Saturday 3 August 2024

Zimbabwe's Spirit Mediums Have Spoken To Me Again!


by Kudakwashe Kanhutu 

They want me to write another Book... What most acquaintances do not realise is that I write not because I want to, but because it is my National Duty. I have no choice in the matter. None whatsoever. I am a descendant of the great Scribes of the Great Zimbabwe State. circa. 1500AD.

Everyone knows that my Rural Home is now in the Zambezi Valley in Zimbabwe, but what is not common knowledge is how we arrived there. I will tell you: we arrived in the Zambezi Valley with Prince Nyatsimba Mutota when he left Great Zimbabwe to look for Salt and establish his dominion further North of the Capital. My Great Great Great Grandfather was a Soldier and Chronicler of events on that Expedition. He didn't return to Great Zimbabwe at the end of that mission, and thus we have lived in the Zambezi valley for over 500 years.

In this "retirement," my ancestor taught his craft to his progeny, and thus the role of Soldier and Chronicler has been a calling for any of his descendants who have had the gift.

To be sure, there have been generations when we have had neither a Soldier nor a Scribe in the family line, even rarer has been having the different skill sets in one person. In this regard then, I am my ancestor incarnate, and the Spirit Mediums oblige me when they give me their instructions directly...

I wrote my first ever Book on their instruction. When I completed that Book, I thought it was time to rest on my laurels for eternity. I was wrong. The Spirit Mediums have asked, . . no, have instructed me to write another Book to fill the gaps in understanding that still subsist in our Nation. Who am I to refuse an instruction from such a high place?? #NationalDuty #History #Books #HeroesDay #Zimbabwe 🇿🇼.

Monday 7 October 2019

In Praise Of Idleness

"Everyone knows the story of the traveler in Naples who saw twelve beggars lying in the sun (it was before the days of Mussolini), and offered a lira to the laziest of them. Eleven of them jumped up to claim it, so he gave it to the twelfth. This traveler was on the right lines" - Betrand Russell, In Praise Of Idleness, 1932.


by Guest Author (Betrand Russell, 1932).

Like most of my generation, I was brought up on the saying: 'Satan finds some mischief for idle hands to do.' Being a highly virtuous child, I believed all that I was told, and acquired a conscience which has kept me working hard down to the present moment. But although my conscience has controlled my actions, my opinions have undergone a revolution. I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached. Everyone knows the story of the traveler in Naples who saw twelve beggars lying in the sun (it was before the days of Mussolini), and offered a lira to the laziest of them. Eleven of them jumped up to claim it, so he gave it to the twelfth. This traveler was on the right lines. But in countries which do not enjoy Mediterranean sunshine idleness is more difficult, and a great public propaganda will be required to inaugurate it. I hope that, after reading the following pages, the leaders of the YMCA will start a campaign to induce good young men to do nothing. If so, I shall not have lived in vain.

Before advancing my own arguments for laziness, I must dispose of one which I cannot accept. Whenever a person who already has enough to live on proposes to engage in some everyday kind of job, such as school-teaching or typing, he or she is told that such conduct takes the bread out of other people's mouths, and is therefore wicked. If this argument were valid, it would only be necessary for us all to be idle in order that we should all have our mouths full of bread. What people who say such things forget is that what a man earns he usually spends, and in spending he gives employment. As long as a man spends his income, he puts just as much bread into people's mouths in spending as he takes out of other people's mouths in earning. The real villain, from this point of view, is the man who saves. If he merely puts his savings in a stocking, like the proverbial French peasant, it is obvious that they do not give employment. If he invests his savings, the matter is less obvious, and different cases arise.

One of the commonest things to do with savings is to lend them to some Government. In view of the fact that the bulk of the public expenditure of most civilized Governments consists in payment for past wars or preparation for future wars, the man who lends his money to a Government is in the same position as the bad men in Shakespeare who hire murderers. The net result of the man's economical habits is to increase the armed forces of the State to which he lends his savings. Obviously it would be better if he spent the money, even if he spent it in drink or gambling.

But, I shall be told, the case is quite different when savings are invested in industrial enterprises. When such enterprises succeed, and produce something useful, this may be conceded. In these days, however, no one will deny that most enterprises fail. That means that a large amount of human labor, which might have been devoted to producing something that could be enjoyed, was expended on producing machines which, when produced, lay idle and did no good to anyone. The man who invests his savings in a concern that goes bankrupt is therefore injuring others as well as himself. If he spent his money, say, in giving parties for his friends, they (we may hope) would get pleasure, and so would all those upon whom he spent money, such as the butcher, the baker, and the bootlegger. But if he spends it (let us say) upon laying down rails for surface card in some place where surface cars turn out not to be wanted, he has diverted a mass of labor into channels where it gives pleasure to no one. Nevertheless, when he becomes poor through failure of his investment he will be regarded as a victim of undeserved misfortune, whereas the gay spendthrift, who has spent his money philanthropically, will be despised as a fool and a frivolous person.

All this is only preliminary. I want to say, in all seriousness, that a great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by belief in the virtuousness of work, and that the road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organized diminution of work.

First of all: what is work? Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid. The second kind is capable of indefinite extension: there are not only those who give orders, but those who give advice as to what orders should be given. Usually two opposite kinds of advice are given simultaneously by two organized bodies of men; this is called politics. The skill required for this kind of work is not knowledge of the subjects as to which advice is given, but knowledge of the art of persuasive speaking and writing, i.e. of advertising.

Throughout Europe, though not in America, there is a third class of men, more respected than either of the classes of workers. There are men who, through ownership of land, are able to make others pay for the privilege of being allowed to exist and to work. These landowners are idle, and I might therefore be expected to praise them. Unfortunately, their idleness is only rendered possible by the industry of others; indeed their desire for comfortable idleness is historically the source of the whole gospel of work. The last thing they have ever wished is that others should follow their example.

From the beginning of civilization until the Industrial Revolution, a man could, as a rule, produce by hard work little more than was required for the subsistence of himself and his family, although his wife worked at least as hard as he did, and his children added their labor as soon as they were old enough to do so. The small surplus above bare necessaries was not left to those who produced it, but was appropriated by warriors and priests. In times of famine there was no surplus; the warriors and priests, however, still secured as much as at other times, with the result that many of the workers died of hunger. This system persisted in Russia until 1917 [1], and still persists in the East; in England, in spite of the Industrial Revolution, it remained in full force throughout the Napoleonic wars, and until a hundred years ago, when the new class of manufacturers acquired power. In America, the system came to an end with the Revolution, except in the South, where it persisted until the Civil War. A system which lasted so long and ended so recently has naturally left a profound impress upon men's thoughts and opinions. Much that we take for granted about the desirability of work is derived from this system, and, being pre-industrial, is not adapted to the modern world. Modern technique has made it possible for leisure, within limits, to be not the prerogative of small privileged classes, but a right evenly distributed throughout the community. The morality of work is the morality of slaves, and the modern world has no need of slavery.

It is obvious that, in primitive communities, peasants, left to themselves, would not have parted with the slender surplus upon which the warriors and priests subsisted, but would have either produced less or consumed more. At first, sheer force compelled them to produce and part with the surplus. Gradually, however, it was found possible to induce many of them to accept an ethic according to which it was their duty to work hard, although part of their work went to support others in idleness. By this means the amount of compulsion required was lessened, and the expenses of government were diminished. To this day, 99 per cent of British wage-earners would be genuinely shocked if it were proposed that the King should not have a larger income than a working man. The conception of duty, speaking historically, has been a means used by the holders of power to induce others to live for the interests of their masters rather than for their own. Of course the holders of power conceal this fact from themselves by managing to believe that their interests are identical with the larger interests of humanity. Sometimes this is true; Athenian slave-owners, for instance, employed part of their leisure in making a permanent contribution to civilization which would have been impossible under a just economic system. Leisure is essential to civilization, and in former times leisure for the few was only rendered possible by the labors of the many. But their labors were valuable, not because work is good, but because leisure is good. And with modern technique it would be possible to distribute leisure justly without injury to civilization.

Modern technique has made it possible to diminish enormously the amount of labor required to secure the necessaries of life for everyone. This was made obvious during the war. At that time all the men in the armed forces, and all the men and women engaged in the production of munitions, all the men and women engaged in spying, war propaganda, or Government offices connected with the war, were withdrawn from productive occupations. In spite of this, the general level of well-being among unskilled wage-earners on the side of the Allies was higher than before or since. The significance of this fact was concealed by finance: borrowing made it appear as if the future was nourishing the present. But that, of course, would have been impossible; a man cannot eat a loaf of bread that does not yet exist. The war showed conclusively that, by the scientific organization of production, it is possible to keep modern populations in fair comfort on a small part of the working capacity of the modern world. If, at the end of the war, the scientific organization, which had been created in order to liberate men for fighting and munition work, had been preserved, and the hours of the week had been cut down to four, all would have been well. Instead of that the old chaos was restored, those whose work was demanded were made to work long hours, and the rest were left to starve as unemployed. Why? Because work is a duty, and a man should not receive wages in proportion to what he has produced, but in proportion to his virtue as exemplified by his industry.

This is the morality of the Slave State, applied in circumstances totally unlike those in which it arose. No wonder the result has been disastrous. Let us take an illustration. Suppose that, at a given moment, a certain number of people are engaged in the manufacture of pins. They make as many pins as the world needs, working (say) eight hours a day. Someone makes an invention by which the same number of men can make twice as many pins: pins are already so cheap that hardly any more will be bought at a lower price. In a sensible world, everybody concerned in the manufacturing of pins would take to working four hours instead of eight, and everything else would go on as before. But in the actual world this would be thought demoralizing. The men still work eight hours, there are too many pins, some employers go bankrupt, and half the men previously concerned in making pins are thrown out of work. There is, in the end, just as much leisure as on the other plan, but half the men are totally idle while half are still overworked. In this way, it is insured that the unavoidable leisure shall cause misery all round instead of being a universal source of happiness. Can anything more insane be imagined?

The idea that the poor should have leisure has always been shocking to the rich. In England, in the early nineteenth century, fifteen hours was the ordinary day's work for a man; children sometimes did as much, and very commonly did twelve hours a day. When meddlesome busybodies suggested that perhaps these hours were rather long, they were told that work kept adults from drink and children from mischief. When I was a child, shortly after urban working men had acquired the vote, certain public holidays were established by law, to the great indignation of the upper classes. I remember hearing an old Duchess say: 'What do the poor want with holidays? They ought to work.' People nowadays are less frank, but the sentiment persists, and is the source of much of our economic confusion.

Let us, for a moment, consider the ethics of work frankly, without superstition. Every human being, of necessity, consumes, in the course of his life, a certain amount of the produce of human labor. Assuming, as we may, that labor is on the whole disagreeable, it is unjust that a man should consume more than he produces. Of course he may provide services rather than commodities, like a medical man, for example; but he should provide something in return for his board and lodging. to this extent, the duty of work must be admitted, but to this extent only.

I shall not dwell upon the fact that, in all modern societies outside the USSR, many people escape even this minimum amount of work, namely all those who inherit money and all those who marry money. I do not think the fact that these people are allowed to be idle is nearly so harmful as the fact that wage-earners are expected to overwork or starve.

If the ordinary wage-earner worked four hours a day, there would be enough for everybody and no unemployment -- assuming a certain very moderate amount of sensible organization. This idea shocks the well-to-do, because they are convinced that the poor would not know how to use so much leisure. In America men often work long hours even when they are well off; such men, naturally, are indignant at the idea of leisure for wage-earners, except as the grim punishment of unemployment; in fact, they dislike leisure even for their sons. Oddly enough, while they wish their sons to work so hard as to have no time to be civilized, they do not mind their wives and daughters having no work at all. the snobbish admiration of uselessness, which, in an aristocratic society, extends to both sexes, is, under a plutocracy, confined to women; this, however, does not make it any more in agreement with common sense.

The wise use of leisure, it must be conceded, is a product of civilization and education. A man who has worked long hours all his life will become bored if he becomes suddenly idle. But without a considerable amount of leisure a man is cut off from many of the best things. There is no longer any reason why the bulk of the population should suffer this deprivation; only a foolish asceticism, usually vicarious, makes us continue to insist on work in excessive quantities now that the need no longer exists.

In the new creed which controls the government of Russia, while there is much that is very different from the traditional teaching of the West, there are some things that are quite unchanged. The attitude of the governing classes, and especially of those who conduct educational propaganda, on the subject of the dignity of labor, is almost exactly that which the governing classes of the world have always preached to what were called the 'honest poor'. Industry, sobriety, willingness to work long hours for distant advantages, even submissiveness to authority, all these reappear; moreover authority still represents the will of the Ruler of the Universe, Who, however, is now called by a new name, Dialectical Materialism.

The victory of the proletariat in Russia has some points in common with the victory of the feminists in some other countries. For ages, men had conceded the superior saintliness of women, and had consoled women for their inferiority by maintaining that saintliness is more desirable than power. At last the feminists decided that they would have both, since the pioneers among them believed all that the men had told them about the desirability of virtue, but not what they had told them about the worthlessness of political power. A similar thing has happened in Russia as regards manual work. For ages, the rich and their sycophants have written in praise of 'honest toil', have praised the simple life, have professed a religion which teaches that the poor are much more likely to go to heaven than the rich, and in general have tried to make manual workers believe that there is some special nobility about altering the position of matter in space, just as men tried to make women believe that they derived some special nobility from their sexual enslavement. In Russia, all this teaching about the excellence of manual work has been taken seriously, with the result that the manual worker is more honored than anyone else. What are, in essence, revivalist appeals are made, but not for the old purposes: they are made to secure shock workers for special tasks. Manual work is the ideal which is held before the young, and is the basis of all ethical teaching.

For the present, possibly, this is all to the good. A large country, full of natural resources, awaits development, and has has to be developed with very little use of credit. In these circumstances, hard work is necessary, and is likely to bring a great reward. But what will happen when the point has been reached where everybody could be comfortable without working long hours?

In the West, we have various ways of dealing with this problem. We have no attempt at economic justice, so that a large proportion of the total produce goes to a small minority of the population, many of whom do no work at all. Owing to the absence of any central control over production, we produce hosts of things that are not wanted. We keep a large percentage of the working population idle, because we can dispense with their labor by making the others overwork. When all these methods prove inadequate, we have a war: we cause a number of people to manufacture high explosives, and a number of others to explode them, as if we were children who had just discovered fireworks. By a combination of all these devices we manage, though with difficulty, to keep alive the notion that a great deal of severe manual work must be the lot of the average man.

In Russia, owing to more economic justice and central control over production, the problem will have to be differently solved. the rational solution would be, as soon as the necessaries and elementary comforts can be provided for all, to reduce the hours of labor gradually, allowing a popular vote to decide, at each stage, whether more leisure or more goods were to be preferred. But, having taught the supreme virtue of hard work, it is difficult to see how the authorities can aim at a paradise in which there will be much leisure and little work. It seems more likely that they will find continually fresh schemes, by which present leisure is to be sacrificed to future productivity. I read recently of an ingenious plan put forward by Russian engineers, for making the White Sea and the northern coasts of Siberia warm, by putting a dam across the Kara Sea. An admirable project, but liable to postpone proletarian comfort for a generation, while the nobility of toil is being displayed amid the ice-fields and snowstorms of the Arctic Ocean. This sort of thing, if it happens, will be the result of regarding the virtue of hard work as an end in itself, rather than as a means to a state of affairs in which it is no longer needed.

The fact is that moving matter about, while a certain amount of it is necessary to our existence, is emphatically not one of the ends of human life. If it were, we should have to consider every navvy superior to Shakespeare. We have been misled in this matter by two causes. One is the necessity of keeping the poor contented, which has led the rich, for thousands of years, to preach the dignity of labor, while taking care themselves to remain undignified in this respect. The other is the new pleasure in mechanism, which makes us delight in the astonishingly clever changes that we can produce on the earth's surface. Neither of these motives makes any great appeal to the actual worker. If you ask him what he thinks the best part of his life, he is not likely to say: 'I enjoy manual work because it makes me feel that I am fulfilling man's noblest task, and because I like to think how much man can transform his planet. It is true that my body demands periods of rest, which I have to fill in as best I may, but I am never so happy as when the morning comes and I can return to the toil from which my contentment springs.' I have never heard working men say this sort of thing. They consider work, as it should be considered, a necessary means to a livelihood, and it is from their leisure that they derive whatever happiness they may enjoy.

It will be said that, while a little leisure is pleasant, men would not know how to fill their days if they had only four hours of work out of the twenty-four. In so far as this is true in the modern world, it is a condemnation of our civilization; it would not have been true at any earlier period. There was formerly a capacity for light-heartedness and play which has been to some extent inhibited by the cult of efficiency. The modern man thinks that everything ought to be done for the sake of something else, and never for its own sake. Serious-minded persons, for example, are continually condemning the habit of going to the cinema, and telling us that it leads the young into crime. But all the work that goes to producing a cinema is respectable, because it is work, and because it brings a money profit. The notion that the desirable activities are those that bring a profit has made everything topsy-turvy. The butcher who provides you with meat and the baker who provides you with bread are praiseworthy, because they are making money; but when you enjoy the food they have provided, you are merely frivolous, unless you eat only to get strength for your work. Broadly speaking, it is held that getting money is good and spending money is bad. Seeing that they are two sides of one transaction, this is absurd; one might as well maintain that keys are good, but keyholes are bad. Whatever merit there may be in the production of goods must be entirely derivative from the advantage to be obtained by consuming them. The individual, in our society, works for profit; but the social purpose of his work lies in the consumption of what he produces. It is this divorce between the individual and the social purpose of production that makes it so difficult for men to think clearly in a world in which profit-making is the incentive to industry. We think too much of production, and too little of consumption. One result is that we attach too little importance to enjoyment and simple happiness, and that we do not judge production by the pleasure that it gives to the consumer.

When I suggest that working hours should be reduced to four, I am not meaning to imply that all the remaining time should necessarily be spent in pure frivolity. I mean that four hours' work a day should entitle a man to the necessities and elementary comforts of life, and that the rest of his time should be his to use as he might see fit. It is an essential part of any such social system that education should be carried further than it usually is at present, and should aim, in part, at providing tastes which would enable a man to use leisure intelligently. I am not thinking mainly of the sort of things that would be considered 'highbrow'. Peasant dances have died out except in remote rural areas, but the impulses which caused them to be cultivated must still exist in human nature. The pleasures of urban populations have become mainly passive: seeing cinemas, watching football matches, listening to the radio, and so on. This results from the fact that their active energies are fully taken up with work; if they had more leisure, they would again enjoy pleasures in which they took an active part.

In the past, there was a small leisure class and a larger working class. The leisure class enjoyed advantages for which there was no basis in social justice; this necessarily made it oppressive, limited its sympathies, and caused it to invent theories by which to justify its privileges. These facts greatly diminished its excellence, but in spite of this drawback it contributed nearly the whole of what we call civilization. It cultivated the arts and discovered the sciences; it wrote the books, invented the philosophies, and refined social relations. Even the liberation of the oppressed has usually been inaugurated from above. Without the leisure class, mankind would never have emerged from barbarism.

The method of a leisure class without duties was, however, extraordinarily wasteful. None of the members of the class had to be taught to be industrious, and the class as a whole was not exceptionally intelligent. The class might produce one Darwin, but against him had to be set tens of thousands of country gentlemen who never thought of anything more intelligent than fox-hunting and punishing poachers. At present, the universities are supposed to provide, in a more systematic way, what the leisure class provided accidentally and as a by-product. This is a great improvement, but it has certain drawbacks. University life is so different from life in the world at large that men who live in academic milieu tend to be unaware of the preoccupations and problems of ordinary men and women; moreover their ways of expressing themselves are usually such as to rob their opinions of the influence that they ought to have upon the general public. Another disadvantage is that in universities studies are organized, and the man who thinks of some original line of research is likely to be discouraged. Academic institutions, therefore, useful as they are, are not adequate guardians of the interests of civilization in a world where everyone outside their walls is too busy for unutilitarian pursuits.

In a world where no one is compelled to work more than four hours a day, every person possessed of scientific curiosity will be able to indulge it, and every painter will be able to paint without starving, however excellent his pictures may be. Young writers will not be obliged to draw attention to themselves by sensational pot-boilers, with a view to acquiring the economic independence needed for monumental works, for which, when the time at last comes, they will have lost the taste and capacity. Men who, in their professional work, have become interested in some phase of economics or government, will be able to develop their ideas without the academic detachment that makes the work of university economists often seem lacking in reality. Medical men will have the time to learn about the progress of medicine, teachers will not be exasperatedly struggling to teach by routine methods things which they learnt in their youth, which may, in the interval, have been proved to be untrue.

Above all, there will be happiness and joy of life, instead of frayed nerves, weariness, and dyspepsia. The work exacted will be enough to make leisure delightful, but not enough to produce exhaustion. Since men will not be tired in their spare time, they will not demand only such amusements as are passive and vapid. At least one per cent will probably devote the time not spent in professional work to pursuits of some public importance, and, since they will not depend upon these pursuits for their livelihood, their originality will be unhampered, and there will be no need to conform to the standards set by elderly pundits. But it is not only in these exceptional cases that the advantages of leisure will appear. Ordinary men and women, having the opportunity of a happy life, will become more kindly and less persecuting and less inclined to view others with suspicion. The taste for war will die out, partly for this reason, and partly because it will involve long and severe work for all. Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle. Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish forever.

Thursday 28 June 2018

Kindness To A Fault? A Further Reflection On Lessons Learnt

“A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart” — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe.

“My best friend is the man who in wishing me well, wishes it for my sake” — Aristotle.

by Kudakwashe Kanhutu

Though I venerate the State and Private institutions that I have been a part of my adult life, the lessons that matter to me, and which have stayed with me my whole life, are those I learnt in childhood. In this entry just before my birthday, I will just reflect on instances in my childhood that have stayed with me as lifelong lessons. This is what has shaped my kind demeanour — I guess what I really learnt is that I have nothing to be bitter about, as I have had a lot of good fortune.

Indeed, from my familial upbringing, I learnt goodness, if I do bad things it will be either out of choice or necessity. Many have not had the same luck of growing up in a good family. I did. What I remember the most is my Grandmother’s kindness, the woman is a saint, especially because she never hit me once. You all know the Shona adage about “the spoilt kids who were raised by their Grandmother” (Mwana akarerwa naAmbuya), that’s not to say I wasn’t a hell raiser when I was growing up, I was, but when my Grandmother ever got her angriest with me, the worst she would do is yell “Kunyakwanye,” at me — a contortion of my name — Kudakwashe. And I would have been a spoilt brat too, had my Grandfather not have been a hard taskmaster. All the discipline and hard work I have as qualities, that comes from my granddad.

But let’s talk first about why I can be kind to a fault. Again, blame that on my Grandmother, a kind-hearted woman who ensured that all our evenings involved songs, a reading from the bible and prayers. My Grandmother taught us to pray for the sick and those in prison. People we had never met, people we didn’t know, but already my Grandmother was preparing us to know and understand that the world is full of misfortune. There are people serving sentences while not having committed any crimes. People in hospitals are not there by choice, they would rather be healthy and active. She crowned her teachings with exemplary conduct. There was not a single instance I saw my Grandmother in an argument or gossiping with anyone, she was always a kind-hearted, dutiful and hardworking wife.

As for my hard work and discipline, blame that on my Grandfather. You know how in the Army they reckon if you never forget to make your bed on rising, you will never forget your rifle or ammunition when you go into battle? I learnt that lesson well before military age: my Grandfather made me a small axe that I was supposed to carry everywhere — I got caned if he ever saw without that axe. You think that was harsh? No, it wasn’t. We lived in the Zambezi Valley, which was teeming with dangerous wild animals, that small axe was the tool I would use to stand my ground if I ever got accosted by a Lion, Leopard or pack of Painted/Wild Dogs. My brother and I, as the older boys of the household, also had to fetch water, firewood and, sometimes, early in the morning we would work in the fields before going to school. This taught me self-sufficiency. 

But the instances that made an even deeper impression on my young mind were the fates of two of my age mates when we were barely 8 or 9 years, and without any power over our lives. I will start by relating to you what happened to a girl classmate of mine. One of my classmates, Eunice, grew up in a family that belonged to an Apostolic Sect that did not believe in Western Medicine. Any affliction, they believed could be cured by Prayers alone. Unfortunately, being in the Zambezi Valley as we were, Malaria was, and still is, rampant. I have lost count of the number of times I contracted Malaria but got cured after a dosage of anti-malaria tablets which were available at the local clinic — courtesy of the Zimbabwean government. When Eunice contracted Malaria, we knew nothing about it, we only found out about it when the school took our whole class to go to her burial. Kids that young, saying goodbye to another kid. So unfair. I only remember so well that she had died because her parents refused to take her to the clinic, just keeping her at home and praying for her, because of an altercation at the funeral. This is so vivid in my mind because Eunice’s younger brother was also suffering from Malaria when we went for her burial. When it was discovered what had killed Eunice, a Policeman in uniform forcibly took the younger brother on his bicycle to the clinic to get treatment. I never found out what happened to the younger brother, but from this instance, I got an inkling that the State can know what is best for its ordinary citizens. Poor Eunice, for having been born in her family instead of mine, her life was cut very short. I have suffered from Malaria: the fevers, the hallucinations and disorientation are so bad that the itching that is the side effect of anti-malaria tablets is a welcome relief. What she could have gone on to achieve in life!

The other instance that comes to mind is of a boy schoolmate who poisoned his parents. I don’t know what lessons to draw from this one. As I said before, we lived in the Zambezi Valley, and the major crop we grew there was Cotton. And Cotton demands application of Pesticides throughout its growth cycle. Every home then, including our own, always had pesticides in stock. I even used to use them to spray our own crops, but it never crossed my mind to poison my own family. I do not know how a person of my age can even get the idea to do something like that. We had no TVs to even think he may have seen it on TV. But it happened, he put Rogor in the food his family was about to eat. His mother and father died from it. We even went to the funeral and I think my grandparents tried to drum into our minds that Pesticides were dangerous. Perhaps this happened because we were poor and did not have cupboards to lock away these Pesticides away from the reach of children. But there, I defeat my own argument, because we also didn’t have cupboards, and none of the children in my family ever put Pesticides in our food.

I guess what really made this instance stick in my mind, is that it happened towards when we were nearing Secondary School age, and had to move back to my parents in the city to attend Secondary School. On the day I boarded the bus to move to Harare, that former Schoolmate of mine was brought onto the bus in handcuffs by a policeman moving him to Harare Central Prison. The Police Station and holding cells in the Zambezi Valley are at the last stop before the bus gets to cross the Mavhuradonha Mountain. The police, for shortage of vehicles, must transport criminals on public transport. It was so early in the morning and that kid in handcuffs looked disoriented, lacked sleep and was unkempt. Even now, no matter how much time has passed, it is heart-breaking to remember my age mate in such a situation. There is a case to be made by Amnesty International for the treatment of minors in the prison system, but I am glad this misfortune never befell me and I hope no other minor finds himself in such a situation. Ever.

I could go on and talk about the other lessons I learnt by observing both wild and domestic animals, but I will leave that for my next birthday’s reflections on lessons learnt!

Monday 17 April 2017

Travel Ideas Number 01: The Anabasis To Corinth Of Kudakwashe Kanhutu

I have not yet made this trip but when I do, it will involve two big ideas as templates; 1. visiting all the places it is said Apostle Paul visited after the Ascension and, 2. tracing all the places where the major battles of the Peloponnesian War took place as recounted in The History of the Peloponnesian War by the Athenian General - Thucydides. This kind of trip will involve a lot of Island hopping by ferry - something I have already done - but I will also need a vehicle so as to drive from point A to B at my leisure.
 
To psyche myself for my expeditions, I normally like to quote military passages as they tend to focus on the essence of the matter. But not this time around, this time around my inspiration for the trip will come not from Thucydides’ The History of the Peloponnesian War - the greatest book of all time - instead, it will come from Apostle Paul’s message to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 13, he said:

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” - Apostle Paul, Epistle To The Corinthians.

Island hopping by Ferry in Greece (2012)
1 Corinthians 13 

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Piraeus Port, Athens (2012)

Boarding The Flying Dolphin at Piraeus, Athens for my first Greek Anabasis (2012)

Monday 6 March 2017

Stalin: A Preliminary Post Mortem

"We think that a powerful and vigorous movement is impossible without differences — "true conformity" is possible only in the cemetery" - Josef Stalin, Pravda, "Our Purposes."

The book on Stalin

by Kudakwashe Kanhutu

One thing I must commend myself on, is my tendency to doubt everyone else’s, but my own conclusions, on all the subjects I am competent in. There are no experts but yourself when it comes to studying and applying the lessons of history to your own purposes. I need not labour this point as a lot of “experts” have been called out lately as fake news and fake historians: remember the much written about claim that Shaka, King of the Zulus, killed 2 million people during Mfecane? Never happened!

Stalin, however, is exactly as he has been described to be. Much research – including travelling to Russia itself – has made me conclude that Stalin, indeed, was the mass murderer popular culture has cast him as. But, if I had not travelled to Russia, I would not have seen, first hand, the features of Russia that redeem him. You should see the Seven Sisters of Stalin and, as well, the most beautiful underground transport system in the world – the Moscow Metro. I will be very brief as this subject will be dealt with at length in a subsequent article. For all the accusations of cruelty levelled against Stalin, he is credited with bringing Russia from being a peasant country to a Superpower in less than 20 years. The question is; could this have been achieved any other way? Do not forget that unlike the West, Russia never participated in the slave trade that is, to an extent, the foundation of Western prosperity.  

In Moscow, I was Josef Stalin, myself, walking in the same gardens at the Kremlin Stalin walked to clear his mind.
A memorial to the victims of the Gulags

A memorial to the victims of the Gulags

A memorial to the victims of the Gulags
The Moscow Metro - the best in the world.

The Moscow Metro - the best in the world.

Monday 30 January 2017

Desiderata (Something To Strive For) - A Poem By Max Ehrmann

"Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and ignorant; they too have their story" - Max Ehrman.
"If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it from him. An investment in education always pays the best interest" - Benjamin Franklin.

Desiderata - Max Ehrmann (1927)

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others,
even to the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Thursday 27 October 2016

What Lessons From The United States For Our Discerning Person?

It would be interesting to tour a few select successful companies in the United States in 2017, and study them scientifically in the process. Asking oneself; “what has made them this successful, is it something in the water?” Quite naturally, of course, the Boeing Company in Seattle would be the first stop.

Executive Biography of William E. Boeing

William E. Boeing. Boeing Airplane Company, Founder and Owner, President and Chairman of the Board.

William E. Boeing left Yale University in 1903 to take advantage of opportunities in the risky and cyclical, but financially rewarding, Northwest timber industry. That experience would serve him well in aviation.

The Boeing 777 - 300 Extended Range.

Under his guidance, a tiny airplane manufacturing company grew into a huge corporation of related industries. When post-Depression legislation in 1934 mandated the dispersion of the corporation, Boeing sold his interests in the Boeing Airplane Co., but continued to work on other business ventures.

Boeing 777 Interior.

He became one of America's most successful breeders of thoroughbred horses. He never lost his interest in aviation, and during World War II he volunteered as a consultant to the company. He lived until 1956, long enough to see the company he started enter the jet age.

Boeing 777 Interior 2.

William E. Boeing was a private person, a visionary, a perfectionist, and a stickler for the facts. The wall of his outer office bore a placard that read: "2329 Hippocrates said: 1. There is no authority except facts. 2. Facts are obtained by accurate observation. 3. Deductions are to be made only from facts. 4. Experience has proved the truth of these rules."

Boeing 777 300ER

According to his son, William Boeing, Jr., Boeing was a fast and avid reader and remembered everything he read. He was also a perfectionist. While visiting his airplane building shop at the Duwamish shipyard in 1916, Boeing saw a set of improperly sawed spruce ribs. He brushed them to the floor and walked all over them until they were broken. A frayed aileron cable caused him to remark, "I, for one, will close up shop rather than send out work of this kind."

Boeing 777 - 300ER