Retired cademic, farmer and activist Themba Dlodlo says Zimbabwe’s unending political problems can be attributed to the country’s winner-takes-all electoral system.
Dlodlo (TD), a former mathematics and physics lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) and National University of Science and Technology (Nust) shared his views on the platform In Conversation with Trevor hosted by Alpha Media Holdings chairman Trevor Ncube (TN).
Below are excerpts from the interview.
TN: Dr Themba Shadreck, Welcome to In Conversation with Trevor.
TD: Thank you very much for inviting me. I'm so excited. This is like touching base with a good old friend after a very long time .
TN: Dr Dlodlo you are 83 years old, you have had a fantastic life, an impactful life. When you look back at your life, what comes out as key milestones of your life?
TD: Yeah, the part when I got a scholarship to go and study engineering physics in the Netherlands because I had always been interested in engineering, but also the subjects that I took were those that suited engineering.
I did things like applied physics, engineering, physics, applied mathematics and some industrial chemistry.
So when I chose the career I wanted to be an engineer. Initially I wanted to be a mechanical engineer, but when I got a place to start engineering they said you can't come to an engineering department, in your first year you must do it at a general level.
So I went to the general level and I chose physics, but I didn't have A level physics. I got O levels.
I was grown up now, so I had the discipline to read a lot then. I passed my mathematics and the science subjects.
Then I decided because I had chosen to do that in physics, I decided to stay rather than go where I wanted. So I remained in physics for my second year, third year, fourth year and fifth year.
TN: Where did you do your A Level. You were born in Gweru, Midlands?
TD: Yeah Midlands. I was in Thekwane.
TN: So you were saying you did your O Level at Thekwane?
TD: Yes, and then after my Form Four I got a job.
I worked there and during my spare time I would read so that at the end I was able to write examinations in A Level mathematics.
Since I wanted to do engineering I also needed to have physics, but I didn't have it here.
Then came a time when I decided to leave the country, I went to Holland and there I…
TN: What scholarship did you get?
TD: They called it UIF University. It was that time when people were running away from the country. So I got asylum in Holland.
Those guys are the ones who gave me a scholarship.
I couldn't go to university when I got to Holland because they also have qualifications for enrolment.
So they told me that the English qualifications are okay. I decided to do my mathematics, pure mathematics and applied mathematics because I couldn't do physics because you needed labs and so forth. So I got a job and then I studied A Level maths. When I passed, I then went to university.
TN: You have had a very successful career as an academic, first as a lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe and then a lecturer at the National University of Science and Technology, again in physics, science, chemistry and that kind of stuff.
When you look at our education system and look at the country, what goes through your mind particularly our education system and the state of the nation?
TD: I think we have a good education system. The standards are really high.
I mean if you have somebody who graduates here with a first degree he can easily go and do a PhD in another country.
You don't need to sit other exams to qualify because everyone recognises that the education is quite good.
TN: You think our education system is still good?
TD: Yeah, it is still good. I have been involved in it as well because I taught physics for many years. Physics at the University of Zimbabwe and then when it was established, I came to teach physics and maths (at Nust).
TN: The other thing that impressed me are the papers that you have written, particularly trying to make sure that physics is taught in our mother languages.
You have had publications on learning science in the mother language, teaching physics in Nguni, translating scientific terms across European and African languages.
Talk to me about that, has that been successful, is there traction as far as that space is concerned?
TD: There are quite a lot of academics who think that it can be done but they find it, I think, very difficult.
So they are talking about how well it is good, but we can't implement it. So that is very disappointing particularly for me who didn't learn physics in English.
I learned my physics in Dutch. so I went to Finland to do a PhD. I found people there as an undergraduate doing it in their language and I have been doing a first degree. I would have been forced to do it in their mother language but…
TN: Why do people say it can't be done, why can't it be done what are they talking about?
TD: I don't know why they think so. You ask anybody if they can teach physics or chemistry in Shona or Ndebele they would say no.
TN: But you have done papers, would you be able to teach physics in Shona or Ndebele? Why don't we develop that discipline?
TD: You have to create the vocabulary. You see, in most of these countries, you know the physics that I have been involved with, quantum physics, quantum optics.
These physics were mainly developed initially in Germany. The first physicists there are the ones who came up with quantum mechanics.
A Danish scientist is the first person to propose the quantum nature of matter and then he was working with the German people and so forth. So they even developed the language and the mathematics of teaching that science.
TN: Don't you think that failing to teach these subjects in our languages undermines our development as a people?
TD: Definitely, you know I found that many people think it is impossible to teach physics in mother languages, but I can understand them because we have been colonised and speaking English was prestigious.
But having lived in in European countries that do not use English, I lived in Holland that's where I did my Masters in Engineering Sciences and then I went to Finland to do a PhD there.
They all teach in their own languages, but of course at the research level because you have to research with Russians, with the Americans, with the British.
They encourage the use of English and French and Germany, but mostly nowadays it is English that they are pushing forward.
TN: The other thing that you have done that you know caught the attention of the world..
I would love to know what you went through when you then decided to go into farming.
I mean I can see you actually been wearing a Brahman Jersey. You decided to specialise in the production of Brahman cattle. Talk to me about that. Where did that interest come from? Are you still farming?
TD: Yes, Brahman they are doing very well. We have just been to a sale, a national school sale in Harare.
I didn't send some this year, but I had gone to see what others are doing. So we are still busy with them.
TN: Where did the interest come from this physicist getting into farming, where did the interest come from?
TD: I can say I grew up in the rural areas from up to the age of I think 10 to 12.
So I used to go out with cattle (ukuyakwelusa inkomo). We used to milk them, we used to do quite a lot with cattle.
That was after school you go home, have your lunch and you go to the cattle.
TN: But why the interest in Brahmans?
TD: That interest came when I came back from Europe to join the University of Zimbabwe.
I went to a cattle sale with a friend, and I saw these Brahmans, and they were telling me that this animal is one-year-old, but I could see its size.
If I compare it with the cattle that I know I could say I couldn't believe it.
I then decided these are the animals that I wanted to have, they grow fast, these are the animals I'm going to do. So I bought a farm and bought those cattle.
TN: How many do you have right now on the farm?
TD: About 120. When I took it, I chose that breed, they were very good to me, the breeders, you know, after fighting the war.
So when we came some of them were helpful.
I attended some events judging courses here. I passed and then I went to South Africa. I attended judging courses there and I passed. So I have been judging cattle in South Africa and Zimbabwe.
TN: What would you say to somebody who is watching you right now, and the one thinking of producing Brahman stock? What advice would you give them two or so ideas?
TD: If they want to, if they want to do business with cattle they must first choose a breed.
As I said, when I went to a cattle sale I could see when they tell me that this animal was one-year-old.
I'm used to animals that are smaller than that, so that interested me that they grow fast but of course that depends on management.
Any breed can grow if they are well managed. You see the problem is we in the rural areas, our cows give birth to calves and the calf doesn't drink all the milk from the mother because we milk for our children and our teas and so forth.
So the calf actually takes about a third of the milk that it is supposed to have. That's why they don't grow fast.
The farm animals that we are doing, the calves spend all the time with their mothers. We don't milk them, we buy milk like other people in town.
TN: The other thing you are very civic minded, you got yourself involved in politics, city council. You ran for mayor and so forth.
What's your sense about the state of our politics? Where are we right now, the way our councils are being run but particularly where Zimbabwe is at the moment?
TD: It's unfortunate. I always think of our problem as being the electoral system that we have, which actually emphasises the individual must have a constituency, but in Europe where I have lived, I could I see why they have coalition governments because they use the system of proportional representation so that even the small parties are able to have seats and they can decide to form a coalition government.
Actually in some cases, leave out the bigger the biggest party because if it is like in South Africa, now the ANC had less than 50%.
If all opposition parties were to group together and say we are now going to make you the opposition, that would have been possible but now they are going to form a coalition government.
The arrogance of the ANC is no longer there because they need others.
TN: Do you think proportional representation would solve some of our problems?
TD: Definitely because there is not one single party that will dominate. Every decision will come after negotiation.
You negotiate, and say can we do this? I come with my opinion, you come with your opinion, others come with their opinion, then we debate to see which is better.
TN: You were involved at some point in the constitutional making process in Zimbabwe, was proportional representation in idea?
TD: That is what we pushed for very much.
That's why at the moment, at the end, they agreed that some of the seats will be proportional representation but we had wanted complete proportional representation, but because people here actually didn't know that kind of system.
They are used to the old system of a constituency, that a person standing in a constituency is the one elected so even if the votes of the losing party are more than that of the winning party, you get a system where you have more parliamentarians than the election.
