New book reignites debate over Zimbabwe land reform
Posted: Wednesday, February 6, 2013 10:32 am
Feb. 5 (GIN) – Authors of a new book, Zimbabwe Takes Back its Land, have set
off sparks with the claim that despite political violence and
hyperinflation, the black farmers who received land under President Robert
Mugabe’s “fast track” land reform are doing relatively well, improving their
lives and becoming increasingly productive, especially since the US dollar
became the local currency.
The authors, Teresa Smart, Joseph Hanlon and Jeannette Manjengwa, scholars
from UK universities, reject the dominant media narratives of oppression and
economic stagnation in Zimbabwe. They spoke at a recent UK roundtable at the
thinktank Chatham House.
“Fast track” land reform made headlines around the world when Pres. Mugabe
acceded to demands of liberation war vets to receive land occupied by
whites. Thousands of landless Black farmers and some friends of the Mugabe
administration received small and large plots.
Today, a growing number of writers and researchers, including New York Times
correspondent Lydia Polgreen, are moderating their criticism of the south
African country.
Polgreen noted that fewer than 2,000 farmers were growing tobacco when
fast-track began in 2000, and most of those farmers were white. “Today,
60,000 farmers grow tobacco, the vast majority of them black and many of
them working small plots … Most had no tobacco farming experience yet
managed to produce a hefty crop, from a low of 105 million pounds in 2008 to
more than 330 million pounds this year.”
Not all Zimbabweans, however, share her views. Jaquelin Kataneksza, writing
on the blog Africa is a Country, wrote scathingly: “What this book
achieves … is to sanitize and trivialize a decade of mayhem. Mugabe, the
“champion of mass justice,” asserted that the redistribution of land in
Zimbabwe would redress the wrongs of colonial injustice. Yet, it was
conducted in a way that appears to make a mockery of the very notions it
supposedly espoused–those of justice, equity and freedom.”
Zimbabwe Vigil, a dissident group in the UK also found fault: “If, as
claimed in the book, agricultural production is returning to former levels,
the Vigil warmly welcomes it. But this assertion does not square with the
statement by the UN that 1.6 million Zimbabweans are facing starvation –
some 12% of the population – and for yet another year Zimbabwe needs
international food aid.”
Zimbabwe Takes Back Its Land is available in paperback on Amazon.com