ONE of the more memorable land confrontations in recent memory is perhaps that of Zimbabwe between the late 90s and the early 2000s when unresolved land issues resurfaced in one of the most uncontrolled and outright chaotic ways.
The issue quickly became combustible and divided opinion along racial, political, economic, social and other lines. In some quarters, it appeared the only way to save Zimbabwe was to take it away from Zimbabweans. In others still, it was the right moment to address unresolved colonial issues which passed on political independence but withheld true economic freedom. In retrospect, it was time to resolve who the flag represented.
Political independence had offered indigenous governments flags with familiar colours that told a heroic story of the struggle and such governmental symbols and monuments. However, people do not eat symbols or slogans.
Leaders who relied on symbolism often turned into dictators because it was easier to control and instil fear in people than confront those that held economic power over their nations.
Those with economic power were typically linked to old colonial blocks and protected their economic power with vicious tactics. Here lies the real battle of flag and country.
The freedom struggle or fight for independence was not about securing geographic borders so that people could live in poverty independently.
The land issue happens to be an oversimplified component of a larger complex web. For example, in southern Nigeria, Ogoniland, the confrontation over land concentrated on oil pollution and the siphoned profits that did not benefit that immediate environment.
Afar off in Brazil, for example, that same issue of land focuses instead on indigenous communities seeking to preserve part of the Amazon through demarcation.
Theirs is about preservation from exploitation. In most of these confrontations, it is rarely about land in its plain form. It is about the value of land and what it represents in its entirety.
To simplify the argument, land consists of rivers, mines – valuable other underground resources, and agriculture, forestry and so on. All these have economic value which belies the reasons for both economic and commercial slavery and colonialism.
Even in elementary economics, the factors of production which are land, labour and capital rely on the elasticity of land to produce any range of needs for commerce and survival.
The logic of sovereignty is that the flag represents ownership of these land-related resources within given borders. The mis-logic of politics is to confuse ownership and value.
This confusion between value and ownership appears understood by Botswana. The country is known to have some of the most valuable diamond mines in the world from which they earn an approximate $4.5 billion per year in sales.
The Botswana government have a sales agreement with DeBeers, a private diamond company. Until recently, the country was earning less than 10 percent from diamond sales. The government renegotiated so that they earn 25 percent and 50 percent in 10 years from sales of their valuable natural resource.
Some of the lessons from this is the understanding that ownership and value are not the same thing. The mines belong to the sovereign for all
