The Incidental Tourist Read online

  Stylised soapstone birds, which were found at the Iron Age Great Zimbabwe archaeological site, established that ancestors of the Shona were also skilled carvers. A tourist trade reproduction of one of the elegant and imperious Great Zimbabwe birds, sadly with a broken beak, graces my office at work. Though I’ve not visited, Great Zimbabwe seems both impressive and mysterious, with walls up to five metres high that were constructed without mortar. Reading Martin Stannard’s 2010 biography of Edinburgh author Muriel Spark (she wrote The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie) recently, I was intrigued by the account of how, as a young married woman living for a time in the nearby town of Fort Victoria, those still overgrown and essentially untouched ruins made an enormous impression on her. Clearly it was the home of an all-powerful African prince who may, perhaps, have ruled as long as Zimbabwe’s recently deposed Robert Mugabe.

  Though he was raised Roman Catholic, ex-President Mugabe’s mother was Shona. Sadly, despite some early indications that he would promote the evolution of an open, diverse and inclusive nation state, the unlamented Mugabe became the classic African big man, favouring his own tribal group and progressively marginalising any who opposed him. Still, any judgement of his policies should recognise that, from 1964–74, he was imprisoned under Ian Smith’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) regime, in what was then called Southern Rhodesia. Sainthood is an unusual attribute for any political leader, and most will fail the test if they are required to emulate the generosity and forgiveness that we associate with South Africa’s Nelson Mandela.

  Apart from that history of colonisation, Zimbabwe has always been subject to tensions between the Shona and the other main tribal group, the ‘warlike’ Matabele. (Warlike is a British description – was there ever a tribe more successful at war than the British?) Tribalism is central to the human condition. Part of the secret for any successful society lies in achieving levels of tolerance under the law that allow such differences to be contained. Historical Roman Catholic (Irish) versus Protestant (Anglo) tribalism was rampant in the Brisbane of my childhood, though that worked itself out through the political process and, even better, those tensions are now moribund. But tribalism still provides fertile ground for political demagogues as we today are enduring rhetoric about the dangers posed by refugees, Islam and other minorities, brought into even sharper focus in 2017 by the US Republican administration.

  Any of us who are disparaging about African tribalism should perhaps reflect a little on the tribes in our society, those that coalesce around football clubs, exclusive schools and so forth. Some of this is seemingly harmless, but it can be deeply discriminatory and lead to a kind of toxic mediocrity. Nepotism, authoritarianism and the willingness to identify with tribal myths that prevent us from recognising the attributes and needs of others can be a debilitating mix for any society.

  A strong Harare memory for me is of walking through the Meikles Hotel lobby and seeing the local Europeans gathered in the lounge for a traditional morning tea. On my first visit, they all looked to be old colonialists from an earlier time. The immediate thought I then had was that, unable to get their money out and thinking it too late in life to start anew, they had stayed on to endure whatever fate might befall following the collapse of UDI. In successive years, it was great to see many more young people taking tea or, more likely, morning coffee. The Mugabe government (from 1980) seemed moderate then and, apart from the reunification of families, there looked to be real opportunities for those with an adventurous spirit and good organisational skills. But it all went wrong.

  Though I’ve not been back to Harare because it’s no longer on an obvious route to Nairobi, subsequent events did not (at least for farmers) fulfil that positive scenario for Zimbabwe. Hopefully, the economic and social realities will improve with new leadership. The African continent is blessed with extraordinary resources and many wonderful people, but there is much that needs to be put right in too many of the nation states. Perhaps, with new international players like China becoming involved, countries can move beyond the worst legacies of ancient tribalism and European colonialism. Currently, though, partly as a consequence of the massive disruption in the Middle East, there are many causes for concern.

  In the 1980s after the end of our ILRAD Board meetings we would, while passing a few hours before taking a late flight to one or other European destination, sit out in the open, street-side verandah bar at another colonial-era hotel, The Norfolk, to chat over a beer and a light dinner – I recollect ordering a Tusker and the chicken chimichanga! Visiting Nairobi not so long back, the idea of gathering street-side on that casual terrace (if it still exists) was not on anyone’s agenda. Rather than occupying the bachelor’s quarters at the rear of what is now the Fairmont Norfolk, we were accommodated in on-site rooms behind the security fence at the ILRI campus. The world has rapidly become a more dangerous place and, sadly, that dynamic continues to gain momentum.

  CHAPTER 13

  Informal settlements

  INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS? NO, NOT the $100 (or a free ticket) deal that overbooked flights (a feature of our time) offer routinely if you agree to travel later, at a less convenient time, on internal US routes – make sure you’ve got an assigned seat if you don’t want to end up in the bumped category! Nor does informal refer to the hotel room and meal vouchers that decent international airlines provide if there’s an overnight delay due to some problem with the plane. This is not about compensation, but places.

  Narrowing down the focus to that consideration of place, the term informal settlements conjures a vision of alternative lifestyles, of returning to nature, of living more lightly on the earth. Informal suggests something spontaneous that’s grown out of a new idea, a novel approach. But discussed by sociologists, demographers and town planners, the professionals who think and write about where and how the ever-increasing numbers of human beings live, informal settlements are nowhere near that innovative end of their spectrum. Instead, they refer to a dynamic of desperation and diminished futures. As we head from a human population of seven billion to more than ten billion on this environmentally challenged planet, this looms as an increasing and terrible problem for our future.

  Not so long back, when the big planes had less range than they do now, flying to Europe from Australia could require a stop in Bombay (Mumbai), India, and it’s still a likely portal if your aim is to travel within India. Among my memorable experiences landing there, as we descended the muted engine noise suddenly transitioned to a step-on-the-gas roar, as the plane angled up and we climbed away rapidly. The Qantas pilot, not sounding very relaxed, then told us, ‘They made a mistake and were bringing us in on a runway under repair – there was a bulldozer in the middle!’ A Boeing 747 hits the tarmac at just over 250 kilometres per hour, so it was good the guys up front were in full control and had their eyes open, as a 747 can land automatically. Though, an all-instrument approach in fog seems unlikely for Mumbai – the at times oppressive air quality can suggest the words ‘particulate’ and ‘effluent’!

  The one thing anybody who looks out of a plane window can’t miss as it touches down in Mumbai is the shantytown that comes right up to the airport fence. That’s an informal settlement. The UN Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) defines informal settlements as ‘1. areas where groups of housing units have been constructed on land that the occupants have no legal claim to, or occupy illegally; 2. unplanned settlements and areas where housing is not in compliance with current planning and building regulations (unauthorized housing).’ Most would extend that definition to include government-sanctioned refugee camps and urban slums, with the UN criteria for slum dweller households being: ‘a group of individuals living under the same roof lacking one or more of the following five conditions: 1. access to improved water, 2. access to improved sanitation facilities, 3. sufficient living area – not overcrowded, 4. structural quality/durability of dwellings, and 5. security of tenure.’

  We’ve all seen images of these s
o-called solutions to housing refugees that provide the most basic shelter for masses of people fleeing conflict zones in, for example, Syria. Driving to a campus on the outskirts of Nairobi in Kenya I recall the road passing a shanty town that, on subsequent visits, seemed to spread ever more widely as wars to the north in the Horn of Africa led to increasing numbers of refugees. One year, at the height of the Eritrean/Ethiopian conflict, upmarket stores in the town centre were displaying elegant, antique silver jewellery and religious icons. Not thinking all that clearly at the time, I bought a silver Coptic cross that brings only a reminder of tragedy, a sense of profound sadness for people who, at the end of their tether, were forced to sell their most precious possessions in an effort to survive.

  Currently, it’s estimated that one third of the Nairobi population lives in one or other type of informal settlement. Across Africa, slum dwellers account for over half the urban population. It’s no surprise that infant mortality levels are very high and, on average, the poorest 20 per cent of those living in and around cities struggle to reach fifty-five years of age, compared to seventy or more for the richest 40 per cent. This type of situation is replicated for the most deprived citizens, refugees and immigrant workers in the Middle East, South East Asia and South America.

  Occupying land that is otherwise unwanted or unusable, informal settlements tend to be located in the most environmentally and geographically hazardous urban areas: river banks, on sandy and degraded soils, near industries and dump sites, in swamps, flood-prone zones and steep slopes, for instance. From the little I saw of the Favellas in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, steep slopes seemed to be an accurate description. Evidently the urban authorities in Medellin, Colombia, have greatly improved the life and work prospects for those living under such conditions by constructing a cable car up into the hills. Just providing an opportunity for desperately poor people to get to even the lowest level job can make a tremendous difference.

  Those trapped in poverty don’t choose this as a way of life and try their best to maintain a level of dignity. Women sweeping the streets in Hyderabad or Delhi in India look (at least from the window of a passing car) to be elegantly dressed in colourful saris. The matatus (minibuses) that provide ‘public transport’ in Nairobi pick-up commuters in business clothes who have just emerged from sprawling slums and are heading for work in the cities. It doesn’t take much: clean water, basic sanitation and a little space to provide the basic requirements.

  Even in much wealthier societies, where those with reasonable incomes pay some tax to support a decent welfare system, the relevant authorities and concerned charities are increasingly stressed as they struggle with housing and caring for what seems to be an ever-expanding legion of the homeless. Some of the displaced are the inevitable (and hopefully short-term) casualties of the current globalised, increasingly automated and highly disruptive economic system that has destroyed so many good jobs and stable family situations. Others may be the victims of domestic abuse. Can anyone doubt the link between job loss, despair and violence?

  Then there are those with intractable medical and psychiatric issues that may, or may not, be related to alcoholism and drug dependency. The deinstitutionalisation of psychiatric hospitals that gathered pace in the 1970s left many such people with no obvious refuge. Dignity Village in Portland, Oregon, is one US example of what can be done to provide reasonably safe, yet independent living conditions for such people, though it caters for only a relatively small number who agree to live by some simple rules: no illegal drugs, no stealing, no violence towards themselves and others. But the more tolerant the authorities in any First World city, the more likely we are to encounter people sleeping rough. Nobody who travels regularly can escape the sense that the urban homeless are an increasing reality.

  To me, the most distressing aspect is the numbers of young people who seem unable to find a decent place to stay in even the wealthiest societies. To quote one young man: ‘The time is out of joint. O cursed spite that ever I was born to set it right’ (Hamlet Act 1, Scene 4). Hamlet didn’t fare that well with a much less complex challenge, and there are no simple solutions to what seems to be the inevitable spread of informal settlements, homelessness, despair and disempowerment. And, as the consequences of anthropogenic climate change become even more severe, the vulnerability (especially to heat and floods) of those who are forced to live in this way will be massively increased. The sums may be hard to do, but it’s not beyond reason that we could, if we care to look closely, be talking about the premature deaths of hundreds of thousands, even many millions, of poor people by the end of this century.

  There is no way that this dynamic can be reversed by under-resourced charities and/or by the financially deprived governments of developing countries. There are no simple solutions. Part of the problem can be institutionalised corruption and the big man (who steals everything) phenomenon. In the end analysis, the consequence of extraordinary opulence for the few can be poverty and inequity for an increasing number of fellow citizens. The same dynamic happens in Western societies that continually cut taxes for the rich and embrace the trickle down myth. The money trickles out, to tax havens!

  Some seem to have little difficulty in achieving the psychological distance that allows them to fly high and ignore what is happening beneath their field of vision, though that could ultimately be dangerous for them. The worm can turn, and wealthy aristocrats suffered some pretty nasty shocks in 1789 (France), 1917 (Russia) and the years immediately following. The lives of the permanently entitled were also disrupted (but they kept their heads) when, following the Second World War, the British Labour government brought in massive death duties to limit the power of inherited wealth, the cumulative toxicity discussed by Thomas Picketty in his widely read Capital in the Twenty-First Century.

  Where it is feasible to collect taxes it’s also possible to provide full tax deductions for those who use at least some of their wealth to promote entrepreneur-based solutions to alleviate the plight of the massively dispossessed. Microfinance initiatives, like the Grameen Bank (founded by Nobel Peace Laureate Muhammad Yunus), provide small loans to the poorest people so they can pursue strategies for helping themselves. Better-resourced medical charities function to promote the health of, particularly, the poorest women and children, with an important component being the provision of contraception. If the available water is contaminated, simple charcoal filters and solar stills can alleviate that situation. None of this is rocket science. There’s a great deal that can be done that is simple, cheap and effective, but we need to stop operating in fire emergency mode when there is a major catastrophe and provide some stability in funding.

  As the old Soviet federation showed us, the imposition of authoritarian collectivist systems can be disastrous, both socially and ecologically. The current Chinese model may do a better job of lifting many out of poverty, but most Westerners would not choose to live under such a centralised political system. Is it possible to achieve a better balance between capitalist individualism and the broader needs of an increasingly globalised world? The path to finding adequate resources is not obvious. How do national governments develop strategies to, for example, collect death duties in an economy that operates substantially outside their control? If we want to live in equitable and safe societies, is a globalised financial system that operates in the absence of internationally agreed and enforceable tax systems a feasible way of operating?

  Currently it’s estimated that sixty-two individuals control as much wealth as the poorest half of the earth’s population. You are unlikely to meet these people. They and, indeed, the hundreds a bit further down the world’s rich list likely fly in their own planes and, even if you did bump into one of them in a first-class airport departure lounge, it would probably not register as their faces and names are generally out of the public view. But, in the absence of the enlightened philanthropy we associate with the few, like Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren Buffet, Chuck Feeney and Andrew Forrest, this massive
inequity in wealth distribution is clearly not working in a way that will ensure a decent future for humanity.

  If they care to be involved, those with the greatest resources have the greatest opportunity. As the history of the modern era (from the seventeenth century) has taught us, the social Darwinian idea (as formalised by Herbert Spencer) of the ‘survival of the fittest’ rule does not necessarily translate to the survival of the wealthiest. Ultimately, this small planet is our one home. We need to understand that we are all in this particular boat together before, in the worst-case scenario, something as disastrous as nuclear war sounds (a perhaps final) wake-up call. Then, as poet John Donne had it, it’s a case of ‘never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee’ (Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, 1624). That is, of course, if all the bells haven’t been melted down to make guns and prison bars.

  CHAPTER 14

  Missing the vultures

  SIPPING THAT FIRST COFFEE of the day in the breakfast room at Bangalore’s ITC Windsor Hotel and still a bit dozy after a night’s fitful sleep following the long flight from Melbourne via Singapore, we looked out on the greenery and flowers of an enclosed formal garden, then up beyond the high wall to see circling kites and eagles, though the distinctive Gyps vultures that have been so dominant in this part of the world were conspicuous by their absence. I’d recently read up on India’s loss of more than 95 per cent of vultures (which I discussed at greater length in Sentinel Chickens) but, on this March 2012 visit, it was sad to see the story confirmed.