Rusting icons of yesteryear

DO you recognise this familiar iconic metal frame? Yes, it is vaguely familiar. Is it an alien work of art photographed in an early dawn? Or does the photographer intend that we focus on the long shadows of restless commuters waiting for transport to get them to work?

The scene could be anywhere in Africa but it is on the highway between Harare and Lake Chivero.
 
This is a huge advertising frame from yesteryear.

As a work of art it is certainly not ethnic and can hardly inspire those waiting for lifts.

What a depressing sight this is for those commuters first thing every morning. How can this negative frame inspire them as they stare beyond the quadrangles of welded frames embracing negativity?

This photographic evidence of metal fatigue is another depressing useless icon of western civilisation that has surreptitiously contaminated Zimbabwe post-Independence, in the long term proving of no benefit to expectant nationals.

In other words another useless item has been dumped in our laps because it was a short-term idea that made someone else richer.

It must have been enticing and exciting on the drawing board and apparently it worked well in the west, or Zimbabweans would not have been conned into grabbing at it with both hands.

I can hear the words of the salesmen echoing slyly in the boardrooms, “Invest in this and you won’t go wrong!” more evidence that we must start looking inwards.

This one crippled icon typifies hundreds of other vacant advertising billboards spread across Africa and throughout Zimbabwe. These billboards not only divert a driver’s attention, but also deface the countryside in its entirety.

Some still utilised by Allied Media are in prolific use littering the highway to Harare’s International and Domestic Airport (and totally distracted my attention whilst driving to the point wherein I was losing the will to drive carefully).

If we were not meant to look at them why else would they be so strategically placed?

Plato said it first. His theory was that anything other than beauty pollutes.

Throughout Britain and in parts of Europe mobile phone masts and some radio masts are camouflaged behind equally tall metal trees, their branches painted various shades of green to blend in with the surrounding countryside. It is very difficult to identify any masks behind these trees.

It is all very aesthetically pleasing.

Financing a publishing house in Africa instead and printing magazines in which they could advertise their products throughout the country, rather than erecting these ugly girders, would prove far more constructive.

Supported by advertising, magazines and newspapers provide interesting articles that can reach the rural areas where isolated villagers hunger for knowledge.

Printing magazines make a far greater contribution than massive adverts on billboards blocking our views of a changing countryside, obliterating wild flowers, seasonal crops and other interesting scenarios of life.

Whereas I approve of beautifully coloured and fascinating designs found in some graffiti, from the start, I vehemently disagreed with these billboards aimed at those able to afford the products. Those in cars! But, not your average Zimbabwean.

There is nothing artistic about them, and despite the protests of many who could foretell exactly what the end result would be these steel eyesores were concreted firmly in place to contaminate our beautiful countryside for evermore.

If councils need money they should fine those responsible who litter the countryside in this manner. It is unfathomable that they ban gifted artists from expressing themselves on ugly concrete walls and rusting tin roofs yet they go one decadent step further and allow such commercial failures as this tired and weary sentinel to remain in existence long past their sell-by date.

The bottom line is no one really cares anymore.

Ultimately they will scrap this idea and impose some more exciting digital gimmick that again, will serve no purpose for cash-strapped Zimbabweans.

Now that Dubai is in a state of collapse, and until the credit crunch recovers around the world, these rusting emblems of a by-gone era will be even more dilapidated, thus remaining a serious health and safety hazard for bored children to climb.

Where would you go to play if your father was unemployed and could not fund your school fees?

Such is the tragic reality of imposing western ideas upon Africa, ideas that might work in the northern hemisphere where millions of all forms of transport is often in
gridlock, bumper-to-bumper on endless highways in bad weather. But at least in those parts of the world, where competition is fierce, the adverts are constantly changing.

Obviously someone made a lot of money from these eyesores and now others could save a lot of money by dismantling the rusting girders and using them as roofing poles.

Since there are many others like this rusting heap of iron close to Kambuzuma, idle frames no longer used for the purposes they were built, the local police stations should turn a blind eye if any one dared to dismantle such construction in order to use them around their homes either as burglar bars, roofing struts or fencing. Otherwise, I do not suppose they will ever be removed.