Page 16 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 16

Re-Education

system, basic education began in lib- • Today, this standard of education, China, Libya, Iraq and any other
eration camp bush schools, managed set by Mugabe, is still the bench- country that has challenged US and
by Dzingai Mutumbuka and Fay mark to beat in Africa, according to European domination have at one
Chung in Zambia and Mozambique UNESCO rankings in 2018. Mean- point or another been placed in the
during the struggle. while in maths and science, Zimba- same threat category.
This was because Zanu PF believed bwe ranks 4th despite the 18yrs of
that liberation by the gun was just economic sanctions and the pre- 5. Health Care
the first step of liberation, but it ceding economic sabotage imposed Coming out of a colonial legacy
needed to culminate in Zimbabwe- by the United States and the entire where 200 in every 1000 black chil-
ans educating and skilling them- Berlin Conference cabal. dren born, died before the age of
selves enough to built a prosperous With this education, Zimbabwean 5, Mugabe realized that, for Zimba-
and truly liberated nation. human talent and skills have become bweans to reach their full potential
the nation’s biggest export to the through education and economic
• From the bush, Mugabe and his developed world. Enabling Zimba- development, black children would
comrades began to implement the bweans to travel across the world, need to survive beyond their fifth
most ambitious education project learning and gaining new skills to birthday.
on the continent, to equip Zimba- enable them to control and leverage To deliver this, a comprehensive
bweans with both academic and their natural resources to industri- healthcare system upgrade was
technical skills that would leverage alize their country that is endowed planned and embarked upon. Bring-
the nation’s aspirations. with vast strategic mineral resources ing into existence 19,000 hospital
The academic subjects were stan- (in the center of the Persian Gulf beds by building over 1,200 health-
dard, while the technical subjects of strategic mineral resources) that care centers in 30 years, from the
included business, building, agricul- western countries are dependent on 13,230 beds in 600 odd healthcare
ture, fashion & fabrics, mechanics, to maintain their economic, industri- centers that Smith built in 90 years
woodwork, plumbing, technical al and military leadership. of colonialism.
drawing and metalwork to give Zim- • Maternity beds were increased
babweans tangible life skills to drive A third world country’s educated from 1 bed per every 2,560 pregnan-
the economy into a middle income population controlling its strategic cies in 1980, to 1 bed for every 567
country in the shortest time. mineral resources was identified as pregnancies by 2000.
an unacceptable threat to the west- • Doctors grew from 1 per every
• Over the next 37yrs, Mugabe and ern world order since colonialism 200,000 patients under Smith, to 1.7
his government painstakingly built ended. and 8 nurses per 10,000 people. This
more than 5,709 schools (3,462 It’s mainly for this reason why EU is in spite of our nurses and doctors
Primary and 2,247 secondary), 13 and US sanctions were unilaterally being poached incessantly by first
teacher training colleges to capac- imposed and are being maintained world economies because of their
itate educators, 13 universities, 13 on, not just the Zimbabwean gov- high standards of training.
polytechnics, 43 vocational training ernment but 16 million Zimbabwe- • Infant mortality was reduced
centers, 16 research institutions, ans, to put an anchor on the nation’s from 200/1,000 births in 1980, to
8 nursing schools and 3 medical capacity to process and sophisticate less than 40/1,000 by 2000, while
schools using a food-for-work pro- those resources. the country enjoys a lower rate of
gram and the District Development This was corroborated in 2003, miscarriages than the continental
Fund. when George Bush declared Zim- benchmark, South Africa. Putting
This ensured that every Zimbabwe- babwe (as a nation) an unusual and Zimbabwe into the top ten lowest
an had access to subsidized quality extraordinary threat to US econom- miscarriage rates in Africa.
primary to secondary education, ic, national and security interests to Even though the nation’s healthcare
despite the budgetary constraints impose EO13288, EO13391 and system is no longer in the top five
and punitive sanctions (apartheid EO13469 Executive Order sanc- in Africa, because of the impact of
government sanctions; Matebeleland tions. sanctions, it still ranks in the top 10
unrest and the war in Mozambique on the continent, better than many
funded by the CIA and apartheid A telling development, considering countries without sanctions.
government; US, EU and UK sanc- that pre-WW2 Germany, Japan,
tions facing the nation today). USSR and post war South Korea, 6. Law Enforcement
Russia, Vietnam, Panama, Cuba, To ensure that the nation building

16 | we tell the true afrikan story