{"id":12366,"date":"2013-12-17T08:17:45","date_gmt":"2013-12-17T08:17:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=12366"},"modified":"2013-12-17T09:04:01","modified_gmt":"2013-12-17T09:04:01","slug":"letter-from-zimbabwe-generations-yet-to-be-born","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=12366","title":{"rendered":"Letter from Zimbabwe: Generations yet to be born"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cathy<\/a><\/p>\n

by Cathy Buckle<\/p>\n

Christmas has arrived with a bombshell to Zimbabwe this year. A seven page photocopied form has flooded what\u2019s left of privately owned, legally operating businesses. It\u2019s called the \u2018Notification of Extent of Indigenisation and Indigenisation Implementation Plan.\u2019 All \u2018foreign\u2019 owned businesses have been instructed to outline their plans to hand over 51% of their companies to \u2018indigenous\u2019 Zimbabweans.<\/p>\n

At first glance you assume that \u2018foreign\u2019 refers to non Zimbabweans but that assumption isn\u2019t the case. According to the Form, an \u2018indigenous\u2019 Zimbabwean is defined as \u201cany person who, before the 18th April 1980 was disadvantaged by unfair discrimination on the grounds of his or her race, and any descendant of such person and includes any company, association, syndicate or partnership of which indigenous Zimbabweans form the majority of the members or hold the controlling interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

This phrase, and those that follow, leave you with more questions than answers, no matter how many times you read them. It seems that by including the word \u2018descendants\u2019, the term \u2018indigenous\u2019 also refers to generations yet to be born, conceived or even dreamed of. Then there\u2019s the question about just exactly who is indigenous. If you are a Zimbabwean born Indian, or mixed race or white Zimbabwean, can you be called indigenous? If you are a black Zimbabwean whose parents, grandparents or great grandparents were not born in Zimbabwe \u2013 are you indigenous? If your skin is not black but you have a Zimbabwean ID card, a residence permit or a work permit can you be called indigenous? If you were born after 1980, regardless of your skin colour , are you therefore not regarded as indigenous? Or have we all been condemned because of the colour of our skins, regardless of our beliefs, values and actions both before and after 1980?<\/p>\n

The most worrying question of all is: Are non-black Zimbabweans, born and resident here, working, employing and paying taxes, to be punished for eternity for something that other non-black people did?<\/p>\n

All companies have been told they must submit the Indigenisation Form by the 1st of January 2014. A list of over 50 categories of businesses are itemized on the Form and with each line your heart sinks. All the things that everyone has been doing to survive since farms were seized and the economy went into freefall, are on the indigenisation schedule.<\/p>\n

The Indigenisation Form stipulates that every business must \u2018cede a controlling interest of not less than 51%\u2019 of its shareholdings to \u2018indigenous\u2019 Zimbabweans with effect from the 1st of March 2010 or within five years from the commencement of business. According to the Permanent Secretary for Indigenisation, non compliance with the Indigenisation law will lead to arrest. Lawyers say they are waiting for people to come forward and challenge the legislation but they aren\u2019t offering pro bono services and for companies struggling to stay open, lawyer\u2019s fees aren\u2019t in the budget, nor is the ability to swallow the outrage that you must give away a 51% controlling interest of your company because of the colour of your skin.<\/p>\n

While this ugly plan is unfolding in Zimbabwe, we tried to follow the events in South Africa but it wasn\u2019t easy. ZBC gave almost no coverage to the death of Nelson Mandela or the week of international memorials and tributes. ZBC TV waited until the day after the Johannesburg memorial service and then screened just a few minutes of the service, not providing the audio of any of the speeches of world leaders. They didn\u2019t give Zimbabweans the chance to hear US President Obama say words that we so wish were also true for Zimbabwe. President Obama said that because Nelson Mandela was not only a leader of a movement but also a skilled politician, South Africa now had a Constitution that was: \u201ctrue to his vision of laws that protect minority as well as majority rights, and the precious freedoms of every South African.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is my last letter of 2013 and I wish all Zimbabweans, and people who follow our trials and turmoil, a happy, peaceful and safe Christmas. Thank you for reading this letter and supporting my books for so long, without you I wouldn\u2019t have had to courage to keep going. Until next time, love Cathy.<\/p>\n

Read Cathy Buckle’s blog<\/a> where she posts regular letters from Zimbabwe.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Cathy Buckle Christmas has arrived with a bombshell to Zimbabwe this year. A seven page photocopied form has flooded what\u2019s left of privately owned, legally operating businesses. It\u2019s called the \u2018Notification of Extent of Indigenisation and Indigenisation Implementation Plan.\u2019 All \u2018foreign\u2019 owned businesses have been instructed to outline their plans to hand over 51% … Continue reading “Letter from Zimbabwe: Generations yet to be born”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7834,79],"tags":[356,647,7835,65,180],"class_list":["post-12366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cathy-buckle","category-columns","tag-affirmative-action","tag-indigenisation","tag-notification-of-extent-of-indigenisation-and-indigenisation-implementation-plan","tag-race","tag-zimbabwe"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Cathy-Buckle.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12366"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12376,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12366\/revisions\/12376"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}