"Development" : A look at the concept of development in Zimbabwe
The term 'development' is used often to describe an individual's process of growth and personal evolution through life. We are born helpless creatures who over the first years of our existence, are uniquely dependent upon a limited environment. From our mother we get sustenance, from our elders, protection, and from all that surrounds us in the form of any and all of our senses, we gain the mental maturation that is necessary for us to sustain ourselves. The development of the human being seems to follow a natural course. It is a universal process that spans ethnicity and race. Freud quantified its stages. In some cultures its major components are recognized formally, in others they are not. Whether we are rising from the womb, or returning to the earth, it is a process that never ceases.
Yet while universality seems to exist for personal development. It does not for the development of the way in which individuals relate among themselves, the other creatures of this earth, and to the earth itself. It is said that human beings have evolved, that over millions of years, the tool that makes us so distinct and unique has developed in ways paralleled by no other animal. Our brain has become far more than a synaptic switch board, driving our various systems and functions in response to stimuli and its own evolutionary programming. Modern man has begun to recognize his own existence, and to question and manipulate it in systematic ways. Its development spans beyond the family, beyond nurture and growth, and within the past century there seem to be fewer and fewer boundaries of this expansion. This mental process ultimately manifests itself in what we call society.
Society is no longer the instinctive co-dependent hierarchical patterning that can be found in other creatures, from dogs to penguins. It has itself evolved into a complex social structure, a formality, manifesting itself in our laws, our religious institutions, and our passing on of discoveries - knowledge - through both oral and written language. While we are quick to say that we have developed these characteristics out of our not so distant past of cave dwellings and nomadic nakedness, in the past centuries, the definition of development has become a hazy one.
The theory of entropy states that in a given closed system, their is an increase in the amount of disorder over time. (Pekauskus) Take a box filled with an equal number of black and white marbles, such arranged that all the white marbles are on the bottom and the black ones on top, and begin to shake it. Over time the marbles will be in increasingly random positions, until their distribution will look like pure noise. The only way to get the marbles to their original state of order, is by rearranging them as such. This can be done, but only at the expense of energy from an outside source. The earth is a closed system in some regards, and as such, seemingly defies this theory of entropy. But it does so only at the expense of the tremendous amounts of energy given to it by the sun. Without it, almost all life on the plantet would cease to exist.
Similar must be our consideration of development. While it seem that society has evolved into a more structured and complex system, it has done so at the cost of tremendous resources which are not inexhaustible.
In Zimbabwe, rapid population growth within a region that is highly dependent on agriculture and grazing have led to increasingly poor soil conditions. De-vegetation for cultivation, the deep plowing of fields, over-grazing, and road construction have led to a soil errosion rate which is as much as 50 times greater than that at whcih it currently regenerates by natural process. (Moyo) The further removal of trees for pole building, wood fuel, and urban expansion have led to a deforestation rate of 1.5% per year. The development of Zimbabwe in the terms of its modernization is underway. However to be successful, a community and ecosystem needs to be self sustaining. If current trends continue, there will be little left to fuel the economy, infrastructure, and food needs of Zimbabwe. In tropical regions, most of the energy in a natural form, is contained within the trees. Soil fertility is generated by leaf-fall and micro biological activity around the root systems of major forests. (Moyo) For a people so dependent on their environment, the rate of consumption can not exceed that which can be regenerated by natural process. Whether it be cattle grazing on the grasslands, or humans surviving the winter through the burning of fire wood, the source of all of this energy is, again, the sun.
What is necessary to further aid and initiate change in Zimbabwe, is a development of a system that can sustain itself and be able to maintain itself at the current rate of population growth. This is perhaps possible only by mondern means. Technology in the form of fertilizers, pesticides, and expensive farm equipment can help to milk the land for all that it is worth. Thus, large commercial farms can produce the yeild that is needed to sustain such a rapidly expanding population. However, these farms rely on technology rather than labor to tend to the land. As is a global trend, there is little room left in such development for the rural farmer of Zimbabwe. Men are replaced with machines, jobs, with maintnence. And we see the gradual trend of a spit economy, where the poor get poorer and the rich richer.
Bibliography
D. Chadiwana and K. Moyo-Mhlanga, "T10:19 PMhe Role of Grassroots in Conservation and Sustainable Development" in C. Lopes (Ed.) (1996) Balancing Rocks: Environment and Development in Zimbabwe, Harare: SAPES Books, pp. 143 - 166.
S. Moyo et al. (1991) "Major Environmental Problems," in Zimbabwe's Environmental Dilemma. Harare, Zimbabwe: ZERO.
R. Pekauskus, 1998, Personal Interview.