Zimbabwe may have an 80% unemployment rate, but one thing the country absolutely won’t stand for is its impoverished citizens wearing used undergarments. According to the Zimbabwe Mail, the country’s finance minister Tendai Biti recently announced a total ban on the importation and sale of secondhand underwear…. “If you are a husband and you see your wife buying underwear from the flea market, you would have failed. If I was your in-law, I would take my daughter and urge you to first put your house in order if you still want her back,” Biti told the paper.
Poverty may be endemic. Starvation may be rampant. Disease may be widespread, but if you live in Zimbabwe, Tendai Biti will make damned certain that you won’t be reduced to wearing used underwear.
Don’t get me wrong; I get the point Zimbabwe’s finance minister is trying to make. For most of us, being in a situation where second-hand underwear was all we could afford would be difficult to accept. Zimbabwe being your basic economic basket case, though, it would seem to make more sense to work on fixing the economy instead of issuing feel-good decrees about side issues. Instead of worrying about second-hand underwear, how about working to ensure that Zimbabweans can find jobs that allow them to feed their families? How about endeavoring to reduce the systemic corruption that keeps the economy staggering in first gear? How about making a sincere effort to stabilize the political system and strengthen the rule of law so that entrepreneurs can do their thing safe in the knowledge that they won’t have to pay bribes and kickbacks to bureaucrats?
One of the poorest countries in the world (and certainly one of the most corrupt), Zimbabwe would seem to have much bigger problems than underwear. I suppose this way Minister Biti can claim to be taking action and attempting to make things better…even though it does nothing of the sort. Perhaps so, but methinks the point is being missed here. If your people can’t feed, clothe, and/or house themselves or their families, do you really think they’re going to be concerned about the state of their underwear?
