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Thumbs up all the way for our
President
By Political Editor Munyaradzi Huni
AFRICA cannot be
stupid! No, never! South African President Thabo Mbeki is closer to the
action and his country feels the ripple effects, so don’t tell me he is
crazy.
Nigeria President Olusegun Obasanjo has been monitoring the
situation closely from his country, so don’t tell me he is blind. Many
progressive blacks from around the world have been following events here
with keen interest, and don’t tell me they are all a blind lot. No, they
can’t be!
So, then, what’s the problem? If surely all these people
are not a problem, then what the hell is the problem? Or maybe there is no
problem at all, but then what do you call it when outsiders see the hero
in your midst and yet some people in your midst think the hero is a
villain? There surely is a problem somewhere.
Let me get to the
point — Why is it the whole of Africa and blacks all over the world,
including some whites, can see the hero in President Mugabe, yet some
Zimbabweans think he is not? Why? Why is President Mugabe being seen as a
hero by the rest of Africa and blacks around the world, yet some people in
his country think he is a villain? Why? This really boggles the mind.
The MDC and its supporters have called the President all sorts of
derogatory names. Never mind that they can afford to call the President
all sorts of names, despite telling the world that there is no freedom of
speech in the country. To them President Mugabe is a "dictator", "a
ruthless leader", and "the man who stole our election".
And yet,
despite it all, Africa has stood by President Mugabe. In fact, the
continent has not only stood by the President, but it has shown its
confidence in him and has elected him to some powerful posts.
In
July this year, President Mugabe was elected as vice-chairman of the
African Union and to those not familiar with the goings-on at these
meetings, this means that the President’s election was endorsed by other
African leaders.
The President was chosen as one of the five
vice-chairmen of the AU and this means he will be representing Southern
Africa in the continental body for a year.
Several heads of
government, including Kenyan leader Mr Mwai Kibaki and Swaziland’s King
Mswati, later held separate meetings with President Mugabe on the
sidelines of the AU meeting.
Surely, if African leaders viewed
President Mugabe the way the MDC wants them to view him, would they have
time to sit down and talk to him? Which African leader would want to be
seen exchanging ideas with a "dictator?"
But then even before the
AU meeting, President Mbeki had already taken the lead in showing the
world that Africa would not watch while its hero was being destroyed.
In a diplomatic coup that left many prophets of doom wondering
what had hit them, President Mbeki cooled down US President George W. Bush
who before his trip to Africa had threatened to "deal" with President
Mugabe. The American leader came out of his meeting with President Mbeki a
sober man and as he flew back home, Africa had told him "you can’t touch
this one".
Despite the clear signs that Africa was fully behind
President Mugabe, the enemies of Zimbabwe did not rest. After the
resignation of Liberian leader Charles Taylor recently, the prophets of
doom were baying for President Mugabe’s blood.
"Africa must now
bear on Mugabe to step down," read the editor’s comment in the Daily News
on August 14 2003.
"After Taylor, attention should shift to
Zimbabwe," other writers wrote.
Yes, attention shifted to
Zimbabwe, but to their dismay, it was not the kind of attention they hoped
for.
Instead, Southern Africa came out with strong words against
those who were calling President Mugabe a "dictator who stole our
election".
In a study carried out recently by the Africa Institute
of South Africa, Sadc countries lambasted the MDC, saying the opposition
party was a puppet of the West and expressed their fears that foreign
powers were trying to topple President Mugabe and his Government from
power.
Now, the region had spoken loud and clear, but then some
dismissed this study, saying "this is just a study, it doesn’t represent
the views of Sadc".
Then last week, in a manner that reminded many
of the standing ovation the President received during the Earth Summit in
Johannesburg, President Mugabe received a rapturous welcome in Tanzania at
a summit for Southern African countries.
Hundreds of delegates
greeted the President with shouts, applause and ululation. And just when
the prophets of doom were about to dismiss this as "just a standing
ovation", President Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania, who took over the
chairmanship of Sadc from Angola, immediately declared that US and EU
sanctions against Zimbabwe were unwarranted and ineffectual.
"And
here let me make two very clear statements. One is that I do not believe
the application of sanctions in the case of Zimbabwe is a good, warranted
or even effective strategy.
"It has not worked, it will not work
and it only makes the life of the ordinary people in Zimbabwe
unnecessarily difficult. Those sanctions should now be lifted."
He
went on to support the Government’s land reform programme.
Now
what else should Africa do to show some Zimbabweans that President Mugabe
is a hero and not a villain? Yes, it doesn’t matter to these enemies of
the country that President Mugabe took the bold step to redistribute land
to its rightful owners. Thanks to President Mugabe over 300 000 families
benefited from the land reform exercise.
Even the President’s
history during the liberation struggle doesn’t matter. And, yes, it
doesn’t matter to them that President Mugabe has stopped the imperialistic
crusade, in Zimbabwe and Africa. But then, wait a minute!
What has
happened in the past to such principled people whose actions were seen as
a threat to the West’s machinations against Africa?
Let’s rewind
back to Ghana during the Kwame Nkrumah era. After realising that Nkrumah,
the father-figure of Pan-Africanism had become an international symbol of
freedom as the leader of the first black African country to shake off the
chains of colonial rule, the West came up with a plan.
They,
through the media started demonising Nkrumah creating false stories and
churning out outright lies as they sought to destroy this African hero.
They knew Nkrumah was an inspiration to many other African nationalists so
they wanted to lower his esteem before the eyes of those who saw him as a
role model.
And surely this trick worked to some extend. In
February 1966, Nkrumah was over-thrown in a military coup and the
father-figure of Pan-Africanism spent the remaining six years of his life
languishing in exile.
At the time of his death, Nkrumah was being
called all sorts of derogatory names but in a letter to one of his closest
friends June Milne soon after the coup, Nkrumah showed that the spirit to
fight for African freedom would never die.
He wrote to Milne
saying: "11th March 1966. You shouldn’t worry about me now June. I am safe
and well. I did not write earlier because I was trying to get myself
sorted out. I know very soon I shall be back in Ghana and I don’t think
that you should bother about the criticism, abuse vilification and the
lies being told about me. The truth will come out."
Now years
after his death, Africa is discovering the hero in Nkrumah that was
destroyed by the West in a bid to extinguish the fire to unite and free
Africa politically.
The same game is being played against
President Mugabe. The West has realised that the President has opened the
eyes of Africa to fight for economic freedom, through redistributing vital
resources like land to its rightful owners, the black majority and they
came up with a plan.
The plan is to use the media, the MDC,
non-governmental organisations, civic groups, lawyers and even doctors to
demonise President Mugabe in a bid to make it appear as if it’s wrong to
economically empower the people, through land reform.
But then
Africa has learnt its lessons. They saw what happened to Nkrumah, Obote of
Uganda and many others and they are saying: "We know what President Mugabe
has done for Zimbabwe and Africa and this hero we will not let you
destroy."
There are those who will say, but how can President
Mugabe be a hero when "we don’t have cash, fuel, foreign currency and
sugar. How can he be a hero when the prices of basic commodities are going
up everyday?"
Well, there seems to be a lot of thinking behind
these questions considering that life has become very difficult, but while
it’s true that there are some things that President Mugabe and the
Government could have done better, the bottom line is that life is what it
is in Zimbabwe today because of sanctions that the MDC called for.
The Government is doing all it can to revive the economy through
several programmes that include giving support to the agricultural sector
that drives the country’s economy, but then the MDC is not playing its
part. They called for the imposition of sanctions and they should now call
for the lifting of the sanctions.
True and patriotic Zimbabweans
know that like the great boxer Muhammad Ali who once said, "I don’t have
to be what you want me to be, I am free to be what I want", President
Mugabe is being demonised for refusing to be what they want him to be and
for refusing to do what they want.
But then Africa is saying, "we
ain’t no stupid", progressive blacks around the world are saying, "not
again to this one" and patriotic Zimbabweans are saying, "this hero, you
will not destroy".
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