Bullet, Ballot or Belly?

Bullet, ballot or belly?

By Abel Dzobo

 

Is it the post election blood bath in Kenya? Or is it the callous partisan, government-sanctioned murders in Zimbabwe, that is vote or bullet? Or maybe, the stomach politics, full belly first?

 

Perhaps that is the way of explaining poverty in Africa. Isn't poverty a political motor force in Africa, a mechanism of social control that is brandished by politicians to incite the hungry into the most unimaginable stooges? Whereby the starving become a political powder keg, very volatile and ready to explode? While democracy extols the sanctity of the vote, in Africa it has been adulterated, the vote buys a morsel of food.

 

Is Mother Nature in acquiescence with greedy politicians, who capitalise on such catastrophes to reward supporters and punish foes with empty bellies?  During the run up to the Presidential run-off in Zimbabwe in 2008, Robert Mugabe banned non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that were distributing food to he famine-besieged rural populace as the despotic leader believed it was responsible for his shabby showing on March 29 when he lost to Morgan Tsvangirai. On a grand scale, Robert Mugabe and President Ahmadinejad of Iran were excluded from the dinner banquet in Italy thrown by Silvio Berlusconi as a symbol of rejection on the international fora at the just-ended 2008 Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) meeting.

 

But I strongly feel there is need for poverty eradication first if ever democracy is to set foot on Africa. Otherwise, it's a mere prostituting exercise, whereby it surfaces and gets submerged in the scramble for resources, something typical of Man Booker Award Prize winner, Chinua Achebe's A man of the people. Corruption with a capital letter C has become a legal resident on this continent.

 

Is it time to say goodbye to democracy? Are we agreed as  world, that good should overcome evil?

Caption: TWO FSH AND FIVE LOAVES OF BREAD . . . Can the miracle be relieved? 100kg of mealie meal for 10 families?