Seems we cannot get enough of China and mining these days. Tibet is not the only place that feels as if the Chinese are pushing it aside. Zambians too are getting restive. The Guardian reports on the Chinese in Zambia—colonial history repeats itself. I heard many statements about mines and miners in Zambia when as a kid I went with my parents to Northern Rhodesia. The names and races have changed, but the ugliness and politics have not.

We went from Springs north to Beit Bridge and through what was then Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, to Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia. We traveled in my father’s pride and joy: a 1949 Mercury. The road consisted of two strips of asphalt each just wide enough for the car tires. When a car came in the opposite direction, you had to move over to keep one tire on one strip and allow the other car to pass using the other strip. It must have been a harrowing experience driving.

My father was evaluating a move from the South African gold mines to the Zambian copper mines. We stayed with one of his old school mates who had moved to the Zambian mines many years earlier and now lived in colonial luxury. There was an anthill besides their house and the anthill was at least as tall as the house itself. We kids were allowed to climb to the top of hill and slide down its steep side. The adults sat on the stoep drinking and talking and we listened in a desultory way to their conversations and conclusions.

There is an uncanny echo in what the Guardian reports people saying about Zambian mines and people and what I recall hearing from my slightly inebriated parents and their friends. For example, the Guardian quotes Hu Jintao, Chinese President as saying “China is happy to have Zambia as a good friend, good partner and a good brother.” In the 1950s it was the South African president talking about the Prime Minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.

The Guardian quotes Levy Mwanawasa, Zambian president as saying “The Chinese government has brought a lot of development to this country, and these are the people you are demonstrating against?” In the 1950 it was the British and their colonial rulers who said pretty much the same. You have heard of the whiteman’s burden and the benefits it entailed to those who were colonialized and actually bore the weight.

My father, his friends, and all the whites on the mines could have, and indeed did say things nearly identical to what the Guardian quotes Lui Ping, General manager Lusaka construction company as saying, namely: “Chinese people can stand very hard work. This is a cultural difference. Chinese people work until they finish and then rest. Here they are like the British, they work according to a plan. They have tea breaks and a lot of days off.” The only difference is that the whites believed it was the white man who worked very hard, like the British, and of course their tea breaks were the reward for such hard work. And the tea was brought in by the African maid.

The Indians ran the stores throughout southern Africa. That is where I was taken each year to buy four new white shirts for school and two colored shirts for the weekend. Simply replace Chinese with Indian in the following quote and you are transported back to the 1950s. Guy Scott, Patriotic Front Leader said to the Guardian:”If you go to the market, you find Chinese selling cabbages and beansprouts. What is the point in letting them in to do that? “

So the irony of his name and position and statement left me cold. Dipak Patel, Zambia’s trade mininter said: “You have Chinese labourers here moving wheelbarrows. That’s not the kind of investment we need . . . We in Zambia need to be very careful of this new scramble for Africa.” The good part of that is that his race, Indian-African, is not an impediment to being a politician. The sad part is that he is now full of prejudice towards other races and exploits the opportunities of the moment.

As far as mining goes, the following may or may not be representative:

Workers at Zambia’s struggling copper mines cheered when Chinese companies bought them up, but the relationship soured as miners grew resentful over what they said were harsher and less safe working conditions for lower pay than in the many other foreign-owned mines. Two years ago 49 miners were blown up in an explosives factory at the Chinese-owned Chambishi mine in an accident blamed on lax safety. Last year the police shot five miners there in a riot over conditions. The government temporarily closed another mine after men were forced to work underground without safety gear and boots. The new owners have also brought in workers to do jobs that Zambians say could go to them.

The Guardian sums up local attitudes by quoting Guy Scott who claims people are saying: “We’ve had bad people before. The whites were bad, the Indians were worse, but the Chinese are worst of all.” Maybe it is as well my mother did not like the heat, the anthills, or the excessive drinking, and we returned to South Africa never to go back across the Limpopo river.

Seems the Zambian Ministry of Mines and Mineral Development has got a way to go to achieve its goals of:

• community well-being above self-interest
• professional competence
• fair competition
• fostering fraternity
• honour, integrity and dignity
• impartial advice to the community
• compliance with laws and regulations
• professional development and knowledge enhancement; and
• support of the environment, the community and the economy through sustainable development

We can only wish them well. Or if you are very brave you can try to interpret the events I desribe and the statements I repeat in accordance with the principles of sustainable development or maybe  mining ethics. I suspect you will fail. I suggest that both approaches are inadequate. Neither can fully address fifty years of mining, social activity, change, and the recurrence of patterns of nationalism, national expansion, and resource and human exploitation. Only a more general principle will suffice. Try this book as a start to a new paradigm and explanation: The Origin of Wealth. And maybe The Origin of Species.