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This article participates on the following special index pages:
2008 harmonised elections - Index of articles
When
anti-imperialist movements lose their way
Brian Chikwava
April 08, 2008
That even some
African-Americans will end up with blood on their hands should the
Zimbabwe electoral crisis end in civil strife and bloodshed probably
illustrates better than anything the extent to which global movement
against imperialism has lost its moral compass. For movements whose
beginnings are rooted in the attainment of basic human rights for
ordinary men and women - the American civil rights or the
liberation movements of Africa - it is a remarkable transformation
that they have seen it fit to jettison the sanctity of basic rights,
be complicit in the brutalization of Zimbabweans over the past few
years up until now. This applies to many African governments just
as it applies to figures like Coltrane Chimurenga and his December
12 Movement have been supporting Mugabe in the name if fighting
imperialism while in truth they are fighting Zimbabweans-
right to good governance, determine their destiny and have a decent
life.
A few weeks
ago when Barack Obama said of Reverend Jeremiah Wright 'I
can no more disown him than I can disown the black community,-
he finished that week as one of the most compelling figures to emerge
from recent American politics. He probably would be surprised to
know that for Zimbabwe today there is a small section of the African-American
community which they would do better to disown. Over the past years,
with Zimbabwe going into meltdown in every way imaginable, members
of the December 12th Movement, led by Coltrane Chimurenga and Viola
Plummer, have jetted into Zimbabwe, been feted, lent an ear and
given backslapping embraces by Robert Mugabe and his ZANU PF party
and left the country with broad brotherly grins. The perversity
of this relationship was perhaps captured at the Lisbon summit last
year when Zimbabwean citizens who travelled to the summit to protest
against Mugabe and his governance found themselves face to face
with a group of African-Americans who had also travelled to protest
in support of Mugabe.
On the African
continent the complicity in the suffering of ordinary Zimbabweans
is one of silence and inaction on the part of member countries of
the African Union (AU) and the Southern African Development Community
(SADC). What unites the likes of the December 12 Movement and many
African governments, one could argue, is an attempt to settle historical
accounts that are perceived to be outstanding and it is this that
drives a desire for victory - however vicarious, however destructive
and however fleetingly cathartic - over imperial hegemony.
That this has to be achieved at the expense of the lives and welfare
of Zimbabweans perhaps highlights a glaring intellectual failure
to deliver ideas that address the past without razing down the present.
Only a few weeks ago
Coltrane Chimurenga was in Zimbabwe to help keep Mugabe and ZANU
PF-s morale up before the now troubled ballot. With monumental
arrogance - only comparable to that of the colonialists who
over a century ago travelled to Africa on civilising missions -
he made it clear as soon as he had arrived that he had no kind words
for ZANU PF heavyweights like ex-ZIPRA commander Dumiso Dabengwa
who had refused to endorse Mugabe-s presidential candidacy.
Sellouts and charlatans is what he is said to have called them.
No doubt the ordinary long suffering Zimbabwean have nothing to
lose by disowning this African-American. Hate is a language that
is hard to stop unlearn. To trot around the globe promoting that
language just because one has learnt it and become hostage to it
is, at best, morally depraved. But to try to prolong the suffering
of an entire nation in the name of wars that they have little interest
in is unforgivably criminal.
To the likes of the December
12th Movement whose members frequently come to Zimbabwe, get fed
by Mugabe and leave the country proclaiming brotherhood to the people
of Zimbabwe and to many African leaders who believe their silence
to be the insignia of their brotherhood to the people of Zimbabwe,
perhaps a question needs to be asked: what kind of brotherhood is
it that flourishes as the Zimbabwean government impoverishes its
people, bulldozes their houses, ruins the health and education system
into the ground? What kind of brotherhood proclaims victory against
imperialism the more Zimbabweans flee their country? If a life expectancy
of 38 years, an annual inflation rate of 100,000%, empty supermarket
shelves, thousands of dry water taps when the water reservoirs are
far from empty, thousands of motionless electricity meters represents
victory against imperial forces, then somewhere something has gone
terribly wrong. If the brotherhood of man has become so perverted
that compassion is reserved not for the poor and vulnerable people
of Africa but the few who daily brutalise their lives, then somewhere
along the way the plot slipped way beyond the grasp of some.
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