Rugby, Pride, Nationalism and Dam Building with All the Headaches.

A return of clear skies although misty and damp in the mornings. Still only 5c in morning though

What a weekend of rugby we just had. The Irish Wales game was enjoyable to watch, especially as Wales seems to be recovering their ‘mojo’ despite the useless leadership and management demonstrated by the Welsh Rugby Union. Throughout their recent poor form the supporters of Welsh rugby have always turned up to support their team, singing with pride before their home matches; they are a proud rugby nation. As for Scotland, it seems their performance swings are as common as my mood. They have amazing talent, especially in the backs, and now that the scrum is supplying the ball, they at times look unstoppable playing rugby that offers great entertain.ment. Despite this, after winning the game, they leaked a couple of tries; they need to address that. International rugby is brutal and every point may count in the final tally. France will be fired up to face England this weekend. Watch out, England. England just seems to have become very ponderous and unimaginative. Is it the management or the players' attitude? They are a bit like the French at the beginning of the 2nd World War, thinking their lines of defence should be based on their experience from the 1st World War, that is building the Maginot Line for defence, believing it would protect them. Instead, the versatile and mobile Germans went around them with their speed of action just as the Italian rugby team did this past weekend. I enjoyed seeing them being beaten as I am sure most other rugby nations in the world did. What is it about the English that makes us all, “so against” as we used to say in Africa? 

“Perhaps we all agree with the French description of Britain as “Perfidious Albion” putting the  blame on the shoulders of the English and conveniently forgetting we, the celtic countries, are part of the Union. Or perhaps it is because there is more English in the halls of Westminster. Whatever, but it certainly lived up to this reputation recently in its denials to requests for help from our traditional allies. So maybe it is just the nature of the beast.” - Peter McSporran

If you watched the matches, the anthems sung at Murrayfield and in Cork were all sung with vigour, all four nations, while in Italy the English effort was lackluster. The Italian players sang with gusto and emotion, even tears, while their English counterparts had rather disdainful-looking faces. If we have to do it, let's stand here and chew our gum. So that brings me to national pride. I watch, after every rugby international, Tim Cocker's ‘Eggchasers’ podcast, the hot takes following the final whistle and then his review of the match a day or so later. The latter includes some of the comments he receives. One South African rugby supporter suggested that England has lost its way, its pride of being English, and perhaps it has as much to do with the present politics in that country as the management of its rugby. 

“We all enjoy watching rugby, and even if our team loses, we get enjoyment and feel pride if they demonstrate passion and effort in their loss. Neither was evident in the English team on Saturday.” - Peter McSporran

Many commentators attribute the Springboks' success to the fact that Rassie Erasmus has instilled national pride in the team, and they are playing for the country when they put on the green and gold jersey, not just for themselves. England, the nation, appear from a distance to be run, not just presently but for many years now, certainly the last twenty, by people who are embarrassed of their nationality and see nationalism as a grim, even racialist attitude or belief. Even the Union Jack when flown can be removed as it may be offensive to those who have recently arrived and enjoy that country's freedom and benefits. The very freedom that the present UK government is busy trying to remove. If anyone, and if you didn't, I suggest you do, listened to the Scottish National Anthem on Saturday and was not moved I would be very surprised and therefore it is little wonder the team was fired up for one of their best performances ever. BUT!!! This weekend, we hope England will beat France in our search for the Six Nations Trophy. There is an exception to every rule.

There is one toxic form of Nationalism, that is when it is used by dictators and their misrepresenting national interest in their efforts to retain power. In the process promoting xenophobia, not just to foreigners but cultures within their own country. This is true from Hitler in Germany, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran, Mugabe in Zimbabwe to name a few obvious examples. You can have national pride, but it is much more effective and tolerant under the mantle of patriotism rather than forced militant nationalism. Equally, when a government tries to remove the symbols of your pride, flags and free speech, as in the UK presently it promotes discontent and division, not unity. So maybe the South African’s comment was not so far from the truth when he said the ills of English rugby could partly be caused by events outside the game itself. Thoughts?

Work started on the core trench in mid-2002 made difficult by fragmented rock rather than the required solid or impregnable zone

In about April 2002, I found the funds to build our dam on the Chongwe, sourcing it through Barclays Bank, whose general manager, Margaret Mwanakatwe, decided to get excited about the project and what it would bring to Zambia in terms of agricultural development and production. To put it in context, let me give you an idea of the size of the dam: it would be the largest and likely still is the largest private dam, as all the larger dams in that country have been built by the state or funded by the World Bank. It was and has a full supply level of 35,409,630 cubic metres. That is 35,000 megaliters, enough to double-crop 3,500 hectares of crops annually, much more than we would ever need. But the topography and cost comparison led us to decide to maximise the holding capacity, after all you only get one chance in building a dam, any planned extension has to be catered for when you commence building, also being the most expensive part which includes the core trench. That is a trench dug down to the impermeable layers, often three or four metres or more down, and the removal of any fractured rock. If in the future you plan to increase the size of the dam the base and core need to already be in place for the future planned expansion. Barclays gave us a loan, which was basically unsecured, as we only leased the land, for US$480,000.  Further to clear the land and put in the required irrigation equipment, we would need to find close to a further million US$, a lot of money for a couple of farmers that could be described as refugees. 

Graham Rae in his farm uniform. A tough guy who gets things done. I found I was not always in sync with him, and eventually, we would part ways. That's for a later blog, but in 2002, his energy was boundless, and this energy drove the project

Like everything nowadays, you cannot do a thing without an environmental study and impact assessment. Luckily once again, Francis Grogan expedited this. He had the connections or the money to do this sort of intervention. Vernon Nicolle and I had agreed to have Graham Rae as the General Manager of our partnership; his shareholding was also slightly bigger than ours, not much, we were fairly equal. Further I was running my scheme and Vernon was planning to move to Australia. I have had my differences with Graham, but when it came to driving a project like this, he would be my go-to guy. I knew Graham’s dad, Ian, well from the time we sat on the Board of Seed Co-op before it was listed and his uncle Bill, who, for a while, was my neighbour in Darwendale. Although I knew Graham, I first really got to know him when he came into my office while I was President of the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), asking for assistance in getting the water rights to what was to be known as Arcadia Dam in Shamva and at that time the largest private dam in Zimbabwe. According to the Ministry, Graham and his partners had started building, but Graham assured me they were only clearing the site before acquiring the water rights. The Ministry of Water and Energy had dug in its heels, threatening to withhold the right due to what it called arrogance for starting construction before having the right. I should have heeded this tenacity and impatience more closely in my future dealings with him. These were the sort of problem-resolution experiences that were to benefit me personally in later life, and resolve them we did. So, yes, Graham can be a wild card, as I was warned by no less than the late CG Tracey, but here I was now in partnership with him, him supervising the farming and dam building me finding the money The amount of money we raised would just about build the dam, we toyed with buying the dam building equipment ourselves as most of the quotes were beyond our budget but then Graham talked to the National Service of Zambia, which had an engineering and dam building branch, and was offered a very good rate.

Cleared and ready to start

For us in Rhodesia National Service, this was where you trained for Territorial Army Service; in Zambia, it was a regular army unit, and certainly not an active unit fit for combat, given the size of the stomachs of its officers and warrant officers who supervised the dam building. Despite my trepidation that the dam would not be completed by the next rains, the worst thing to have is a half-completed dam when the rains arrive. Graham was convinced he could do it, and he did by almost constantly ‘kicking butt.’ 

Disclaimer: Copyright Peter McSporran. The content in this blog represents my personal views and does not reflect corporate entities.