Bread often leads politics

IT seems no one quite appreciates the importance and value of bread to life.

Bread is in fact life.

It often occupies the front and centre of politics by its sheer ability to make and unmake governments, define historical epochs and, most importantly, put fire in the belly of people who are capable of changing the course of history through its ability to shape “politics of the stomach”.

The Lord’s Prayer — taught to us by Jesus Christ himself in Matthew 6 — reminds us to ask for “our daily bread”.

And even in John 6:32-35, Jesus likens himself to bread.

“’Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’ ‘Sir,’ they said, ‘always give us this bread.’ Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.’”

This is the quintessential lesson in politics.

Stripped to its barest necessities, politics is about the ability to provide “daily bread” to the ever-expectant masses.

Eminent Pan-African thinker and revolutionary, Amilcar Cabral, who helped usher in independence for Guinea-Bissau in 1974, albeit posthumously, once said: “Always remember that the people are not fighting for ideas, nor for what is in men’s minds. The people fight and accept the sacrifices demanded by the struggle in order to gain material advantages, to live better and in peace, to benefit from progress, and for the better future of their children.

“National liberation, the struggle against colonialism, the construction of peace, progress and independence are hollow words devoid of any significance unless they can be translated into a real improvement of living conditions.”

This is quite profound and touches on both the spiritual and circular realm.

False dawn

Over the past three years, events in far-off Sudan, which is actually more than 3 500 kilometres away from Harare, have been quite poignant.

Remember, like Zimbabwe, Sudan was among nine countries including Burundi, Congo, Mali, Libya, Somalia, South Sudan and the Central African Republic that were under US sanctions.

Well, relations between Washington and Khartoum became particularly bad after Brigadier-General Omar al-Bashir came to power in 1989 “backed by Islamists” and purportedly began allying with “international terrorist organisations”, which culminated in Sudan being designated a “State Sponsor of Terrorism” in 1993.

You should know that the term “international terrorist organisations” was actually a euphemism for Islamists at the time.

It even got worse especially between 1991 to 1995 when Sudan hosted Osama bin Laden, whose organisation — Al-Qaeda — was later accused of sponsoring terrorist attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

This background is relevant insofar as it explains how and why Sudan and al-Bashir became marked targets of the US; more so, after the calamitous and world-changing September 11, 2001 attacks on New York — US’ financial centre — and the Pentagon — representing America’s military might — again by Al-Qaeda.

Sudan unsurprisingly came under heavy sanctions.

However, in 2018, Omar al-Bashir, who had endured the punitive measures from US for more than 25 years, blinked.

As inflation worsened and the local currency alarmingly lost value, he decided to throw caution to the wind by implementing the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s recommendations to end wheat and fuel subsidies.

This was to become the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Ominously, bread prices tripled, setting off a fateful chain of events that began with protests in Atbara, north of the capital Khartoum, on December 19, 2018 and morphed into a putschist movement that resulted in al-Bashir’s ouster by the military on April 11, 2019.

For ordinary Sudanese, who managed to extract a key concession from the military by browbeating it into establishing a civilian-led transitional Sovereign Council, it was the beginning of a new dawn.

Or so they thought.

Their newly appointed Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok — a fundi in economics who was once deputy secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa — was quick off the block, as he obsequiously sought rapprochement with the US.

“We will have a plan that will address the immediate challenges through our recovery programme, addressing the felt need by the people: issues of inflation, availability of commodities, wheat, fuel, medicine and all such things,” he boldly proclaimed after being sworn-in in August 21, 2019.

These were the critical bread-and-butter issues for ordinary Sudanese.

The events that followed proved that Hamdok could stop at nothing to appease Washington, even if it meant subordinating the country’s sovereignty and national interest.

In December 2019, he became the first Sudanese Prime Minister to visit the US in 35 years, and notwithstanding the country’s parlous economic state, he went further to pay America US$335 million as settlement to victims and families of individuals affected by the 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

And perhaps most controversially, Hamdok allowed Sudan to be bullied into making a commitment to normalise relations with Israel.

Those who are familiar with politics in the Middle East know that this could only have been suicidal.

The last thing some of its Arab neighbours need is a client state at the beck and call of the Americans.

But, for a while, the plan seemed to have been working.

Sudan’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism was scrapped in December last year, while the World Bank, at the instigation of the US, pledged US$2 billion in grants “to reduce poverty and boost economic growth”.

Washington further provided US$1,15 billion bridging finance to allow Khartoum to retire its debt to the World Bank.

But, as Zimbabwe painfully learnt in the 1990s through ESAP, such benevolence and magnanimity is often tied to back-breaking conditionalities. In Sudan’s case, it meant removing subsidies and allowing the currency to float, as per IMF recommendations, which harked back to the last days of al-Bashir.

It inevitably sent the Sudanese economy into another vicious tailspin. Inflation rose and shortages of medicines, food and fuel worsened.

Suffice to say, it has since ended the way it began, with rising bread prices claiming the scalp of yet another politician.

And it has come full circle with no demonstrable improvement in the condition of ordinary wananchi.

Well, for now, the best-case scenario for Khartoum would be for the military to lead a transition to elections in July 2023, as they are promising to do, while the worst-case scenario would see it descending into an intractable civil war, as often happens in most countries where the US interferes.

Fighting poverty

Sudan is a sad, but not surprising, tale that shows yet again that Africa’s problems cannot be solved by sucking up to the West.

There are some among us that are convinced that turning the country over to the Americans would set it on its way to prosperity.

Well, events around the world, and most critically in Sudan, disprove this fanciful theory.

As Bishop Lazi continues to say, the biggest challenge facing Africa today is poverty.

Where there is poverty, there is always conflict and chaos.

The solution, therefore, lies in lifting people out of poverty, ensuring food security, improving access to social services and creating sustainable development. But this cannot materialise without an upheaval that comes with radically changing the world order, which clearly is not working for Africa.

In his five years as Tanzania’s president, Pan-Africanist Dr John Magufuli — may his soul rest in peace — showed that this is possible.

Not only did his firm stewardship manage to have the East African country upgraded to a lower middle-income status by the World Bank, but he transformed it into a food-secure nation that has modern infrastructure, which Bishop Lazi was privileged to witness with his own eyes. If only he had served another five-year term.

It is the same transformation that is presently being witnessed in Zimbabwe, where major milestones are being realised in road and dam construction, infrastructure development, new investments in mining and food security.

For the first time in years, the country has managed to grow enough maize and wheat.

Exports are rising at an exponential rate and we might end the year with more than US$7,8 billion in foreign currency receipts, which is quite as historical as it is remarkable.

The country’s balance sheet, with current account and capital account surpluses, hasn’t looked this healthy for years.

But, progress has to be experiential for it to be relevant, and this would naturally follow.

At a pre-budget seminar in Victoria Falls last weekend, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Dr John Mangudya made a very important observation.

“Equity,” he said, “comes after growth.”

“One comes after the other. First comes growth then comes equity.”

We are well on our way there.

In the end, our politics will be defined by our ability to put food on the table of every Zimbabwean.

Bishop out!