Forget the election - Zimbabwe will remain a basket case, and the West has a dilemma

I have recently been in touch with a colleague whose farm was taken over. When I asked if he would return if the farm was restored to his ownership, his answer was that there was nothing to go back to. All the fences had been torn up and there were no cattle left. He found his old headman living in a hut in what was the garden of the house. The man and his family had reverted to subsistence faming, growing a few sticks of maize and some vegetables. There was no mechanisation – everything was done by hand.

We need to remember that as in all of Africa the population of Zimbabwe has multiplied hugely since the advent of white settlement. From an estimated 300,000 people in the mid-1800s the population is now some 17 million and if one adds the 4 million Zimbabweans who live illegally in South Africa, that makes say 21 million. Subsistence farming will never be able to feed that population number.

I, for one, truly wish that all the positive commentary over past months regarding the 'free and fair' elections and the reformist nature of the Mnangagwa government were true and that everything in the garden was rosy: I hate to say this, but nothing could be further from the truth. Zimbabwe will continue to be a basket case unless the agricultural sector is somehow returned to its former level of productivity. At best, if ever, this will take many years. As well, the endemic corruption in the country needs to be eliminated or substantially reduced; this will take a very strong government and many years to achieve.

None of these issues, and particularly the tribal nature of the political scene in Zimbabwe, are much discussed by the Western commentariat, although they all understand that this is the truth on the ground. Western governments and aid donors are all also completely aware of the situation. Any decisions on aid would therefore appear to be very easy: continue the aid boycott.

Unfortunately, life is not as simple as that. The Chinese government will be totally on top of the situation as well. The Chinese have never tried to moralise in any way with potential aid recipients and they are quite happy with a bit of corruption, which tends to keep Western governments at bay.

So the West has a dilemma. Do western governments accept the flawed bona-fides of Mr. Mnangagwa and his cohorts and start the aid flowing again, or do they adopt the high moral stance of the past and leave it all to the Chinese?