Books

Add captionChinua Achebe’s last book, “There was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra,” provoked charges of political heresy. The ethnic drift of the memoir polarised reception and reincarnated old hostilities, at least in the rhetorical domain.  Achebe was accused of reconstructing the history into a partisan frame, an inevitable charge given that he was relating events of the Nigerian Civil War from Biafran lenses. Wole Soyinka said he wished his great contemporary had not written the book in the manner it came out. Ironically, Achebe recounts how, as editor of a wartime publishing concern, he turned down a manuscript from a fellow Biafran insider because it buried history in a narcissistic blanket. While his own book certainly rises above the charge of narcissism, it seems...

Book: Why Nations Fail Authors: Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson Publisher: Profile Books (2012) ISBN: 978 1 84668 430 2 The expanse between rich and poor nations is vast and sustained. Explaining the gap has long been the site of controversy. The persistence of poverty sparks off clichés of every mood and rests bitterly in the consciousness of the deprived. But not there is no consensus as to why quality of life and other development indices are constantly winding down in some countries and shoring up in others. Diverging choices and fates countries reach in religion, culture, geography or knowledge have been invoked to explain the gap between the haves and the have-nots. However, according to Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson’s 2012 book, “Why Nations Fail,” these ex...

Primary and Education Minister Dr Lazarus DokoraReform is a ringing song as Primary and Secondary Education Minister Dr Lazarus Dokora sets forth the initial phases of the new curriculum. Minister Dokora has come across as a perpetual revolutionary for entering into force a series of reforms in recent months, but there is a reference point behind the changes. The ministry is implementing the Curriculum Framework for Primary and Secondary Education over the next seven years, with a view of making education equal to the challenges of a globalised century. The framework presents new learning areas and cross-cutting themes set to the dual design of building accomplished citizens while driving national development in the increasingly competitive global context. And now, as the revolution ta...

Lovemore Kurotwi (The Herald)When the poor are crunched into by-products of their circumstances, as the rich evolve into monsters of their lust, money matters more than morality. This is the story of Chiadzwa diamond fields, a site of national promise and missed opportunities. Imperilled by financial opacity and institutionalised sabotage, smuggling and corruption, Zimbabwe’s diamond industry has fared below capacity. For the past decade, Chiadzwa has been widely considered the mainstay of Zimbabwe’s economic recovery but not much has come of it. The messianic halo of the eastern deposits has dimmed, with recent reports indicating that mining companies in the area may have prejudiced Government of $13 billion. While diamonds have added the sparkle to neighbouring economies, Bo...

Bhundu BoysDambudzo Marechera was a spark in the galaxy of Zimbabwean art – intense, different but short-lived. He continues to be the object of a sustained literary post-mortem with books, plays, articles and commemorative magazines authored in his memory. Ironically, of his six books, only “Mindblast,” his last published work during his lifetime, is available with the publisher, a cumbersome trip away from the city centre. Tembo’s music is also hard to come by, with the exception of Bhundu Boys’ “Early Hits,” possibly because some of the material was done outside the country. “Shabini,” the breakthrough album by the Bhundu Boys, is said to be the bestselling Shona album in the United Kingdom but it is not available in Zimbabwe. In this regard, misfortune seems to stalk both ...

Primary and Secondary Education Minister Dr Lazarus DokoraSecretary for Primary and Secondary Education Dr Sylvia Utete-Masango officially launched the national pledge this week amid concerns from Christian parents that its content violates the liberty of conscience. The pledge is designed to encourage a patriotic work ethic among students and upholds honesty and hard work, while affirming freedom, justice and equality as national values. The idea of a pledge has been welcomed, especially considering that genuine patriotism seems to be in short supply, particularly in the country’s corruption-riven corporate and political sectors. However, the content is currently the subject of religious and civic controversy. Christians have emerged as the main dissenting party, contesting the pledge on...

Quail eggs (Beyond Sustainable)Harare, ever the site of shortlived crazes, witnessed a sudden surge in the popularity of quail breeding early this year. The selling point of the new craze was the medicinal and nutritional properties of the birds, while farmers embraced it as a more lucrative avenue as compared to chicken farmer. For many recruits, it was the easy way out of hard time as current liquidity challenges have not made city life any rosier for hustlers who cannot fall back on a regular payday. The egg is said to prevent several diseases including cancer and heart problems but one of the reverberating sound bites was that the bird and its eggs mitigate the effects of HIV/AIDS For sceptics, quails may well have been the poultry version of the sack potatoes anticlimax of 2013. Wha...

President Robert Mugabe When education prepares students for a livelihood but not for life, its benefits can seldom be sustained. It is a glaring contradiction when space for acquiring self-sustaining skills equally becomes space for acquiring self-destroying behaviour. Tragically, this seems to be the case with education in Zimbabwe, at least to a minor but progressive extent. The media is awash with reports of teenage delinquency involving drug abuse, violence, sexual aggression and prostitution. The long-run forecast is bleak and guardians have cause for apprehension if habit-forming substances, promiscuity and nude parties continue to grow a stake in schools. President Robert Mugabe took on the problem in his Independence Children’s Party address at the City Sports Centre on Sunday. ...

Add captionA Christian war cabinet is at work not to spill blood but ink for the defense of the gospel, in a time of unprecedented attacks on the faith from various angles.The intellectual defense of the faith, known as apologetics, is almost as old as Christianity itself. Paul’s trenchant theology and his Areopagus talk are classic apologetics.In the early centuries of Christianity, apologists such as Origen, Augustine, Tertullian and Athenagoras had to contend with political attacks, pagan objections and heresy.Each age had its unique challenges which the faith had to navigate. There has risen, in the lapse of centuries, intellectual sentinels of the faith such as Pascal, Jonathan Edwards, C.H Spurgeon and C.S Lewis who works still inspire contemporary apologists.Today, the e...

Former UN secretary general Kofi AnnanRoland Mhasvi’s environmentally themed poetry anthology, “Time of the Rupture,” is an impassioned case for the preservation of the planet.Mhasvi advocates for the protection of biodiversity from the scourge of extractive capitalism with an urgency approaching the apocalyptic.The poet’s cause is especially pertinent cause as factory-made carcinogens and poisonous chemicals are endangering mankind and depleting the environment.Issue-based guilds have emerged with Zimbabwe’s political seasons, but environmental writing still has relatively fewer takers.Mhasvi is up to task with this elegantly packaged offering where all life is championed as vital for the sustainability of the planet.The majority of poems in the 32-piece collection revolve aroun...