WHAT SHOULD AFRICA DO ABOUT ZIMBABWE

What should Africa do about Zimbabwe? The answer to that is simple enough; tell Mugabe and his henchmen in no uncertain terms that what they are doing is unacceptable. The people of Zimbabwe themselves should have told him that years ago. Why did they?

Mugabe has been in office for nearly thirty years now and throughout those years he never ever held free and fair elections. His popularity has fallen over the years just like the Zimbabwe dollar; slowly at first and has gather pace and volume in the last few years to the frightening torrent it is today. Riots broke out in many parts of the world because food prices had gone up two digit percentage figures in the last two months. In Zimbabwe you queue to buy an item (glad to have found something to buy – there is a chronic shortage of food, fuel, medicines, everything) and when you turn at the till finally you find the price has doubled! That is what a 165 000% inflation rate means. Yet the people of Zimbabwe have never ever held a peaceful protest let alone riot. Why?

I am a black Zimbabwean and also speak as, of course, an African. It is simply NOT in our African blood to speak against our elders or those in position of power and authority. A cultural weakness that African leaders have exploited to the full! Mugabe is but an extreme case of that.

There are over fifty individual countries in Africa. How many of them are truly democratic? I rest my case!

Among the leadership themselves of course they are reluctant to criticise each other. It would be a case of the pot calling the pan black.

Africa’s greatest chance to get out of this comatose state was when the continent had an African as Secretary General of the UN. The UN is the international body that has justice, human rights and the respect for human life- values dictators like Mugabe flout with impunity. The UN speaks with authority on these matters and an African Secretary General speaking to his fellow African leader would have had even greater weight. Africa has had two UN Secretary Generals and came and went and the continent did not move an inch towards becoming a more just and free people. Indeed the continent’s dictators even thrived during Africa’s turn heading the UN.

So there is a lot the Zimbabweans themselves, the Africans people across the continent, Africa National Leaders, Africa Regional Leaders and/or Africa Continental Leaders can do and should to stop the madness of Mugabe. The reality is; none of all these people are doing anything, period! Even getting any of them to TALK about it (or any of Africa’s life and death stories) seems to be a mammoth task- as you can see!