Most crises blow over. A few blow up. But one or two live in our memories, scars on the conscience of a world that had knowledge of tragedy, the capacity to intervene, yet failed to act.
Zimbabwe is no Rwanda. Not yet. But after enduring years of Robert Mugabe’s thuggery, it has another cross to bear. The country is weeks away from what could become a catastrophe. Already more than two million people need food aid in what, say officials, is a very, very serious situation, after the collapse of commercial agriculture in the wake of Mugabe’s confiscation of large commercial farms. By early next year famine could threaten the lives of some five million people – nearly half the population.
Every now and then there comes a point in a crisis where the scale and duration of the suffering become too much to ignore. Conscience is pricked, and a hitherto bemused world wakes to demand action.
That point has surely been reached in Zimbabwe, where youngsters beg for food at the gates of hospitals. In the rural areas, many are reduced to eating roots, according to a BBC report last week.
Obviously, conventional means of supply and distribution are not enough. Zimbabwe urgently requires the unprecedented: a unilateral airdrop of food and medical supplies.
The means are within reach. Giant Hercules aircraft, of the sort used by the UN in Ethiopia and Sudan, could be based in neighbouring Botswana, where President Ian Khama has shown he is willing to stand up to Robert Mugabe.
True, in the all too likely absence of government consent, the airlifted supplies would reach a fraction of those in need; and the dropping points would be arbitrary. But not a single life need be lost in the conduct of the operation, and many thousands would be saved.
Zimbabwe is indeed a long way away. But it is not so remote that we cannot demonstrate our compassion, as well as our outrage, in a form that provides some relief to its people – even if we cannot truly share in their dreadful ordeal. If not an airdrop now, when? And if not an airdrop, what? – Michael Holman, a former Africa editor of the Financial Times, grew up in Zimbabwe. His latest novel is Fatboy and the Dancing Ladies (Abacus)