with no compensation- many of their movable assets as well, including tractors, implements, seed, fertilizer, chemicals, diesel, etc.]

The Bishop returned under cover of darkness and, together with the lands officer, painted trees to demarcate what he wanted, but failed to come to the Smarts to tell them what he had demarcated for himself. It appears that he also demarcated the homesteads for himself.

On subsequent visits, Bishop Manhanga told the Smarts that he was sick and tired of white people and threatened the Smarts with jambanja. [A jambanja involves barricading farmers and farm workers into their homes, lighting fires, threats of violence, actual violence, including often vicious beatings and depriving animals of food and water for days on end, or even brutalising them.]

Bishop Manhanga then sent a wooden cabin with his workers to establish a presence on the farm.

The Smarts’ workers were angry that their homes and livelihoods were being threatened by the Bishop and, of their own volition, immediately took the cabin down and sent it back.

An expensive Toyota Land Cruiser

Towards the end of 2016, Bishop Manhanga arrived in a new, very expensive black Toyota Land Cruiser with the number plate “PAOZ 1”. (The Bishop is evidently “number 1” in the Pentecostal Assemblies of Zimbabwe church and was using a church vehicle to carry out his jambanja). He erected a new cabin in front of the Smarts’ homestead gate. It was a weekend and the Smarts’ workers had just been paid. When one of the workers hit the farm assembly siren button, a running battle began with the Smarts’ workers and the Bishop’s workers over re-erection of the cabin.

The police immediately arrested Rob Smart and his son, Darryn, and put them in a jail cell in Rusape police station where they were forced to sleep on the cold concrete. Rob is 71 years old.

Over the next few months it became clear to the Smarts that Bishop Manhanga and Inspector Nyakawedzwa of the Rusape police were working together. The Bishop was referred to as “boss” by the Inspector and from there on the Smarts had to answer charge after charge in the magistrates’ court – none of which they have been convicted of. This harassment by the police has all been instigated by the Bishop.

On one occasion in April 2017, when the Smarts were not present on the farm, the Bishop got into an altercation with the Smarts’ workers and in driving off, Bishop Manhanga smashed into an old lady called Servilia, knocking her over and leaving her bruised on the side of the road.

Inspector Nyakawedzwa came out immediately and tried to arrest Rob Smart on charges of intent to cause grievous bodily harm to Bishop Manhanga. Fortunately the Smarts’ lawyer intervened and the inspector discovered the truth of the situation. However, the Bishop was not arrested for knocking over the old lady or failing to assist her.

Since the Tandi people do not want the Bishop on Lesbury farm, one of their community leaders, Peter Tandi, has taken the Bishop to court, seeking that the acquisition of Lesbury farm be declared unlawful. The case is still before the court and lawyers are confident that no eviction can therefore take place.

On May 31, 2017 however, the messenger of the court arrived on the farm to hand an eviction notice to Rob Smart. Rob had not received a summons and had never been asked to appear in court over this eviction. He contacted his lawyer who told him that the process was flawed as there should be a court case where he could present his arguments if eviction was imminent.

Shortly afterwards, when Rob Smart was not present, police arrived. They broke into the office and ransacked it, even breaking into the safe. When the workers tried to resist, teargas was fired.

The riot squad arrives

After the police left, Rob returned to his house but police officers arrived again in force with 16 riot police, all heavily armed, as well as numerous other policemen and thugs. They ransacked Rob’s and his son Darryn’s houses. Police officers took Rob’s mobile phone so he couldn’t make calls to his lawyer or anyone else, or take photos and video the damage that was being done. His phone still hasn’t been returned to him.

When they came to Darryn’s house, Darryn demanded to see the paperwork that allowed them to evict him, insisting there was no eviction order for him, but police said they didn’t need paperwork.

Darryn’s small sons became hysterical as policemen barged in. They didn’t even manage to take any of their prized Lego or their much loved teddy bears before retreating into the hills on the farm for safety. It was clear to Darryn that the police knew what they were doing on the Bishop’s behest was wrong because some of the officers actually apologised before the Smarts were forced to flee.

From the hills where they were hiding out, the Smarts heard numerous shots fired by police. Some of their workers fled into the hills to join them and told them that the police were also evicting them from their houses. A number of them had been wounded. They said the Smarts must retreat further into the hills as the police were after them. Even old women were hit by police and the thugs.

The police finally left at 8 pm after 10 hours of shocking violence and brutality.

The Smarts managed to sneak back to their homes that night to find their possessions smashed or stolen. They heard that the messenger of court herself had been seen taking the children’s toys and packing them into her car.

The next day Bishop Manhanga sent a thug called Munjati to the farm, together with other thugs who were all armed with guns. A tyre was shot out on one of the Smarts’ vehicles while they were trying to retrieve their possessions before getting off the farm. The thugs also dragged large logs across the road to block entry to the property.

Animals denied food

The Smarts were unable to even feed their animals and when members of the ZNSPCA came out from Harare to the farm, they were forced to leave without gaining access to the animals.

Eventually Veterinarians for Animal Welfare in Zimbabwe (VAWZ) managed to rescue the two horses, but all of the 100 chickens had died and the families’ pet cats could not be found.

Although it’s now mid winter in Zimbabwe and the Rusape area is very cold at night, the Smarts’ workers have been forced to sleep out in the open in the hills because they are too afraid to return to the farm. Food that was sent to the farm for the workers was taken by Bishop Manhanga’s thugs. The school that the Smarts built, which accommodated 250 children, has been closed down and the farmer workers’ children now have no access to education.

The maize contracted under the Government’s “Command Agriculture” scheme and grown by the Smarts cannot be reaped by them. Over 50,000 kgs of tobacco also remain on the farm, as well as all the tools of the farming trade. The Smarts are unable to even set foot back on the farm for fear of being shot by the Bishop’s men.

The farm supports a very large number of people as the workers look after not only their own families but also their extended families since more than 95 percent of the population is unemployed. The workers need to be paid – and they know the Bishop will not do so.

So why is this different from the thousands of other evictions that have taken place since 2000 when the farm invasions began? Why is it a litmus test for Zimbabwe as a whole?

The difference in this case is that it is a standing and very influential bishop who is taking the property.  He is a former President of the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe – the church body of which most other churches are members.

The church should be the moral compass

Individual churches – and the church as a whole – should be the moral conscience of a nation. Accordingly, they have to decide whether the conduct of the Bishop is in keeping with Christian values and God’s commandments.

The church cannot continue to stand on the side lines when one of its own leaders is now inextricably involved in the very activity of greed and lawlessness that has created so much poverty and heartache in Zimbabwe.

If the church, by its silence, decides that the Bishop has not acted wrongly, it opens the door for a continuation of this kind of barbarity.

I would suggest that the church has to ask three questions because Zimbabweans require answers:

1. Is it acceptable for people to take homes and livelihoods because the government says it can? In this case we also need to ask: has the Bishop got other homes? To this the answer is clearly yes. He has at least two homes and a cottage in and around the city of Mutare, as well as a small farm and a home in Harare in the upmarket suburb of Highlands. He may have more. Why is acceptable for him to take other people’s homes, particularly those of people with no other homes, and leave people without jobs or incomes? Does the church believe this to be right?

2. Has the Bishop acted lawfully? It seems clear to me that he hasn’t – even under Zimbabwe law. With the connivance of the police, it appears he has taken the law into his own hands and evicted hundreds of people without eviction orders and a proper court process, in a manner that is violent and wrong. The church needs to pronounce on whether it believes Bishop Manhanga has acted lawfully.

3. Even if the church believes the Bishop has followed Zimbabwean law, does the church believe that Zimbabwean law is in conformity with God’s law? Is eviction on the basis of race acceptable? Is the taking of property without paying for it something the church in Zimbabwe believes is right? Does God’s law not trump Zimbabwean law when it says “thou shalt not covet” (tenth commandment) and “thou shalt not steal” (eighth commandment)? The Bishop has demonstrably coveted what is not his – and then stolen it.

Interestingly, many individuals in Zimbabwe have already castigated Bishop Manhanga’s actions on Facebook, for example: “Bishop Manhanga, please save us this disgrace. You have sacrificed your integrity on the altar of greed” – Lloyd Nyarota.

The church has a duty to answer these questions. It cannot remain silent on these burning issues indefinitely.

Ben Freeth is Executive Director of the Mike Campbell Foundation, Zimbabwe