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Stop vilifying our efforts: A response to Bond and Moore
Patricia McFadden PhD, Zimbabwe
April 14, 2005

http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=27724

Read the original article by Patrick Bond and David Moore
Read Bond & Moore's reply to the criticism

I read the comments by Bond and Moore - who are obviously considered the 'gurus' on Zimbabwe and on southern Africa in many circles - how little things have changed, especially when it comes to knowledge production and dissemination in this region (and globally) - the white man always knows best!!!

I personally am sick and tired of the arrogant and dismissive manner in which mainly white liberals, who sometimes parade as leftist (since when has Jubilee become a leftist movement, by the way?) dismiss the attempts by millions of Africans to craft democratic practices and new political traditions after hundreds of years of vicious, colonial exclusionary politics - the colonial state everywhere was fascist and totalitarian - and that must be reiterated constantly because it is the fundamental context within which Africans struggle to change their lives.

The very first sentences of the article by Bond and Moore are steeped in derisory arrogance, and the attempts by Africans to become active citizens and to confront and engage with the neo-colonial state and entrenched white property relations in this region in particular, are consistently dismissed with the typical, supremacist disrespect - describing African working people as either stupid (and that coming from a Rhodesian with a brutal racist past - and dubious present from what I can surmise from his comments to Bond and Moore...he dares to call the South African Observer team 'stupid' - what a give away, we know this language even if too many people in this region have been cowed into silence about the persistence of racist presumptions in the media - or that we are easily cheated.

Have we digressed so far off from our liberation goals that arrogant white men can exchange insults on collectively owned internet spaces about our efforts to stabilise our societies, and we uncritically accept their 'analyses' of us and quietly acquiesce with this derogatory discourse? I do not accept it - never have and never will...

These are old, tired, racist tropes of African 'victimhood' that project African people as being without an agency or capacity to think politically and to use the ballot strategically - whether white liberals and their black counterparts like it or not - with a view to much longer terms goals; goals that are about African freedoms and sustainable political systems. Who said that every political event and process in this region and on this continent has to receive the approval of the so-called white gurus based in South Africa or in the white dominated North? Where are the contesting and reflective African voices on the ways in which we - the people who have survived hundreds of years of white terror and impunity- imagine and struggle to establish the tinniest steps forward in a world where every attempt we make at being free from imperialism is deftly crushed and vilified by those who are deeply embedded in the barely-changed systems of white privilege and identity? How dare they dismiss the tremendous courage and pride that Zimbabwean working people brought to the moment of election on the 31st of March, 2005 - which encapsulated their dreams and visions of a better, more equitable society. And these are the very great, grand sons of white fascists whose kin could not imagine us human, let alone establish the most basic infrastructure of a democratic social image - now pontificating on what and how democracy can become real for us. Please, people - take a step back from your colonial-inspired, 'high-moral ground' - and smell the coffee (or shall I be kind and propose the roses!!!).

The reality of southern Africa and the region is that there are still some Africans - few and thin on the ground, I will concede - but who are nonetheless fed-up with the arrogant dismissal and constant bemoaning of how useless Africans are. There is a steadily growing discourse and political energy in our societies that must be recognised and mobilised - because it reflects the key features of the future of our continent, now. The real African political landscape is one of millions of people - from various classes, etc - who are sincerely engaged in the crafting of debates, visions, discourses and practices that are directly related to the shaping of democracy on this continent - democracy as an ancient human longing for peace and prosperity in material and social terms.

Democracy is not, and has never been the preserve of whites (whether they call themselves Europeans or whatever) and gone are the days when a little bunch of frustrated colonials could dictate the nuances and core elements of what African democratic practices and ideas are or can become.

So, my advice to both Bond and Moore - who represent the most insidious version of a frustrated white propertied minority that cannot let go of its vile past - is to stop masquerading as proponents of "DEMOCRACY" as defined and approved by whites - and take a bite of humble pie - step back from the sound of your own interests and narrow white histories - and have the courage to keep quiet for a little while - let other voices and ideas on these matters also flow with the breeze in our region - and maybe you will realise that your criteria for what democracy is are warped by your privilege as white males, and that you need to deal with that too.

We - the Africans who live and struggle in this region - are making democracy in the ways best known and possible to us - and whether a clique of white males and other disgruntled elements - who have not yet been able to reach the state and accumulate and are therefore squealing about the lack of democracy - like it or not - it is the little steps that millions of working people and African progressives are taking in building democratic ideas and a consciousness of entitlement - by engaging with all manner and form of privilege in our midst - that are the most unstoppable phenomenon of our times.

You can either remain in the past (even if you imagine yourself in the future...) or you can join the ranks of those who strive and persist in crafting new African social worlds....it's your Choice!!!! Just stop vilifying our efforts to become post-the-colonial world within which you remain so defiantly grounded...

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