When white men become extremely poor, begging for money in streets of Harare HAVING fallen on the wrong side of history, the white community in Zimbabwe has joined poverty-struck Zimbabweans on the streets as beggars and touts. While the majority of the remaining whites in the country still live in upmarket suburbs, some can be seen roaming and begging on the streets of Harare as they try to ease the pangs of hunger. One man, who only identified himself as Oswald, told our news crew that people are not so generous to him. He reckons his skin is partly to blame for his poor fortunes as a beggar. With a banner written in Shona, Ndinokumbira rubatsiro (am asking for help) Oswald is a common sight in Harare as he tries desperately to make ends meet. The reticent man, whose tanned skin tells tales of hardship and struggle does not want to talk about his life or even where he lives. Many of his kind are living in the Mukuvisi woodlands. Vendors, who are his neighbours where he begs, think that he is still fit to fend for himself and seem to care less for his plight. I think he is still fit and should sale vegetables just as we do. He is not a cripple and should not expect hand-outs from people, said a vendor. Provident as ever, most of the ageing whites in the country are tucked in old people’s homes such as Athol Evans in Harare’s Cranborne suburb — living on remittances from offspring spread across the globe — but it is apparently not all rosy as some find themselves deserted by their closest relatives. Between 1999 and 2000 savings of the past decades were eroded when inflation shot through the ceiling reducing the country’s currency to nothing. As a result many people who were looking up to peaceful retreatments from public life —after retirement from work — are now going through a dry patch and this includes the loose white community. Some are also victims of the land reform programme, which redistributed land taking from rich white farmers and giving lands to landless blacks. In the days of colonialism, which ended 33 years ago, impoverished whites were amply protected by the State and their kith and kin but many who still have the wherewithal have since left the country — fleeing what they see as unfriendly policies. Formerly comfortable white farmers, forced to live on the fringes of society, see themselves as victims of reverse-racism that they say puts them at an even greater disadvantage than the millions of poor black Zimbabweans. For instance odds are very much against Kevin Oliver, a Shona speaking former tout, to benefit from the country’s empowerment policies which are tailor made for Zimbabweans. Having lost all hopes of finding a respectable job Oliver, who once grabbed headlines when he was a tout, has turned to gardening — something that shocks the lights out of most blacks long spellbound by the white man’s wealth and power. Even today many blacks who are wealthy are referred to as varungu(whites) simply because they are successful but that is no longer the case — but the growing number of white people driving kombis and living in high density suburbs mirrors a life of hardship similar to that which blacks endure.
Posted on: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 10:38:27 +0000