No Country for Old Men

I have just finished reading Peter Godwin's compelling memoir When A Crocodile Eats the Sun.  Part personal recollection, part political commentary, the book chronicles his father's dying and death.  Along the way, Godwin learns some family secrets and helps reconnect his father to his past.  But, what I found particularly compelling is Godwin's account of the nearly current state of affairs in Zimbabwe, the book's account ending in 2004.

As you no doubt know, I spent some of my growing up years in this country--then called Rhodesia.  I have a very fond memory of a childhood that was not usual by American standards.  When I read Godwin's account, I could travel back in memory to some of the kinds of things he is describing.

As I read along, I found myself cringing more and more, almost to the point of physical revulsion.  How in the name of all things sane can a tyrant such as Mugabe remain in power.  It is tempting, from a distance, to wonder at the inadvertent complicity of the populace in allowing him to remain in power.  Reading Godwin's account disabused me of any such thought.

In detail, he recounts the thoroughly calculating move on Mugabe's part to institute the land reallocation "plan."  So, a country which had been the breadbasket of the continent became a virtual wasteland, unable to grow enough food to feed its own citizens.  So-called war vets (from Zimbabwe's civil war in the 1980s) were rewarded with seized farms which second- and third- (or more) generation white families had successfully farmed.  The fact that many of the war vets were only in their 20s (in the year 2000), thus making them NOT war vets, did not alter Mugabe's cynical plan.  And why did he push the land reallocation?  Because he lost the election, and needed something to divert the populace so he could retain power.

Not only has Zimbabwe's productivity dropped agriculturally, but the life expectancy has also dropped from one of the highest in Africa to one of the lowest...in the world.  From a life expectancy of mid-60s some 50 years ago, Zimbabwean men now live an average of 37 years, and women 33 years.  Meanwhile, Mugabe will celebrate his 88th  birthday in February, 2012.  As Godwin notes, Mugabe is now on his third lifespan while his country men and women die after barely living a lifespan.

AIDS is part of the reason for this precipitous drop, but so is targeted denial of food supplies.  Mugabe channels food to his supporters and denies his enemies.    It is not too big a stretch to aver that "Zimbabwe is dying" as Bob Herbert wrote in a New York Times editorial in 2009.

I keep thinking about the marvelous William Butler Yeats' poem "Sailing to Byzantium."  This poem has been the inspiration for many interpretations, and has provided book and movie titles--just read through and spot them.

I have a new interpretation.  Zimbabwe is no country for old men.  And if ever there were an aged man--a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick--it is the second president of this country.  And the closing of the poem speaks to that great unknown unknowable--"what is past, or passing, or to come."

No one knows what is to come in Zimbabwe.  My hope and prayer is that this, too, shall pass--and a lovely country will somehow be revived to a state wherein all citizens are valued, where life is cherished and where all old men and women can thrive.

Sailing to Byzantium

by William Butler Yeats

That is no country for old men. The young

In one another's arms, birds in the trees

—Those dying generations—at their song,

The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,

Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long

Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.

Caught in that sensual music all neglect

Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,

A tattered coat upon a stick, unless

Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing

For every tatter in its mortal dress,

Nor is there singing school but studying

Monuments of its own magnificence;

And therefore I have sailed the seas and come

To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire

As in the gold mosaic of a wall,

Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,

And be the singing-masters of my soul.

Consume my heart away; sick with desire

And fastened to a dying animal

It knows not what it is; and gather me

Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take

My bodily form from any natural thing,

But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make

Of hammered gold and gold enamelling

To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;

Or set upon a golden bough to sing

To lords and ladies of Byzantium

Of what is past, or passing, or to come.