(In my last submission I expressed my wish that PM Tsvangirai would return from his three week tour of Europe and America, empty handed. Mariko Jones asked if I was not being to hash with the PM particularly if our difference should be a matter of Tsvangirai picking the high road and me picking the low road. Mariko also questioned the chance the PM would indeed return empty handed. See mynews24.com/ZimbabweLight This is my reply, to Mariko.)
Mariko my boy, if it was a matter of Tsvangirai chose the one route and I the other then I would willing defer to Tsvangirai. “All roads lead to Johannesburg,” as Alan Patten would say. Unfortunately in this case the difference between what Tsvangirai has chosen and what I say is the right course is more than one being more difficult and even dangerous, the straight and narrow vs. the ease and broad. The difference is more basic but as simple as one route will get you to Johannesburg whilst the other will get you to Hell.
What people like Robert Mugabe have failed to understand is that the basic and fundamental rights of the individual - the right to have a meaningful say in the governance of the country, freedom of expression and the right to life itself, etc. – are so basic and fundamental no nation can have freedom, peace, justice and prosperity without them. In 1948 UN adopted these rights and freedoms and called them the universal and indivisible. People like Robert Mugabe have tried to make them divisible. Whilst Mugabe wanted these rights from for himself and those in his inner circle he systematically denied them to the rest of the people.
Mugabe’s has clung to his liberation war hero record like a binnacle to a whale. His argument was simple enough: “I am a liberation war hero; I put my very life on the line to end white racism and oppression of myself and all Zimbabweans. It is therefore preposterous to suggest that I would then turn round and oppress these same people after independence. Look at my liberation war record! Look at the sacrifices I made for Zimbabwe’s independence!”
What Mugabe is doing is one of the simplest tricks in the magician’s book of tricks. Make a simple statement which everyone agrees with then change one subtle point and demand of the audience to come to the same conclusion. If Mugabe was the people’s champion for human rights and dignity before independence when he himself was not in power and was one of the powerless. Is it possible he would continue to fight for human rights and dignity after independence when he is power? The answer is yes, that is possible. It is also possible that once in power he who seek to keep the people powerless and be as repressive as the white racist regime he replaced. Indeed that is exactly what Mugabe has done.
It is nonsense that Mugabe’s post independence performance must only be seen is the heroic light of his pre-independence contribution. The two events are independent and distinct in time just as much as what he could and could not do before and after independence changed.
African leaders have gone to great lengths to drill into the continent’s populous that whatever their failings, whatever bad things they have done, it is nothing compared to what the white colonialists did to Africa. Mugabe is one of those leaders who have played this race card for all its worth. Mugabe reminded his critics of the horrors of colonial rule and would ask the whites why they did not end colonial rule. If the critic is black, then as far as Mugabe is concerned the individual is nothing more a brainwashed Uncle Tom!
The right critics should never give in to people like Mugabe’s dirty tactics and name calling. They should have the courage to compare the white colonial regimes to the black regimes that followed. The truth is leaders like Mugabe has done worse than the colonial governments he replaced, politically and economically. The critics must also have the courage to compare the black regime’s performance to what the nation is capable of.
An argument should stand or fall on the strength or weakness of what was said and not judged on the basis who said it nor what they said or did not say in the past!
The respect of the individual’s basic and fundamental rights and freedom as the foundation of freedom, justice and good governance is as universally applicable as Charles Dawn’s theory of evolution, Galileo laws governing the motions of planets or Sir Isaac Newton’s gravitational laws. Dictators like Mugabe have tried to convince us that Zimbabwe can still have freedom, human dignity, etc. without a repressive regime like his. We should dismiss that as the nonsense it clearly is, just as we would dismiss as nonsense if someone was to argue that everything in our solar system revolves round the earth.
Tsvangirai is putting all his effort to make the GNU work; but there is one lead balloon that will never ever fly. The GNU failed to address the fundamental issue ending the dictatorship; Mugabe has the same dictatorial powers as he did before. Tsvangirai and MDC can redouble their efforts the fact of the matter is Zimbabwe will never be a peaceful and prosperous nation as long as one sector of society remain a law onto themselves. Lead balloon do not fly; that is a mathematical certainty, there is no if or may be about it.
After what Robert Mugabe and his cabal did last year to win the presidential run-off, it begs belief that anyone should think a brutal regime like that can somehow be rehabilitated, much less by appeasing them!
Mariko, my boy; there was nothing exceptional that the GNU did to deserve praise. There is food in the shops today compared to a year ago because the GNU ended the stupid price controls introduced by the Mugabe cabal. As I said the price control was stupid, ending the stupid policy is not even worth noted as common sense.
One of the things that have dogged Mugabe’s thirty years in power is the temptation to increase the size of the public sector, government and government owned / controlled companies like NRZ and ZESA to accommodated party loyalists. These have become such a burden to nation, the weighed the nation down. This GNU did not have the common sense to reduce this milestone round the nation’s neck. The GNU is even more bloated than any of Mugabe’s past administrations! There were many other decisions by the GNU that defy logic.
Yes there has been a significant drop in lawlessness since the MDC joined Mugabe to form the GNU. And yet Mugabe’s cabal have still continued to carry out acts of intimidation and lawlessness- enough to remind the nation that they can turn this up if they so wished. Even if the lawlessness stopped, that would still not be good enough. The only sure way Zimbabwe will know that the politically motivated violence and lawlessness that have become part and parcel of our lives have been stopped for good is if those responsible for these heinous acts in the past are punished!
There have been reports that it is the French Government that is sponsoring Tsvangirai’ s three week tour of Europe and America. If that is indeed the case, clearly the French would not invite Tsvangirai and then refuse an entry visa to any member of his entourage. They would not want to send him empty handed either.
So the French have broken rank with the rest of the West. It is a slippery slope the French have taken, very soon the targeted sanction would be lifted and financial aid to the GNU renewed even if there is all the evidence that it is nothing but the old Mugabe dictatorship in very other respect except name.
There are two reasons the French have taken this route; one because they are believe the Zimbabwe government will not be any better than it is right now – corrupt, incompetent and repressive as it still is. This is the same racist and patronising arrogance that Africa has been fighting against for centuries. The battle is yet to be won.
The second reason the French have pick this route is historic. Ever since the end of the Second World War, successive French governments have been so desperate to return pre-war international-player position they have done some really stupid things. The French government’s role in the Great Lakes region and the blood bath in Rwanda is one such example. The French would love to meddle in Zimbabwe’s affairs for the added reason that this would annoy their old rivalry, the British.
There is nothing a small country like Zimbabwe can do to stop the French undermining all that has been achieved so far to pressure Mugabe to accept real and meaningful democratic change. When the dictator was cornered and had no options left; it is sadly the French should throw him a life-line! Of course all the suffering Zimbabweans have faced and the many lives lost would now have been for nothing! All we can do now is hope and pray that the rest of the West do not follow the French’s selfish example!
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