Books

Add captionThe proliferation of the Zika virus in Latin America has flared up speculation about its possible appropriation by Western powers as an instrument of population control in developing countries. Latin American governments are already advising women to hold off on having babies in the interim as a medical recourse to the birth defects linked to the virus is yet to be established.The demographic gap to be suffered by the region in the intervening period has prompted conspiracy theorists to allege that the virus is the latest implement from the West’s viral war chest.Neither a journalistic nor a scientific case can be made for the speculations, but there are historically documented precedents of biological warfare designed to advance the interests of developed countries.The racially...

The occasion is Christmas. A Chivhu teacher visits the local prison to witness the other side of the holiday away from family reunions and festive cheer.Chipo Muteve has been at Chivhu Prison before to minister the gospel, restore hope and equip inmates with certainty for a new life beyond the cells.This time she has brought food provisions for the prisoners and to have one to one conversations with them as most of them are not expecting visits from their families. One elderly man, known to inmates as Whitehead, tells Muteve he was jailed for growing marijuana in his backyard. Being a widower, he left his seven-year old daughter on her own when was thrown behind the cells. “The girl was born with HIV and she needed regular check up at the hospital and to collect her ART medication,” Whiteh...

Bishop Tudor Bismark Africa is a site of contradictions – at once the face of poverty and the fountain of wealth. Corruption has not only tangled its octopus-like tentacles around the engines of growth but also fermented its malware across the institutions that are supposed to fight economic injustice. The institutionalisation of corruption in Africa has made poverty and inequality enduring facts of life on the continent, with moral engines becoming either complicit or complacent. The church, in particular, has been implicated in several abuses including inordinate commercialism, corruption, and lack of accountability and abuse of trust by the clergy. Corruption thrives on the cultural duplicity of our day, whereby more people maintain a perfect balance between Christian piety and worldl...

Julius Nyerere and Kwame Nkrumah (PBS)When politicians run their tenure, they are survived by our monuments, but statesmen are survived by their legacy. Pan-Africanist father figure Julius Nyerere towers immortally in his manifold legacy for the continent, chiefly freedom, unity and development. Although there are still promises to keep, at a time when inequality and disunity stand contrary to the gains of independence, Nyerere finished well and scaled up the bar for subsequent administrations. As a statesman and intellectual, Nyerere is a league apart. He processed grand ideas from lenses of a villager; high office and deep intellect did not detach him from the least of the poor. In a day when the world revolves around capital, Nyerere is an enduring example of what African politics ...

Add captionThe sustained duration of searing temperatures has levelled a double-barrelled assault on the livelihood of Chiwara villagers in Gutu. Like many smallholder farmers in the district, they can only watch in dismay as yellow cornstalks hunch lifelessly into the ground.It is no easy test for Gutu peasants, and smallholder farmers in Masvingo, particularly Chivi, Mwenezi, Chiredzi and Zaka, whose livelihood – or rather lifeblood – is primarily in the annual crop.  For some, it is not yet clear how much longer their livestock can hold in there. Hollow bellows from struggling oxen report issues of dust and dying pastures. Cattle are now going for a few bags of maize while at least kicking, lest farmers process the final catastrophe of exchanging a dead beast for maize scarcely the valu...

Add captionBook: The Internet Is Not the Answer Author: Andrew Keen Publisher: Atlantic (2015)ISBN: 978-0-8021-2313-8If the history of modern societies was to be simplified into one thread, it would be most likely the story of people in the service of profit and power. As a virus will go through serial mutations just to evade detection, replicate itself and debilitate its host, capitalism has thrown on many forms but the organising principle remains suspiciously similar.Creative destruction, the disruptive cycle of reinvention observed by economist Joseph Schumpeter, remains the summative profile of capitalism. From institutions which licence the rich to hunt poor people’s herds, to decoy narratives and stratagems of co-optation, volumes come new but seldom different in the lapse of histo...

Add captionBook: ChibarabadaAuthor: Tinashe MuchuriPublisher: Bhabhu Books (2015)ISBN: 978-0-7974-6439-1Tinashe Muchuri signs into the league of disruptive innovators with his new novel, “Chibarabada.”The accomplished debut from the award-winning journalist, themed after an illicit one-day brew, is an aggregation of potent devices. The title “Chibarabada” (not to be confused with that other dancehall chant) is a Shona expression for rapid movement and, as pertinent to the context, a name for the shebeen concoction. A society set adrift by purposelessness, injustice, materialism, hedonism, and the diversionary spell of “chibarabada,” is the material of this ambitious novel which easily stakes a claim among the country’s millennial notables.Muchuri, visibly out to extend the creative territo...

Add captionBook: Inequality – What Can Be Done? Author: Anthony B. Atkinson  Publisher: Harvard University Press (2015)ISBN: 978-0-674-50476-9 The middle wall between the haves and the have-nots occupies real estate in the cultural imagination of every generation. It has drawn a storm of intellectual sledgehammers in the lapse of history yet it still stands, defiant and impregnable. From Plato’s call that no one be four times richer than the poorest of the poor, to syndicated manifestos, and terabytes of protest art, inequality continues to evade the most potent moral anti-virus.In Zimbabwe, the three top-earning CEOs, ironically at the helm of mediocre parastatals, earned $535, 499, $43, 693 and $37, 050 respectively before Government intervened with a salary cap in 2014.On the contrary, ...

Don Moen and Frank Edwards (Pulse)A dancehall punchline of profound implications on the interfacing of religion and youth culture flows: “More youths have to get spiritual; they take movies to literal.”   Youths, a critical demographic for the future of faith, are exposed to a range of influences which are increasingly undermine traditional Christian values. In countries where the decline of religion has been precipitate, the generation gap has been cited as the main factor. A closer look, however, further implicates the detachment of the church from youth culture. A secular climate increasingly outlines the academy, public life, popular entertainment, new media and fashion statements of the day, while the church largely remains a special interest, packaging its message for the usual segm...

Add captionThe educational facility of the search engine came into question when Google last week released an infographic mapping top searches across the world in 2015. Digital footprints worldwide indicate that the search engine is principally wired around entertainment, with education surfacing as an afterthought.Google’s cloud outlines provide an interesting perspective into the debate about the utility of cellphones in Zimbabwe schools. First though, a look at the latest indices. The infographic headed “The Most Googled Person in Each Country in 2015” speaks to the showbiz wiring of the Internet, with Kim Kadarshian, Lionel Messi, Nicki Minaj, Christiano Ronaldo and Rihanna dominating web preferences in every continent The search engine is by far the most popular service from the tec...