When Governments Stumble: Lessons from Zimbabwe’s Past; Hope in Africa’s Future
By Ben Freeth Mbe
Published by Monarch Books (2013)
ISBN: 978 0 85721 374 7

AT the Lancaster House Conference, President Mugabe begrudgingly accepted the conditions set for land re-acquisition in Zimbabwe.
He knew the importance of land and how much the people were attached to it. After all, the major reason behind the Chimurenga wars was the land issue.
The Lancaster House Constitutional provisions demanded that for 10 years, no significant Land Reform Programme would take place.
For a decade the Government of Zimbabwe was ‘indebted’ to follow a Constitution that only allowed ‘slow’ acquisition of land, on a willing-buyer-willing-seller basis.
The British should have taken into account the demands of the revolutionary leaders at the conference; the people had deep attachment to the land.
And it is shocking to note that more than 30 years after the country gained its independence, there are still some who do not understand and appreciate the relationship between Zimbabweans and their land.
Ben Freeth Mbe, author of the book under review this week is one such character who fails or pretends not to know this all-important relationship.
When Governments Stumble: Lessons from Zimbabwe’s Past; Hope in Africa’s future is a book that gives an insight into Zimbabwe’s land reform story from the perspectives of a white commercial farmer.
Written with a fusion of Bible verses and the author’s personal experiences, Freeth highlights the thinking of the average white commercial farmers who for years benefited from thousands of acres of land while Africans were on arid and unproductive land.
He argues that the church should play a role in stabilising issues affecting the country.
“Christians are obliged to stand up and speak out of righteousness when the highest law of the land goes against God’s law,” writes Freeth.
Freeth’s argument does not point out that it is the white men who introduced Christianity which was key to disenfranchising blacks.
Christianity was abused by imperialists and used to pave the way for colonisation of the country.
In When Governments Stumble: Lessons from Zimbabwe’s Past; Hope in Africa’s future, Freeth laments and writes about how the former white commercial farmers were violently removed from ‘their farms’.
And never once does Freeth explain how his kith and kin came to own the land, the means which they used to obtain it.
Ironically the writer describes the repossession of land as theft and goes on to quote the Bible.
“He who has been stealing must steal no longer but must work, doing something useful with his own hands…” (Ephesians 4: 28).
Freeth conveniently forgets that whites were the thieves and blacks were simply taking back their property that they were deprived off for almost 100 years.
Through trickery and use of violence, the blacks were violently chased away from their land while British retired soldiers and pensioners occupied it.
As Herbert Chitepo put it: “Each one was given large tracts of land…with it of course went the people who were living on the land. So that, a man who had lived on a piece of land, cultivated it, built his home and reared his cattle and goats and sheep on the same piece of land suddenly woke up to be told by a European who had come from afar: No, you are a tenant now. You are a squatter.
The Land Reform Programme was simply a process to correct and rectify an injustice, a theft that had been perpetrated by the colonialists.
He conveniently forgets that in the same Bible he quotes is a verse which says: “The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation” (Numbers 14 vs 18).
About 4 000 white farmers enjoyed the privilege of owning vast tracts of land which after land redistribution benefitted 400 000 black households.
“The breakdown of Zimbabwe justice system began when the police were instructed not to act against certain specific crimes committed by specific people,” says the author.
The Pioneer Column had a police force that was instrumental in the theft of land from its rightful black owners.
The book is full of nothing but hypocrisy.