Zimbabwe: Total Collapse
December 5th, 2008Collapse spans a wide spectrum conditions. I’m not aware of any situation worse than Zimbabwe.
Come to think of it, maybe Congo? Or…
Collapse tip NUMBER 1: Keep the shit out of the drinking water.
I don’t know what it is about shit in drinking water, but in any collapse situation, that’s what seems to happen. The situation in Zimbabwe emphasizes the point in a manner that makes me wonder just how much of what Kurt Vonnegut wrote was actually fiction…
(Sorry if I’ve ruined your day before you’ve had a chance to enjoy your coffee.)
Hmm.
Can anyone think of any failed state examples where the results weren’t horror layered upon horror?
Statelets are fair game. I can think of one that’s very interesting: Somaliland. And, while more of a Triad franchulate than a statelet, Kowloon Walled City makes for an interesting read.
Via: Times:
The townships of suburban Harare once boasted water and sewage systems that were the envy of Africa. They are now as broken as Zimbabwe itself. Raw sewage spills from manhole covers and is pumped into the city’s main reservoir. Thousands depend on the generosity of “water samaritans” lucky enough to have their own boreholes. Where even the poorest had taps and toilets of their own, people are queueing up at hand pumps, one engineer laments. “Civilisation has gone in reverse.”
People are also dying. A cholera outbreak that has killed more than 500 people could infect 60,000 by March, according to Oxfam. The outbreak is spreading four times faster than usual for want of transport to take victims to hospital, and basic medicines for those who get there. To contain the epidemic the Health Minister has advised Zimbabweans to stop shaking hands, but it has already spread to South Africa.
In Zimbabwe’s rural hinterland five million people will soon need food aid that the World Food Programme cannot afford to distribute. The Government is powerless to count the number dying of hunger, much less hand out food itself. But aid workers have seen children foraging in rubbish dumps alongside wild animals, and in Matabeleland one story encapsulates the despair of a nation – the story of a woman who, unable to feed her children, fed them and herself a fruit that she knew was poisonous. They were buried together.
Such are the tragedies that lend meaning to Zimbabwe’s statistics; to its 90 per cent unemployment, its 230 million per cent inflation and its average life expectancy of barely 40 years. In 1990, Zimbabweans could expect to live to 63.
Nine months ago, Robert Mugabe was rightly excoriated for stealing a presidential election having destroyed his country’s economy and brutalised its Opposition. Survivors clung to the notion that things could not get worse. They were wrong. As disease and famine take hold, the army has been condemned even in state-controlled newspapers for brazen looting. Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, has concluded more in bewilderment than anger that “everything seems to be collapsing around us”.
Research Credit: Lagavulin
I´m fairly optimistic about Iceland since a) they have a credit independent renewable energy infrastructure to keep their houses warm and the lights on, b) they can fish enough food to survive, albeit not in a glamorous or even appetizing way and c) they seem like nice people, and their pop. density is relatively low, helping them remain relatively nice people.
But I welcome dissent from this perspective.
Ah, Iceland. That will be an interesting one to watch. You raise good points. Homogeneous culture (common cultural referents) is another big plus in terms of cohesion.
My guess, however, is that Iceland will be rolled into the Union of Soviet European Republics, along with Britain (in terms of the pound), as things come apart.
@pdugan they can fish enough food to survive,
Don’t be so sure of that they eat a lot of herring
and the schools are running now.
Turns out 4 out of 5 or somewhere close to that
are ALL infected with a dangerous parasite.
Where did I misplace my copy of the last Soylent oceanographic survey?
http://newsfrettir.com/
Can you see it Thorne?I told you it was beautiful!
Yes Sol,…how could I know
Franchulate – nice! Just a reminder to read more Neal Stephenson…
Here’s a nice blog by an Icelander, chronicling the ongoing situation:
http://newsfrettir.com/alive/