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Clive, I just transmitted that mass email, maybe some will read and learn from these links & posts. I surely hope so.
Posted on 04/21/2002 2:38:53 AM PDT by Clive
ROBERT Mugabe's speeches at Zanu PF rallies held during his presidential re-election campaign consisted, over and over again, of crude abuse of Tony Blair, a hymn of hatred against British colonialism and an insistence that his opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, was part of a British plot for the recolonisation of Zimbabwe.
In his last speech, however, he sounded a new note: there was, he said, a Western - and especially Anglo-American - plot to destroy Zanu PF and evict it from power because it was a national liberation movement. If this plot succeeded in Zimbabwe it would then be applied successively against all the other ruling liberation movements in southern Africa.
Without doubt this is a conviction quietly shared by the ruling groups in Angola, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa and it goes far to explain their reaction to the unfolding crisis in Zimbabwe. Had the Soviet Union not abruptly collapsed and the Cold War ended, there is little doubt that sentiments such as Mugabe's would have been heard from these leaders as they greeted each visiting delegation from the USSR and the Eastern bloc.
This is, indeed, the great submerged motif behind the Zimbabwean crisis. The world had changed so that Presidents Joachim Chissano, Sam Nujoma and Thabo Mbeki find themselves, incongruously, hobnobbing with the Queen at Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings, rubbing shoulders with Bill Gates at World Economic Summits and shaking hands with George W Bush at G8. It is no longer politic to make ringing speeches in which all these liberation movements are depicted as locked in a continuing, indeed endless, struggle to the death against imperialism.
But this is not to say such notions have disappeared, merely that they have become tacit, sotto voce. They remain almost the deepest beliefs such leaders have, providing them from their earliest years with a heroic definition of themselves and their movements and where they fit into the grand sweep of history.
Since the eruption of the Zimbabwean crisis following Mugabe's defeat in the constitutional referendum of February 2000, there have been repeated summit meetings of the region's ruling national liberation movements (NLMs). Such summits were not thought necessary until Mugabe's defeat opened up the prospect that a ruling NLM might actually lose power. This nightmare could only be explained by a fresh assault from imperialist forces, in which case they were all threatened.
Immediately, Mugabe's struggle to stay in power became a struggle for their own survival too. Supporting Zanu PF was no longer just a matter of solidarity but of fundamental self-interest.
It is this perspective which explains why Mbeki, though he might prefer Mugabe to hand over to a younger man or constitute a government of national unity, has been unwavering in his insistence that Zanu PF must retain power. It is why the ANC will always regard Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC as a lesser breed - at worst Inkatha-like puppets, at best the unintentional dupes of imperialism. It is why the ANC is so wholly unmoved by all the killings, torture, beatings and rapes inflicted on the MDC: such things happen in the struggle against imperialism and the only solution is the final triumph of national liberation.
It is also why most of the election observers sent by Mbeki were wholly unbothered by such matters as ballot-stuffing by Zanu PF and the manufacture of between 600,000 and one million bogus votes for Mugabe; why they were unwilling to recognise Zanu PF thuggery even when they were the victims of it themselves; and why they did not even stay for the ballot count.
For they had really gone on a mission of solidarity with Mugabe, not as impartial observers at all. Their mission was to help cement him back in power and to describe such a result as legitimate. The verdict that the election would pass muster had been decided long before the observers set out.
The NLMs share what can only be termed a common theology. National liberation is both the just and historically necessary conclusion of the struggle between the people and the forces of racism and colonialism.
This has two implications. First, the NLMs - whatever venal sins they may commit - are the righteous. They not merely represent the masses but in a sense they are the masses, and as such they cannot really be wrong. Secondly, according to the theology, their coming to power represents the end of a process. No further group can succeed them for that would mean that the masses, the forces of righteousness, had been overthrown. That, in turn, could only mean that the forces of racism and colonialism, after sulking in defeat and biding their time, had regrouped and launched a counter- attack.
Thus it follows that having won, a NLM should stay in power forever. Many NLM true believers still favour a one- party state - even if it has become impolitic to say so - for if other parties are allowed or encouraged to compete with the NLM, they can only become the vehicles of imperialist counter-attack.
Hence the extraordinary self-righteousness, even now, of Mugabe and the Zanu PF leadership. However much they kill and torture, they are utterly convinced of their superior moral standing. They are the elect.
The only alternative to them, they believe, must be a return to British colonialism - even though this requires a certain degree of mental gymnastics, given the way in which British colonialism intervened in 1980 to help get rid of Ian Smith and smooth Mugabe's way to power.
The real truth about the NLM governments is that they allow a corrupt elite to cling to power indefinitely. The Zanu PF elite is now benefiting from "blood diamonds" in a way which even King Leopold's ghost would admire.
None of the NLM governments shows much concern for their own poor and all of them have lamentable records of delivery. In every country they govern life expectancy is shrinking and living conditions are generally worsening.
Not surprisingly, this is leading to the rapid decay of the NLM culture - but just as Karl Marx spoke of the uneven development of capitalism, so their decay is uneven too. It has reached a terminal condition in Zimbabwe first, and the other NLM governments are rushing to resurrect it. But the same decline will gradually face them all.
This is, indeed, the awful warning in Mugabe's current predicament. If ordinary black voters across southern Africa see Mugabe ejected from power by his electorate, they will be electrified to face up to their own self-righteous elites who are determined to rule and enrich themselves forever in the name of liberation.
Prof RW Johnson is an author and journalist. This edited article first appeared in Focus magazine.
....... whatever it takes.
[Call me whatever you like. Just don't call me late for the murdering, raping, looting and pillaging]
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AfricaWatch: for AfricaWatch articles. Other Bump Lists at: Free Republic Bump List Register |
Clive, I just transmitted that mass email, maybe some will read and learn from these links & posts. I surely hope so.
Was Zimbabwe not the country in which the ANC had prison camps while South Africa was in turmoil? small wonder they don't see a problem with war crimes.
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