Content area
Full text
Catastrophe: what went wrong in Zimbabwe?, by Richard Bourne. London: Zed Books, 2011. xvii, 302 pp. ISBN (pbk) 978-1-84813-521-5. £14.95.
At the time of Zimbabwe's independence celebrations in 1979 it was described by President Nyerere of Tanzania as 'Africa's jewel'. Thirty years on, it is widely perceived as a failed state, suffering from a culture of political and economic violence, the effects of a period of hyperinflation to rival that of postwar Hungary, falling levels of life expectancy, massive emigration by many of its most skilled citizens, and governed by a regime often characterised as little more than a kleptocracy. To seek to understand how this sudden, and largely unforeseen tragedy has come about, is the aim of this impressive book, written by the founder of the Commonwealth Policy Studies Unit and former director of the non-governmental Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative.
Unlike many other writers on modern-day Zimbabwe, Bourne does not focus simply on the character of Robert Mugabe and the nature of his rule as the principal causes of the country's plight. Instead he takes the story right back to the occupation of the country by Rhodes's Pioneer Column in 1890, and to the political and economic disruption which this seminal event caused. By doing this he is able to show that the culture of political and economic violence mentioned above has been present ever since the beginning of colonial rule, and that a persistent unwillingness on the part of the British government, both before and after independence, to face up to the consequences of this history has, perhaps unwittingly, helped exacerbate the situation over, for example, the key issue of land distribution.
By taking this long view, Bourne is able to make a fascinating comparison between...