Maastricht plays host to Zimbabwe’s future leaders

“Hello, my name is Shaun and I’m from Zambia…I mean, Zimbabwe.”

So began Shaun Matsheza’s opening remarks at the second of a series of conferences hosted by the Student Workforce’s ‘Human Rights Force’ held at the Landbouwbelang cultural freezone in Maastricht on Friday, November 28th.

Matsheza is Zimbabwean, and knows it well.

His misstep was not the result of a public speaker’s anxiety at having to address a crowd of 70 students and other residents of Maastricht, but rather a subtle joke and sharp reminder as to how many westerners could very likely confuse the two “Z” countries.

Through this series of conferences and discussion groups, the “Human Rights Force,” in conjunction with University College Maastricht, aims to combat the perceived lack of awareness about the extent of the crisis in Zimbabwe. This one featured Matsheza, Vice President of the Student Representative Council at the University of Zimbabwe, and two other speakers, Themba Maphenduka and Faith Mutepa, who described in disturbing detail the political and economic horror endured by Zimbabweans on a daily basis.

Civil collapse
“Zimbabweans are the most peace-loving people on the planet,” Matsheza said proudly, before adding that they are “in the depths of the most drastic financial and political crisis any country in the world” has ever suffered.

The cumulative effect of the crisis in Zimbabwe is a descent into complete civil collapse.

On December 1st, approximately 50 members of the armed forces rioted in Harare’s streets after being denied pay, unhindered and in some cases encouraged by riot police who stood by. There have been reports that at least 16 of the troops have already been executed.

The recent cholera outbreak should have been easily preventable, but instead, a lack of hospital resources and staff, combined with the cutting off of Harare’s water supply, have allowed the epidemic to claim over 800 lives while infecting some 16 000 more at the time of this writing.

A surreal yet conservatively estimated inflation rate of 231 million percent and a recent imposition of withdrawal limits by the nation’s banks prevent most Zimbabweans from buying a loaf of bread.
Without resources, the education system is suffering, and consequently so are its students, like Matsheza.

Once a model for other African nations, the education system in Zimbabwe, has degenerated to such a point that it is difficult, if not impossible, for students of all ages to attend school.

According to a recent BBC News report, school attendance has fallen from 90 to 20 percent. Teachers who can no longer afford to work, will sometimes exchange food with a student as a means of receiving a sort of tuition fee, such as one cow per semester.

The Zimbabwean students at the Landbouwbelang, free from the confines of their country’s pain, were at once resilient and somber.

Each speaker addressed the audience with the customary greeting of “Ahoy Union! Ahoy Comrades! Ahoy!” evoking a tradition of their Student Union meetings of past.

But looking at the faces of these young students, now safe from harm and free to study while continuing to work towards change in Zimbabwe, one could see an expression of reflection as they thought about their families and friends back home, and the countless lives that have been lost.

Indeed, after a moment of silence for the victims, Maphenduka, Treasurer-General of the Zimbabwe National Student’s Union (ZINASU), whispered to the audience, “I have heard their voices, I have seen their faces.”

Faith Mutepa was the sole female representative of ZINASU at the conference to speak on women’s issues in Zimbabwe’s educational system.

She explained that although women won the right to go to school following Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980, the grading system inherently favoured men.

“Somehow, [government encouragement for women’s enrollment] is not really a privilege,” she said, “our male counterparts take us as inferiors – at the end of the day you feel you are inferior and invalid.”

According to Mutepa, female students often fall into prostitution in order to pay their tuition, making them vulnerable to AIDS and other STDs. Her goal in fighting for educational rights is to remove the degrading stereotypes of women in Zimbabwean society.

Finding a safe haven in Maastricht
I spoke separately after the Human Rights Force conference with Mehluli Dube, now studying European Public Health at Maastricht University, in order to get a personal perspective on how the persecution of these students compelled them to leave their families in Zimbabwe.

Dube is originally from Bulawayo, where he attended the National University of Science in Technology (NUST) in 2006 and was elected Vice President of the Student Representative Council.

Initially, Dube’s mother was concerned about her son getting involved in radical political movements, what she called “hooliganism”, and not concentrating on his studies, until she realized that she was misinterpreting his participation in student activism.

“She saw the truth,” recalls Dube, “not a positive truth, in terms of personal accomplishment, but in terms of influence in the broader process of democratization.”

This realization was also shared by his peers at university, who went from treating him as a political pariah to sympathizing with his position. They even assisted him with his schoolwork so he could fulfill his academic requirements while still being highly active in the union.

But NUST’s faculty and administration stood vehemently against his involvement in student politics, and after being made to repeat a year, he was suspended in September 2007.

Dube accuses the institution of being financially supported by and beholden to the government, despite charging students unaffordable tuition fees.

After his suspension, Dube became increasingly active in the opposition movement.

His experience with civil society organizations and involvement in the Movement for Democratic Change made him, as he explains, “a very useful resource,” and he participated in a number of major activities leading up to the contested 2008 election process.

In late 2007, however, he was arrested and charged with treason for comments he made at a meeting of the country’s civil society organizations. No longer safe in his home country, Dube fled to South Africa.

What ultimately brought him and other young but fiercely engaged students from the different regions of Zimbabwe together, according to Maphenduka, was a common understanding and respect for human rights, democracy, inclusiveness, transparency, and sacrifice.

“We declined a system that arrested our human rights,” said Maphenduka, “that is why we are [in Maastricht] today.” Through contacts at the Dutch Embassy in South Africa, 17 students in their early twenties from across Zimbabwe, all of them male with the exception of Mutepa, were able to organize themselves and come to Maastricht to study while being granted refugee status in the Netherlands. Through cell phones and social media like Facebook, they are able to keep in contact with their families and friends.

An essential human right that has been denied to these students and hundreds of thousands like them in Zimbabwe is the right to education.

“What I discovered with my colleagues,” explains Dube, “is that the most important thing we could ever do in the development of any society is to be well-equipped with knowledge, and we certainly had to acquire knowledge one way or the other.”

Dube says he very much appreciates the environment in the Netherlands, which he finds “quite assimilative, all-inclusive, self-nurturing and encourages one to develop into a better person, and ultimately a better leader.” The Government of the Netherlands is funding their stay until the completion of their degrees.

“I get the impression that people think there is not a lot getting done” Matsheza said, “but people [in Zimbabwe always] find a way to express themselves in a democratic space.”

The Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (CZC), a national civil society network of more than 350 organizations dedicated to bringing about democratic change to the country, is an example of this expression.

“Generational leaders”
How do these politically engaged and academically reinvigorated students perceive the current crisis in their home country, and what solutions do they envision?

Government ideology and mismanagement are “enshrined in the system,” according to Maphenduka. The current power sharing coalition between Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai is, in Dube’s words, “a non-starter.”

It is a political process that excludes the people of Zimbabwe, and gives power back into the hands of Mugabe, even though he lost the 2008 election.

The only solution, not just according to these particular students in Maastricht but to an entire generation of Zimbabweans, according to Dube, is “a complete change of government, where Mugabe and his accomplices are completely removed.”

“We have given Robert Mugabe quite a long period – 28 years he has existed with his government – and they have not done anything…it is a pity that people have to demonstrate this by just giving up their lives in a cholera epidemic,” Dube says.

In escaping the educational collapse, and through their commitment to lasting and effective political, economic and social change, these students have presented themselves as agents of change in Zimbabwe.

With the education they will receive at the University of Maastricht and in continuing to oppose the increasingly corrupt, brutally violent and criminally negligent system enforced by Robert Mugabe, many of them hope to be, as Dube says, “a human resource” that will be tapped by a new democratically elected government.

While they are deeply concerned about their families well-being and the general state of Zimbabwe, these students are optimistic that political change is inevitable, and will occur sooner rather than later, as Mugabe’s hold on the country appears increasingly inept and ineffective. And when the time comes, they will be ready to get involved.

“We have now identified ourselves as generational leaders,” says Dube, “from student politics to the broader process of democratization.”

By Alex Derry

Alex Derry is a Canadian student from Toronto pursuing his MA in European Studies with a concentration in International Politics at Maastricht University.

The photographs of the Zimbabwean students were taken by Felix Spira.