Dead Wrong, Calamitious times in Zimbabwe
By Elinor Kennedy
ISBN 978-0-7974-4731-8

DEAD Wrong, which was set in Zimbabwe and authored by Elinor Kennedy, is a riveting account of the economic problems that visited the Southern African country during the past decade, culminating in 2008 when Harare adopted multiple currencies to save the economy from collapse.
But the narrative, woven around the experiences of ‘Jo’ who fortuitously kills Fortunate during a beer brawl and is jailed at Rusape Prison follows the typical Rhodesian/white script that ignores some fundamentals to the economic crises.
The Western script absolves the role of the West in what was labelled the ‘worst economic crises’ of the century.
The writer Elinor Kennedy is a New Zealand journalist, who has spent some considerable time in the country and therefore considers herself an authority.
As she often does in her books, she judges the Zimbabwean context based on her world view.
She does allow the reader to make their own decision by informing the reader about the wrong that was corrected by the Land Reform Programme.
White farmers by the 90s were millionaires and almost half of them had private airstrips for their jets.
Their lifestyle cushioned first by the colonial laws and later the Lancaster House Agreement that saw the Americans and the British pledge towards land-reform.
By the 90s, funding the Zimbabwean land-reform was no longer a priority to the Western governments and Britain as they were already focusing on invading the oil rich Iraq in another ‘democracy’ crusade.
Britain’s Labour government in 1997 through Clare Short, secretary of State for International Development, sent a letter to Zimbabwe’s Minister of agriculture stating that: “We do not accept that Britain has a special responsibility to meet the costs of land purchase in Zimbabwe.”
This is the background to the Land Reform Programme.
The fact is the land reform, the biggest ever in Africa saw 4 000 white farmers replaced by over 400 000 Zimbabwean farmers.
Instead, Kennedy resorts to the familiar, worn out Western rhetoric of attributing Zimbabwe’s economic challenges to the breakdown of the rule of law, human rights abuse and outright dictatorship.
In an attempt to dramatise the magnitude of Zimbabwe’s economic challenges, Kennedy says conditions had deteriorated such that over ‘500’ inmates were being held in a cell that was meant to accommodate 100 prisoners.
Kennedy also dwells on the clean-up campaign of 2005 (Operation Murambatsvina), as a heartless government initiative meant to punish ordinary citizens.
She writes: “People nicknamed the clearance (clean-up campaign) the ‘Tsunami’.
“Every time people started to rebuild their shelters the bulldozers would come again – sometimes during the day, sometimes at night when people were sleeping.
“The soldiers would set fire to the houses.
“There were more rumours and even photos of the army bulldozing people’s houses and old people who were ill or feeble who didn’t get out in time were knocked to the ground and buried inside the rubble of their own shacks.
“Some Died.”
For a journalist much is expected of Kennedy in her description of the clean-up campaign.
Kennedy uses rumours and allegations to build her story and get into the facts.
This brings to mind British ambassador’s straight faced lie during the recently held July 31 2013 elections.
Bronnert told Sky News on August 4 2013 that in an unnamed constituency, 10 000 voters out of 17 000 had been assisted.
Although Kennedy tries to hide behind fictional characters her story reads typical of the Western tale on murderous dictators and ruined economies.
IF she was on the ground then she should have at least spoken to some of the relatives of the deceased
Kennedy, while asserting herself as an authoritative voice, erroneously misspells names of places and characters in a book that is supposed to give the global audience an incisive perspective on Zimbabwe’s economy and politics.
‘Chiadzwa’ is consistently referred to as ‘Chiadwza’, while popular musician Oliver ‘Mutukudzi’ is referred to as Oliver ‘Mutukusi’.
As expected, Kennedy also blames government, ZANU PF and in a futile attempt to discredit Zimbabwe’s Look East Policy, Kennedy denigrates Chinese made products.
Zimbabwe had the sense to look East at a time when the West was potentially facing an economic crisis as a result of sponsoring wars using tax payers’ money, while China was on its way to being a super power.
“People had stopped joking that Mugabe would be left with only the Chinese to rule since this now looked like being a distinct possibility,” she writes.
Overally, Dead Wrong is a futile attempt, by the Western media machinery through Kennedy to give a wrong historical account of what Zimbabwe went through, as a people at the turn of the millennia.
The book, which is a must read, gives a vivid insight to anyone seeking to understand the restless Rhodesian hand and mind-seeking to besmirch Zimbabwe’s revolutionary struggle that birthed the country’s independence on April 18 1980.
Sadly for Rhodesians and their Western sympathisers, Zimbabwe is moving forward.