Tobaiwa Mudede & Richard Hondo Correspondents

Why should women be made to carry a burden from which they derive no real benefit? Why should the propaganda of a colonial administration be perpetuated to this day?

In this instalment, we would like to clear the picture for greater understanding of family planning issues at stake, lest you think “Mudede has really lost it!”.
If we keep emotions out of this debate, you may find that the points we are raising are of critical importance to the future generations of Zimbabweans. Indeed, a nation that is intolerant of self-inspection leaves a legacy that no one will be proud of.

We are enjoying this shade of the tree of independence because someone had the courage to plant an independence tree a long time ago. That is the spirit we are inculcating in this national debate. Let us look at the facts we have highlighted in the last articles.

Fact one: in one previous article, we stated that the control of population growth in underdeveloped countries has been an official “Western policy for a long time, at least since 1972, when Henry Kissinger, then Director of United States National Security Council, released a classified report, dubbed “National Security Study Memorandum 200” or NSSM200.

The report detailed the need to depopulate the least developed countries (LDCs). The report stated that it was of paramount importance and national interest to “control populations of these LDCs by promoting the use of contraception”.

The report clearly states that a growing population in the LDCs would produce destabilising oppositional forces against the United States. It recommended that US leadership “influence national leaders”, and that “improved worldwide support for population-related efforts should be sought through increased emphasis on mass media and other population education and motivation programmes by the United Nations and USAID among other tools”.

It is quite clear for whose benefit drug-driven birth control programmes in the LDCs are being carried out. Now, this is not a postulation of ours. It is a documented fact. The Western world’s objective as clearly amplified by Henry Kissinger falls squarely under the principle “the end justifies the means”.

Fact two: One of the many concerned citizens of Zimbabwe who wrote in support of our articles recently in The Financial Gazette is resident in the United States. He has first-hand knowledge of the certain birth control drugs used by black women in the US and in developing countries worldwide.

Depo-Provera and Norplant are two examples of such drugs. This information is now common knowledge, at least since the publication of a successful lawsuit by American black women against the company which manufactures these drugs, who received millions of dollars in compensation for the side effects and diseases suffered through the use of the two drugs.

Yet, these two drugs are still circulating in developing countries, including Zimbabwe. This is not an imagination of ours. It is a documented fact.
Fact three: during white rule in the then Rhodesia, successive colonial governments had a special department, called the Department of Immigration, which, during Ian Smith’s era, was called Immigration Promotion. The function of this department was to encourage and incentivise whites in Europe and elsewhere to come and settle in Rhodesia to boost the white population.

Actually, special suburban sites, such as Cranborne, Hillside and Mabelreign, to name but a few, were constructed specially for the settlement of such immigrants. At the same time, they were establishing family planning facilities around the country to curb the growth of the black population.

Spilhaus, near Harare Hospital, was one such facility. Clearly, blacks were not a part of national planning. They were a nuisance that had to be tolerated to appease world opinion. Their numbers had to be kept down.

The same mirage was advanced then, as is still being advanced now, that small families equated to greater prosperity for Africans. A question begs to be asked here. What percentage of the black population has prospered since the introduction of drug-based birth control programmes in the country?

If you look at the statistics now, you will find that what has actually increased is not prosperity, but the intensity of the plight of black women since the inception of contraceptives. More of them have to live with very unpleasant side effects and drug-induced diseases such as cancer and glaucoma.

Why should women be made to carry a burden from which they derive no real benefit? Why should the propaganda of a colonial administration be perpetuated to this day? Everybody now knows that there is no such thing as “small family, greater prosperity”.

It is a mirage, and for us on this day to be chasing a mirage that was dangled by our colonisers 50 years ago to entice black women to take up contraceptive boggles the mind. Whatever happened to our fighting spirit?

Fact four: The compromise constitution that the inclusive Government gave us has provision for adopting the world’s stateless children who may find themselves in Zimbabwe at any time, and give them citizen status, with all the accompanying privileges of a citizen.

We are not sure how many people see this as beneficial to the country, especially as there is not a single country in the world with the same provision. If anything, our own people are being deported from Western countries, even from African countries at times, if found loitering. Why have we been made an exception? Clearly, this section of the Constitution cannot be in the service of the people of Zimbabwe.

People are told to limit the number of children per family, or more appropriately, per woman, and the Constitution says stateless children have an automatic right to citizenship if found loitering in the country. Whose future are we safeguarding, if we may ask?

Just like it was in colonial times, the idea seems to be to limit the indigenous population and make room for foreign interests, employing the over used mirage of “economic prosperity” that was put in place by the colonialists.

The logic of it really baffles the mind. In a situation such as this one, you cannot blame people for suspecting that there are foreign hands being fronted by locals.

To be continued

You Might Also Like

Comments

Take our Survey

We value your opinion! Take a moment to complete our survey