By Takura Zhangazha*
I have a number of friends and colleagues who have gone to
the site of the national disaster flooded area of the still under construction
Tokwe Mukosi dam wall. Some for
journalistic reasons. Others in aide of humanitarian
relief efforts.
In both cases the
concern is genuinely in the best public and humanitarian interest. The humanitarian aid campaign has helped raise
national awareness of the tragedy that has been unfolding in the south eastern
lowlands of Zimbabwe. This has helped
initiate public and corporate contributions to the direct welfare of displaced
citizens of our country.
In fact, a Tokwe Mukosi Trust has since been established to
help the flood victims together with various private corporations (in some
instances with public contributions) helping by providing much needed material assistance.
Such sterling efforts, particularly on
the part of private citizens cannot be faulted and must be praised.
The only other major issue to consider where it comes to the
entirety of the project that is the Tokwe Mukosi Dam Project (TMDP) relates
more to its history and contemporary placement in our national understanding of
‘development’.
Originally the TMDP was one of the grand dam building
initiatives of the then Southern Rhodesian government. Its primary blueprints
are therefore informed by the modernization policies of the settler state. This would not be a problem if we were to
consider modernization as progressive, with or without context.
Because its genesis resides in the same said settler colony
that was Rhodesia, its pretext is also founded on the basis of economic
exclusion. Particularly that of the
peasant farmer. In fact, the TMDP is reminiscent
of the Kariba Dam project and its effect on those that resided in its catchment
area, at that time. They were
arbitrarily relocated within racist frameworks and in the then repressive and
racist name of modernization and tourism.
Because the TMDP blueprints had the intended dimension of
bringing water to an arid lowveld, the water was not for application in the
local. It was water largely intended for the large scale sugar cane farmers/companies further downstream. Tourism would then have been an additional benefit
in the same way that Lake Kariba is imagined, largely as a holiday resort for
those who can afford it.
Where we fast forward to our contemporary context, some of
the fundamentals of the idea of that dam as at colonial inception remain unchanged. It remains a
blueprint suited more to the settler state economy than a broader democratic and national
one. Hence prior to the unexpected rates
of flooding (it was expected), government ministers were talking in praise of
the project on the similar grounds of how it will irrigate downstream agriculture
and promote tourism, the latter in similar fashion to Kariba’s hospitality industry.
The compensation that was reportedly given to some of the
families that have lived in the basin for decades has been described as not
only minimal but also without adequate context. The cash handouts that were
given did not have a specific utilitarian element to them in relation to actual
relocation. Those that managed to acquire the said compensation stayed exactly where
they were and utilized the money for livelihood concerns because there was no
holistic relocation plan. And it is also reported that there still appears to
be none in effect.
The current relocation as a result of the rapid flooding
does not indicate any preparation by provincial and central government in
relation to a long term relocation plan. Or if it is there, by now there should
have been a publicly announced place of relocation for the displaced
families.
In the long run, the humanitarian disaster that continues to
unfold in the lowveld becomes a crisis created by an inefficient government which
then seeks to give the impression that it did not foresee these tragic
developments occurring, regardless of the unexpected amounts of rainfall.
It was known in
the 1970s, as it is now, that once embarked upon, that whole area would eventually be
submerged under water. What the post
independence and contemporary governments failed to do was to not only fail to change
the definitive framework of the social impact of the dam but further retained
colonial notions of development and modernization.
Tragic as it is at the moment, the Tokwe Mukosi Dam story
will unfortunately be told from the high offices of those that failed to
prevent the negative impact that the rapid flooding has had on peoples lives. They
will however, in true fashion with what a renowned academic and activist has
referred to as ‘disaster capitalism’ relegate the majority poor to the economic
periphery and still insist the dam project is a phenomenal post independence ‘modernization’ success
story.
The reality of the matter is that the project remains mired
in the legacy of colonial perceptions and understandings of modernization/development
with little regard of its impact on a
majority poor. Instead of learning from history, we have unfortunately chosen
to repeat it. And sadly, the Tokwe
Mukosi Dam Project is the current evidence
at hand.
*Takura Zhangazha writes in his personal capacity
(takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)
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