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They could have saved the world
Marko Phiri
July 11, 2005

History has many lessons about how men and women of goodwill - or imagined to epitomise that virtue - stood watch as events leading to a major human catastrophe were left unchecked until too late. One such epoch is the Second World War and how the then Catholic Pope responded - or did not respond - to Hitler's dreams of the Third Reich. Pope Pius XII remains a major talking point among historians of the Holocaust even today with both his critics and apologists presenting their cases debating his culpability and lack therefore. But the major point within the debate and for anybody from outside looking in is that for the debate itself to exist, for any notion of culpability to arise, it all points to that he could have done something - assuming he didn't as his critics would have it - to avert the Holocaust.

According to some historians not only six million Jews were killed but another 3 million Catholics also died in concentration camps. The Catholic Church was considered then as now as being a moral authority which kings and other principalities would pay attention to, and was naturally bound to take a lot of criticism for seemingly not having done enough to save the world from an insane man called Adolf Hitler.

The last world war happened more than half a century ago, but still in the 1990s another human catastrophe hit international headlines and the world was left wondering what the hell had happened, why nobody had not seen it coming. The Rwanda genocide of 1994 reportedly left more than a million people dead within a space of three months, and if we are to go by averages, one has to calculate then how many would have been killed had the genocide taken as long as Hitler's genocide which began as soon as he claimed power in 1933. The United Nations, another body whose clout seemingly hinges on the same levels as the Catholic Church if not more authoritative, was accused of not acting quick enough to avert the Rwanda genocide when all the signs of brewing trouble where there. By the time the UN decided to act, it was only to provide temporary settlements and feeding programmes for fleeing refugees scattered across the Great Lakes region.

The UN was accused of having failed to save millions of lives when it was ostensibly within its competence to act and handle the ethnic clashes before the lid blew off as Rwanda was already known for ethnicity-driven politics.

These two examples of the Holocaust and the Rwanda Genocide offer examples about how people who seemingly have it within themselves to tell leaders or politicians to behave procrastinate and in the process fail to avert major man-made catastrophes. While Zimbabwe would seemingly not fall within the league of the two citations, questions still have to be asked whether the two epochs mentioned here do not offer this country and the world at large an eerie example of what happens when responsible and powerful bodies delay intervention. This country has hit recession for some six years now, and during that time, the repression of political opponents has also taken proportions which in other "volatile" spots in the world have led to bloody street clashes between the people and the armed forces.

Too often it has been opined in the streets that our southern neighbours would not have taken the punches here lying down. And this because they have been accepted as a belligerent lot who will not take crap from anybody. Even for Africa's "traditional" hot spots, many here believe the people would have overran the streets without any prompting by any opposition political party. And when such events occur, there is always an understanding somewhat that this was bound to occur based on the country's history. But for Zimbabwe, all the pointers have been there for a long time now such that if one bright sunny day the people decide to take to the streets, the UN, the Catholic Church, civic groups, the African Union, SADC, COMESA, and especially South Africa - which resurrected and popularised the phrase "quite diplomacy" (of which Pius XII was accused) and has thus been accused of not putting enough pressure on Harare, would be economic with the truth when they say they did not see it coming.

But then the consolation here is that the people, especially the older folks, say they have seen how ugly war is and would not want to experience it again. The liberation war and the early 80s disturbances in Matebeleland which are referred to here as "Entumbane" evoke memories which older folk believe belong to the past thus must not be repeated. But for now however, the very fact that the United Nations sent a high profile delegation to access how the people here were affected by the government's clean up operation should be a pointer of how the people thus treated would be likely to react. And that assessment based on the UN's experience in other parts of the world on how errant regimes have dealt with their constituencies and how those constituencies responded.

A question the UN would still need to ask itself is why the people have not taken to the streets to protest these mass evictions? Is it because they know their structures were illegal or there is more to it than meets the eye? And still we cannot use the short-lived clashes in Chitungwiza as a case. They were as said "short-lived." Thus the question becomes, why were they short-lived considering everybody across the country is fed up with this regime therefore the demolition of homes ought to have seen them literally saying enough is enough? For any observer it becomes a situation where one says its only a matter of time before all hell beaks loose. Perhaps it all based on the claim about Zimbabweans being virtual pacifists and will thus not throw any fists. Thank God then for that virtue!

A colleague who was studying in Kenya and returned to the country recently told how the Catholic Church and the people themselves resisted government plans to destroy part of a major slum area in Nairobi ostensibly to make way for the construction of a high way. The government reportedly abandoned the scheme after protestations from the Church and other quarters. Such clout is yet to be seen here. But then the operation here was not announced. It just hit the streets like a veritable tsunami: no warning, nothing and people just found themselves out in the open. Still, the Zimbabwe experience has dragged on because of that obsession with African solidarity when sovereign states apparently can ride roughshod on democratic principles and have to decide and solve their own internal problems. And never mind that while this has interestingly been invoked here, it was not heard when Laurent Kabila fell to the Banyamulenge rebels and in the process inspired the controversial SADC military intervention which saw only three countries sending in troops, who in any case sought to protect an unelected regime.

Still for Zimbabwe, sovereignty has been invoked thus leaving the country to solve its own problems and in the process making them worse by the day. But because it has been whispered that the Zimbabwean president sends chills down the spines of his counterparts across the continent, it would therefore mean the motif is not African solidarity but is informed by literally being afraid of a bully. And you go against the bully to own peril. It would however be interesting then to listen to what will be said by these same pan-Africans when Zimbabwe takes its place among failed states - as if it hasn't already - where people marching for democracy take bullets from the security forces. Failure to act always afflicts one with mind-blowing guilt, but then should that troubled conscience be the only way people and nations will respond to the Zimbabwe crisis?

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