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Zimbabwe and the battle of ideas: A rejoinder to Wafawarova and Freeman
Briggs Bomba
February 15, 2010

I am compelled to respond to vitriolic and preposterous attacks on my person that appeared in the Herald, allafrica.com, and other outlets written by one Reason Wafawarova a correspondent for the state run Herald. In the rather surprisingly tardy response to an essay I wrote over a year ago titled "Ballots vs. Bullets in Kenya and Zimbabwe" analyzing the political / electoral crisis in the two countries Wafawarova not only attempts to resurrect dead criticism of the same essay by one Netfa Freeman but also pretends that he knows me and goes on without any shred of evidence, to variously mischaracterize my person and intellectual work as "pro-west adulatory ", "donor monger", and as one who "masquerades as a high achiever on matters of human rights and democracy".

In the essay that is now part of college course studies in the U.S. and used as a library resource at reputable universities such as Columbia University I make the argument for strengthening democratic institutions in Africa if the "rule of the people" is to prevail over the rule of those who control the coercive apparatus of the state - principally the military, the police and secret services. I refer to the shameful experience of elections in Zimbabwe and Kenya in which the incumbent leaders practically staged "defacto coups" on their opponents and ultimately forced power sharing deals in which they retain an upper hand. Both these cases were characterized by institutional weaknesses and obdurate securo-regimes ultimately rendering the elections mere academic exercises in the absence of a democratic framework that enables the opposition to convert electoral victory into political power.

Wafawarova is willing to acknowledge this reality in the case of Kenya where he accepts the fact that President Kibaki usurped power and he has no problems admitting in his own words - "humiliating discrepancies that characterized the election result". It is in the case of Zimbabwe that Wafawarova conveniently tag teams with Freeman to spin a thin farcical yarn of how in the presidential run off election Zimbabweans suddenly decided to vote for President Mugabe enmasse despite the fact that the majority had decidedly rejected his rule in the harmonized elections three months prior. If it wasn-t tragic one would find as laughable attempts by the two musketeers to somehow intellectually legitimize the violence-marred elections that even SADC and the AU could not pass as free and fair.

It is unfortunate that when it comes to Zimbabwe, otherwise respectable pan Africanist / activist intellectuals like Netfa Freeman, whose sincerity I do not doubt, suffer a serious delusional disorder and are amazingly resistant to actual facts. Part of this is clearly a result of simplistic analysis based on a narrow historical lens that absurdly assumes that resistance to President Mugabe-s rule started in 1999 with the formation of the Movement of Democratic Change. In Wafawarova and Freeman-s faulty ahistorical premise, Zimbabwe is seen in simple black and white terms where President Mugabe is flawless and the opposition is western / donor sponsored. Well, these two musketeers need to be told such simple scenarios do not exist in politics nor any other sphere of human life for that matter.

It is this unscientific "see no evil", " hear no evil" allegiance of parrot writers like Reason Wafawarova and Netfa Freeman that puts them in the crappy position of being the "diaper hands" - always obligated to clean up with fallacious intellectual justifications even in the face of indefensible electoral fraud and political violence as was the case with Zimbabwe-s 2008 elections

Clearly Wafawarova and Freeman suffer from short memory and need refresher lessons on the history of opposition to President Mugabe-s rule in Zimbabwe. If Wafawarova bothers to spend a day in the archives of the state Herald, that he so dutifully strings for, he will discover that in 1993, for three days Harare townships where on fire as poor people from working class townships rioted in 'bread riots- demanding a reduction in the price of bread. Women, men, and young people marched; "toyi toyied" and chanted the slogan"5 bhobho chingwa!" (50 cents bread!). The riot police and later the army was deployed to brutally crush these riots. And the price of bread did not come down.

This in fact is my earliest memory of conscious active participation in a protest demanding that the government pay attention to the suffering of the masses. I am one of those who were beaten and tear gassed off the streets. For most of us who marched for bread, the battle lines were drawn and I have no doubt that we stood on the side of history. For most of us it has been a continuing struggle since - we are still fighting to bring down the price of bread so that all may eat. We are still fighting to assert our right to protest, our right to be heard when we feel that the government is not serving our interests.

I could go back to 1992 when the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions protested against the Economic Structural Adjustment Program and six workers languished in jail for it. I can go back to 1989 when Arthur Mutambara and Munyaradzi Gwisai led University of Zimbabwe students in protesting against rampant government corruption and languished in jail for it. I can fast forward to 96 when civil servants paralyzed the country for months demanding better pay and many were victimized for it. I can talk about 1997 and 1998 when the country was on fire as "food riots" broke out across the country and talk about how military tankers were deployed on the streets and live ammunition used against unarmed protesters resulting in many deaths. All of these struggles were waged before the formation of the MDC. All of these struggles were waged without western support. All of these struggles were sparked by conditions of poverty and repression.

For Reason Wafawarova and Netfa Freeman, who knows better than this, to suggest that those who are in principled struggle against poverty and oppression in Zimbabwe are "lackeys" or "sponsored" by the west is not only laughable but also a reflection of a severe case of intellectual laziness. For even an elementary student of history will see that opposition to President Mugabe organically emerged from his regime-s inability to address the question of poverty for the majority of Zimbabweans.

Here is another lesson in history for Wafawarova and Freeman; From 1990 to 2000, President Mugabe doing the bidding of the IMF and the World Bank (Western controlled institutions) presided over the implementation of the Economic Structural Adjustment Program (ESAP) - a toxic concoction of reckless deregulation economic policies whose principle premise stands discredited in light of the present global economic crisis. The roots of Zimbabwe-s economic crisis and the consequent mass struggles lies in the disastrous failure of these policies designed and implemented to promote corrupt local elites and advance corporate interest with no regard to human welfare. The reason why President Mugabe became unpopular with the masses of Zimbabwe is precisely because he is the one who presided over the implementation of these harsh policies and used an "iron fist" to force poor people to conform to the cruel consequences. In reality our struggles throughout the nineties represented not just a fight against President Mugabe but also resistance to his partnership with the West in fostering neo-liberal economic policies. It is these economic policies that are the real face of contemporary imperialism. So who is the real anti - imperialist then? Compromised by personal allegiance to President Mugabe-s inconsistent nationalism/pan Africanism later day pan Africanist and mortgaged leftist intellectuals ala Wafawarova and Freeman are reduced to pathetic apologists on the wrong side of history.

For reasons best know to the two musketeers, they choose to deliberately misinterpret my position on Western involvement in Zimbabwe. My essay criticizes unilateral western involvement arguing that it "compromises the position of democratic forces . . . as they face accusations of being western puppets". I go on to make a call for multi-lateral engagement through existing African institutions (AU and SADC) and the United Nations while identifying the need to bolster the capacity of these institutions. I find as astoundingly pretentious not just the attempts by Wafawarova and Freeman to unfairly caricature those of us in principled opposition to President Mugabe-s rule, more bothersome is this attitude that they somehow hold a monopoly to pan-Africanism. I too keep Thomas Sankara Speaks under my pillow - so what?

Unlike Wafawarova and Freeman I do not believe in pledging blind loyalty to any individual leaders. I believe that the challenges we face as a country cannot be reduced to personalities, in fact they are beyond Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Mutambara. I believe that even if it was Tsvangirai implementing structural adjustment programs in Zimbabwe, the way Mugabe did, he will become unpopular in the face of mass resistance. I believe that anyone in power will seek to use the coercisive tools of the state to crush mass resistance. And I believe that ultimately that leads to a democratic/political crisis.

There are key questions that Zimbabweans like every other nation must decide - principally what economic model the country is built on. This will shape the politics. An economic model based on the marginalization of the majority and wealth for a privileged few will inevitably produce a violently repressive political superstructure in order to contain those who will march for bread. The question of what economic direction the country takes, together with many other key questions shaping the destiny of the country, are question that Zimbabweans, by right, must democratically decide by giving a mandate to a political formation of their choice through free and fair elections. And transferring that mandate from time to time as they so wish.

It is this sacrosanct freedom to choose that I stand for and by right, must be accorded to every Zimbabwean.

Dare to Invent the Future!

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