I Change My MInd

After reviewing the scarcity theory over the last couple of weeks I think it's safe to say that my beliefs about it has changed. If you had asked me two weeks ago about whether or not I thought scarcity causes conflict I would have said, wholeheartedly, that it does not cause conflict.  My understanding was that there are simply too many factors involved to deem scarcity as the main culprit. Instead, I thought that scarcity created competition and competition could lead to conflict. In my International Development and Conflict Management class one of our assignments was to do some research on a current conflict, domestic or international. I chose to research the conflict in Zimbabwe. This is what changed my mind about the scarcity theory. Now, I believe that there is sometimes a possibility that scarcity could create conflict. Likewise, scarcity can lead to the creation of different factors that could indirectly cause conflict. Whether or not it creates conflict is highly dependent on the nature of the situation. Also, Scarcity can be a national security problem.

In 1979, there was guerrilla warfare in Zimbabwe, which finally led to the country’s independence. In the year 2000,  a major conflict intensified within the country. This was also around the time of elections. The state security forces were committing violent acts against thousands of civilians, who opposed President Mugabe. To go along with the violent transgression that was occurring, Mugabe put in place several national policies, which caused the country to plunge into severe economic depression. President Mugabe encouraged the bloody takeover of large commercial white owned farms. This was a part of his campaign to redistribute the land to previously disenfranchised blacks, at the time of colonization. The campaign led to a huge decrease in the amount of commercial farms, from 4500 to 250. This further plunged the country into economic distress, causing a larger increase in the scarcity issue.

When the farm owners challenged to confiscate what was taken from them, President Mugabe would speak to the justification of the riots by the laws that he put in place. Shortly after, the president began to actually put in a deadline for the farm owners. They had to decide between either risking jail sentence or fleeing the land that they farmed on for generations. If the farm owners failed to leave they would face huge fines along with their jail sentence. In the media, the government failed to comment on the issue. The only comment that was made was that the land seizure were meant to correct the wrongs of the British colonization that occurred hundreds of years ago. Colonizers took over 70% of the land and the native people want their land back. Up to this day, Zimbabwe has been stricken with poverty and violence.

In Zimbabwe, farm land is not distributed evenly. Everyone does not have enough land to survive on. The average citizen does not freely have access to arable land to grow their foods. This scarcity led to the bloody riots and the attempts to illegally recapture land that British colonizers took. The issue in Zimbabwe is an excellent example of how scarcity leads to conflict, especially when the government is not taking an active role in maintaining peace and order. In my previous post, I spoke about my home country as an example of how scarcity leads to competition and how that competition then leads to conflict. I was very stock in my beliefs that there was an indirect correlation between scarcity and conflict, competition being the intermediate variable. However, After recently studying the issue in Zimbabwe, I concluded that whether or not scarcity leads to conflict is highly dependent on the nature of the situation. I takes an individual evaluation of each conflict to figure out what the causing factors are.