The Diamonds of Marange

By Itai T. Mupanduki

The book explores the treacherous African mineral terrain as it illustrates the powerless voiceless peasants in the village of Marange pitted against corrupt government elite. Both are then pitted against a global Multinational company and its proxies, The Military Industrial Complex. Threatened by a political opposition party, the ruling elite is caught up in its populist rhetoric and the desire for profit. Lacking capital the ruling elite is at the crossroads. But the military industrial complex has no permanent friends, leaving the peasants caught in the middle. Marange explores the missed opportunities while at the same time leaving the reader both entertained and educated. The author takes the reader to Marange through the eyes of Mugove, a peasant farmer, Taona, a high school teacher and the generality of the characters in the book who serve in their various capacities to illustrate the disjointed social and political atmosphere emerging because of the diamond discovery. The interesting contradictions and relationships that emerge in the peasant-elite-multinational company triangle make very interesting reading. This book is an essential reading for anyone interested in Africa and its minerals.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Mar 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466918542

Itai T. Mupanduki

  "Itai Mupanduki, a Zimbabwean medical doctor has experienced human suffering. In this book however, he uses the personal stories of Mugove, a Marange peasant, Taona and Anesu, university students, and weaves their various stories in the face of relentless international capital exploitation of the resources of the country. Mugabe becomes only one of the players caught up in this relentless march of foreign capital, almost a prisoner as well. This book is a must read". Professor Kenneth Mufuka, Lander University, South Carolina     "The Diamonds of Marange is an accessible short novel which is written by one of Zimbabwe's emerging third generation novelists. The book compels us to think about contemporary events through the eyes of people who we normally don't usually think of as major players in African politics, the impoverished". Professor Sinfree Makoni, Penn State University USA

Book preview

CONTENTS

Foreword

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

References

Dedication: They dig, push, pull, sweat, get injured and sometimes die in Africa’s diamond mines largely for a cause unknown, for a dream never to be fulfilled. Their sweat and labor builds distant economies their eyes will never ever see. This book is dedicated to these miners and I hope it will someday help fulfill their hopes, aspirations and dreams.

Foreword

The short story, The Diamonds of Marange, is a powerful metaphor on how current African countries encourage their citizens to accomplish that which is impossible. In the search for diamonds, Mupanduki takes us into contemporary quests for sudden enrichment in impoverished countries. He is able to narrate effectively how the quest results in the destruction of the environment and in powerful disillusionment on the part of those who are on the ‘run’ towards diamonds. Mupanduki is a usual novelist, who shows us the powers of imagination. He is trained as a medical doctor, well travelled and is currently part of Africa’s Diaspora, but still retains a very strong sense of commitment to Africa. I will watch closely as he develops in his writing career, and look forward to reading more of his creative work. His writings are also powerful educationally. The short story tells in an accessible way some of the contemporary problems and predicaments which Africa is currently faced with, using Zimbabwe as a metaphorical site. The book will clearly be of interest to students interested in contemporary Africa as viewed through the prism of the Diaspora.

Sinfree Makoni PhD Professor of Applied Linguistics and African and African American Studies. Pennsylvania State University, State College.

Acknowledgements: I wish to thank all my friends and loved ones in Hawaii for the unwavering moral support they provided as I wrote this book. I also wish to thank Dr Sinfree Makoni and Dr Ken Mufuka for critiquing this work. Finally, my thanks to my editor Angela Aidoo for her unwavering dedication.

1

MUGOVE, THE TEACHER, AND THE HEADMEN

Dawn, the struggle between night and day. The struggle between sleep and wakefulness, and slumber and productive toil. The birth of a new day arrived ceremoniously, like a new born, well announced by the big red rooster and the birds in the African Savannah on this September morning of 2005. Mugove woke his two sons up to harness the four oxen and start tilling the fields early, before the boys went off to school and the cattle were herded to the meadows. If he owned a watch he would have noted that it was 5.00 am, but the peasant farmer Mugove, knew no such luxuries. He toiled daily in these tired soils to support his family. He had married Marita, a hard working woman who bore him two sons and two daughters. They owned six herd of cattle, three goats and nine fowls, and Bhoki the thin black hungry and miserable hunting dog.

Mugove lived in Marange village. They had no money in the bank and the little cash they earned on a daily basis from selling their produce was just enough for their day to day needs. Not that having a bank in the village or close by would have made a difference anyway. The Marange clan was made up of subsistence farmers and sugarcane growers. Most of them belonged to the Apostolic Sect, a Christian church whose origins are in Zimbabwe. The church had spread all over Southern, Central and East Africa. A story is told that back in the fifties, in colonial Southern Rhodesia, when the movement for self rule was very active and there was growing disenchantment amongst the Africans and the peasantry in particular, with the foreign, institutionalized church organizations, Johanne Masowe, the Prophet had a vision where he was instructed by The Spirit to start a new church rooted in the ways of the people.

Others say Johanne Masowe was already a Traditional Spirit Medium who was able to merge the new and the old into what became a formidable church with many splinter groups. Around that time, there was a call to visit Jerusalem, God’s city, in Israel. It would seem that the members believed that true salvation awaited them in Jerusalem, and they were totally oblivious to the ongoing Israeli–Arab conflicts. Thus began a long trek north on foot. The journey came to an end in East Africa when these Mapositori as they were commonly referred to, were alerted of the volatile situation in the Middle East. The church inadvertently spread through parts of East Africa as most of the people never returned to Zimbabwe.

Marange village in Manicaland, in Eastern Zimbabwe lay in a dry enclave with a river basin in the center, and a small hill or rather a knoll in the background. The river flowed for miles to join the Save river. From time to time, the river flooded leaving behind a lot of silt which originally triggered gardening and sugarcane farming. However, as the population grew, the riverside plots proportionately grew smaller and smaller and farming began to encroach on the dry hillsides.

Mr. Mugove went to the hillside to till the soil with his sons. They planted some vegetables, and on a daily basis carried water from the small river to water the plants. The river dried up completely for two months each year. The rainy season from about November to March was a good period, even though sometimes the hail destroyed the vegetables. They had managed to create a good drainage system to prevent their crops from being swept downhill in the torrents. Mugove and his wife also planted corn, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, some nuts and beans during the rainy season.

Mugove hoped that some day he would be allocated a piece of land from the lush farms the government had repossessed from the whites for redistribution to the landless blacks using the Fast Track land Reform program. After all, he was a loyal ruling Party member. He had been a Mujibha (local militia) for the guerillas during the war for independence. He, like many others, had waited for years for the promised land, but the government had since the early eighties been implementing a slow resettlement program in the not so desirable areas.

This land redistribution project, though extremely popular with the villagers, had brought a severe backlash on the country from the European and American nations. Investors had fled, credit lines had been cut, sanctions were imposed, industries were shutting down, formal employment was officially a dismal thirty percent, and people were leaving the country en mass. Not much had changed at the village level though, except that now the local school and clinic were short staffed, and resignations were rampant. They all complained that medication was in short supply, salaries were dismal and inflation was on the rise.

Mugove’s brother Mugoni did a bit of trading like most members of his church who had ventured far and wide all over Southern Africa buying and selling. Lately his brother was involved in foreign currency exchange in nearby Mutare.