When the liberator of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, died in September 2019 in a Singaporean hospital, the event was followed by countless tributes from South Africans who admire the revolution he initiated in Zimbabwe.
This is the glorious revolution that saw the transfer of land from productive individuals who had committed the unforgivable sin of owning land while being white to war veterans, politicians, and other government officials who were largely black. Thus, it was supposed, Zimbabwe’s future prosperity was guaranteed.
Unfortunately, ‘ungrateful’ Zimbabweans began leaving the country in droves, despite their liberation. Worst of all, most chose to emigrate to countries with freer markets and stronger private property protections than Zimbabwe, i.e. they chose countries that practised exactly the ‘exploitation’ that Robert Mugabe had liberated them from.
“The issue of volumes and numbers has multiple facets. On the one hand, while there are no empirically reliable statistics on the number of Zimbabweans who have entered South Africa since 2000 (estimates range from 1 million to 5 million and vary so greatly because of the high percentage of undocumented border crossings, as discussed below) even conservative estimates clearly make it by far the largest national group of migrants in South Africa.”
- Tara Polzer, ‘South African Government and Civil Society Responses to Zimbabwean Migration ‘ (2008)
Quite shockingly, between 1 and 5 million Zimbabweans left their land of milk and honey for the exploitation of White Monopoly Capital (WMC) that South Africans suffer under. Who knows how many of them made it here illegally, risking death by drowning, or worse, while crossing the Limpopo river. That is, an estimated 7-35% of Zimbabwe’s 2018 population (according to the World Bank) left their liberated country for the oppression that South Africa’s red-beret clad, would-be-liberators have been fighting against (by slapping police officers, journalists and attending events such as the Durban July where they consume some of South Africa’s most expensive alcohol).
This surprising emigration from a liberated country is also an opportunity for exploited South Africans who don’t appear to be as diligent in escaping their exploitation as Zimbabweans are in running towards it.
The Zimbabweans who live here are missing out on the benefits of decolonised land ownership. As someone who loves my people, I took it upon myself to make it easier for South Africans to seize the opportunity presented by the irrational – clearly a product of colonised minds – emigration of Zimbabweans from paradise, and tweeted an offer to transport five South Africans on a one-way trip to Harare so they could take advantage of this opportunity.
A few minutes after this was posted, several individuals also pledged to donate bus seats for our exploited brethren. As I write this, 192 bus seats have been pledged. Strangely, however, only one has been taken up. The vocal social media calls for implementing Mugabe and the ZANU-PF’s policies are nowhere to be found.
This is a clear sign that WMC is suppressing our people from taking up opportunities for their own advancement. How else can you explain the fact that the supply of free one-way seats to what is essentially paradise exceeds the demand for those seats by 192:1? Clearly there’s something nefarious going on here.
Individuals who believe in uncompensated acquisition of land by the state and who express these views, often, on Twitter appear to have been struck dumb by the opportunity to benefit from what they propose. It is almost as shocking as the aforementioned phenomenon of Zimbabweans emigrating to exploited South Africa, leaving not only their newly acquired land but also their 100 USD salaries for doctors. Some Zimbabweans have even chosen to emigrate to the original sources of WMC in the UK, USA, and Australia.
This phenomenon of people not knowing what’s good for them is a reminder of why policies like a minimum wage are necessary. If poor people were not prevented from making their own decisions by the government, they would happily accept their own exploitation.
Even though they can leave the country anytime they want, they can leave a job anytime they want and they can choose not to support WMC simply by not buying from any company that the red-beret fellows have labelled as WMC.
There’s no better sign that our people’s minds are colonised, though luckily the part of their minds they employ in deciding who to vote for still works and it will undoubtedly lead to the creation of a Zimbabwe-like paradise where poor people have their decisions made for them.
In the meantime, I will continue searching for the comrades who have received a sufficiently revolutionary education to recognise the difference between a liberated land of milk and honey, and a land exploited by private companies working to produce things people are willing to buy with labour they willingly sell.