So the campaign to silence the voice of this writer after the BBC debate was based on the view that it did not meet the criteria of the "normal" African consciousness and behaviour under the various regimes of white supremacy and Western domination.
The Herald
By Reason Wafawarova
THE concept of progressive thinking in international relations today is measured not by the amount of progress it brings to the thinker, but by the degree of its conformity to the domination of Western influence in international power relations.
To be counted among the so-called pro-democracy groups, to be considered civilised, to be regarded as normal, to be regarded as progressive, and to be part of what the West often calls the "family of nations" — depends not on the merits of one’s personal commitment to these values, but is a product of historic inter-group, intra-group, and interpersonal relations.
The character and behaviour of African individuals being labelled "normal" or "abnormal", "progressive" or "regressive", "democratic" or "authoritarian", can only be fully and accurately comprehended, along with the process and purpose of the labelling itself, in terms of the historical power relations between dominant Western forces and subordinate African groups.
Western domination and African subordination involve special types of social power relations constructed predominantly by the West in order that they might receive certain material and non-material benefits thereby.
We are here talking about social power relations that safeguard practices and processes that mediate the Western socio-economic, socio-political, and socio-psychological manipulation and construction of African consciousness and behaviour.
Under the doctrine of white supremacy and Western domination, African consciousness and behaviour are socially manufactured, labelled, and judged by Westerners in ways consonant with their socio-political control and expropriation of African natural and acquired human resources.
The "normality" and "abnormality" of African consciousness and behaviour are so classified with reference to the degree to which they support or oppose the continuity of Western supremacy.
On October 16 2008, the BBC’s Nick Ericsson featured this writer against Keith Richburg, an ex-correspondent for The Washington Post and author of "Out of America: A Blackman Confronts Africa" in a Focus on Africa Magazine debate on whether Africa should be held to Western Standards of Democracy or not.
Richburg stood for the YES position while this writer debated from the NO position, and Nick Ericsson must be commended for fair conduct as a facilitator and moderator.
It was only after the magazine was published that this writer faced unprecedented hostilities from some Australian readers, particularly those linked with an MDC-T sponsoring project that calls itself the Zimbabwe Information Centre, an outfit whose secretary, one Peter Murphy, has worked tirelessly to discredit this writer since 2007; together with some political activists linked to Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC-T.
Not only did these people consider the input from this writer "unacceptable" and "abnormal", but they launched an online campaign to confront the BBC for allowing publicity space to "someone who openly supports Mugabe’s regime".
Keith Richburg was viewed as having been unfairly pitted against someone from the unacceptable world of tyranny and the BBC duly got reminded to know how to select "acceptable critics" on such topics as Western democracy — not this "Goebbels of Zimbabwe".
To their credit the BBC defended their decision in finding someone they thought would represent the NO voice best in the debate in question. In his contribution, Richburg asserted that "certain people are not capable of responsibly exercising their right to vote", and this was hindsight justification for rightwinger William F. Buckely’s 1957 statement, when he said, "The question as far as the white community is concerned, is whether the claims of civilisation supersede those of universal suffrage".
This was Ian Smith’s argument in Rhodesia as well — that black people were not ready for sovereign and independent democracy, at least not in another thousand years: so declared Smith in 1965.
Richburg argued that the West needed to play a central role in shaping democracy in Africa because, according to him; the continent was being run on the concept of "Big man Rule". He directly attacked Presidents Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, as well as Ethiopian Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi.
He argued that these leaders were using the "Big man Rule" doctrine to stifle democracy in Africa, and he urged Western leaders not "to feel guilty" when President Mugabe narrates the West’s colonial past in Africa. He argued that the West had a role to establish democracy and accountability through Western aid, blaming Africa for "negligible development" and "rampant corruption".
This writer basically dismissed Richburg’s line of thought as "dangerous" and "puerile" and raised issues to do with Africa’s political right to self-determination, its socio-cultural uniqueness, and the incompatibility of Western style democracy to the African way of life.
This week this writer had opportunity to listen to a public forum debate featuring Justice and Legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa, deputy minister Jessie Majome, and NCA chairperson Lovemore Madhuku. The topic in question was whether the Zimbabwean public is participating in the writing of a new constitution or they are simply being made to vote for the views of those in power.
Minister Chinamasa’s position was that people are writing the constitution, or at least that they are participating in the process. Jessie Majome thought as much, but added that it did not really matter if the people were simply endorsing the views sold to them by their respective political parties because in her opinion that process is democratic enough since it carries an element of choice. Madhuku thought Copac is no more than a very unfortunate and expensively executed joke and claimed that the current constitutional making process will face "a natural death".
This writer asked Majome why her party now disowns the Kariba draft despite Tendai Biti and Elton Mangoma having helped draft it and also signed the draft alongside four other representatives from Zanu-PF and the MDC. The reply was that they only signed the draft because they wanted that constitution specifically and only for the implementation of the 2008 election.
Pressed to confirm if that was MDC-T policy; that the party could afford to trivialise the essence of a whole constitution by reducing an entire supreme law document of a country to a mere election implementation document, she stood by her position and even reminded this writer that elections were so important that they had made Barrack Obama president of the United States — something she openly said was and must be universally fascinating.
This writer knows about the celebrity status of Obama’s election into the White House but has no illusions that Obama is a political miracle of whatever proportions in as far as world affairs and the ruinous effect of the US foreign policy are concerned. In fact, Obama is a pending disaster waiting to happen, perhaps one that has already started happening.
The point is that Majome hails the election of Obama as so important and inspiring that it makes her think that we needed to do whatever it takes here to do an Obama victory in 2008. She is an assimilationist politician aspiring to disappear into Westernisation by any means necessary and that is the problem of the African politician today. We have leaders who aspire to be like whites to the point of disappearing into the white system — a system that has swallowed Obama from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet.
So the campaign to silence the voice of this writer after the BBC debate was based on the view that it did not meet the criteria of the "normal" African consciousness and behaviour under the various regimes of white supremacy and Western domination.
Such consciousness and behaviour are characterised by habitual thought patterns and behavioural tendencies which render them pliable to Western authoritarian/authoritative socio-political control with minimal resistance.
The expectation is to induce Africans to accept their subordinate status as natural, or to even misperceive their oppression as freedom.
This writer belongs to the "abnormal" version of African consciousness and behaviour in as far as the doctrine of white supremacy is concerned. People like this writer are accused of habitual thought patterns and behavioural tendencies which the socio-political control of blacks by whites finds intolerably difficult or ineffective. We are accused of hate speech, hostility to Western interests, and of inducing blacks to protest, resist and reject their subordinate status as destined or natural; of informing blacks not to perceive their oppression as freedom.
When you do this "from the comfort of Sydney, Australia", you are not only labelled an abnormal creature with many other derogatory names, but also a hypocrite of the highest order — an unrepentant and unthankful stupid African who bites the hand that feeds him; who messes recklessly the glorious glamour of Western civilisation.
From the vantage point of the continuity of Western supremacy, the basis for labelling African consciousness and behaviour as normal or abnormal depends not on the discovery by whites of discreet states of consciousness and their correlated behavioural tendencies in Africans. It is based on the discovery of the degree to which African consciousness and behavioural tendencies are perceived as serving or dis-serving Western hegemonic interests.
Largely, the issues of instability, conflicts, dependency and skewed value priorities in Africans are unavoidable outcomes of oppression by Westerners.
Oppression by definition is to have one’s thought processes disturbed, emotions impaired, values and motives inverted, and one’s body functions imbalanced.
The normality of the African under Western hegemony is merely a socially manufactured phenomenon designed to be serviceable and beneficial to the needs of the oppressor.
We have an imperial system in place that requires that Africans involuntarily and obsessively deceive themselves.
The collective self-deception, which is the benchmark of oppressed African consciousness, is the main product of West-Africa socio-political power relations — a relationship founded on the denial and distortion of reality; motivated by anxiety and ignorance.
The unfortunate predicament of the African is that both the one considered to be normal and the other considered to be abnormal are products of a skewed West-Africa socio-political power relationship, and that white supremacy seeks from both that they operate against their own interests.
The idea is always to create self-denial, self-defeat, self-destruction and a conviction that the opposite of our own values and identity is the truth.
What is considered normal and acceptable in the West is just a political-economic concept and is largely a result of the interplay of power relations between the West and Africa.
Behaviour that is considered abnormal is punished and this is why this writer has been hunted down in various workplaces so that employers could give him the sack. Even friends and relatives get targeted so that they can disown you.
Macquarie University in Sydney was inundated with calls for the expulsion of this writer in 2007, and the Australian Immigration and Foreign Affairs Departments were also pressured to disregard the law in order to get rid of this writer because his views are considered unacceptably abnormal.
Normality is born of a fairly systematic method of rewarding and punishing behaviour, be it ritual practices and indoctrination, training, correction, supervision, or constraint.
So those considered normal are rewarded with the "pro-democracy" label; they are awarded various prizes of honour and are showered with honorary degrees for their inspiring commitment to be exceptionally normal to the system that dominates and oppresses them. Lovemore Madhuku brags a lot about his belonging to what he calls the "pro-democracy movement" and he is an award-winning member of this club.
Michel Foucault described normality, which inhabits a person and brings him into existence as in and of itself a factor in the mastery that those in power exercise over that person’s consciousness and behaviour.
So we all know how to impress the Americans. We know who to criticise in Zimbabwe if we want to impress the Westerners. We know who to praise and we know when to say yes to government policy and when to say no if we want to make the Westerners happy.
All Zanu-PF initiated policies must be derided and ridiculed while all MDC-T initiated policies must be lauded with open mouths and shut minds. That way we play our role as unthinking Africans, and for that the West is happy to periodically drop in donor funding.
Farai Maguwu of the Centre for Research Development recently occupied himself with the role of blocking the sale of diamonds from his own country, and the only traceable logic for his actions was the reward of donor funding by the West. He wanted the honour of going down in history as having succeeded in the ban of Zimbabwean diamonds.
For landing himself in legal trouble for his efforts he is now in strong standing for a US award on "bravery" and "commitment to democracy" and this is how the system works.
Maguwu knows that he will soon be lining up behind the likes of Jestina Mukoko, Magodonga Mahlangu, Lovemore Madhuku and Morgan Tsvangirai, characters whose cabinets are already shining with US awards for causing excessive trouble in their own country.
Those of us who are unfortunate enough to be considered abnormal must count ourselves in the same line with the so-called "Mugabe cronies" who are found on the US/EU and Western sanction lists. Such is the reward for "abnormality".
One online publication recently suggested that the US Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Charles Ray had hinted that the "United States might forgive Mugabe and his cronies" by lifting sanctions if they started behaving.
That was with no sense of irony at all. Yes, forgive.
So the so-called norm is in essence a principle of coercion; a constraint on behaviour, a rule to be followed.
The very people who preach to the world the gospel of freedom of thought, speech, and expression are the authors and finishers of draconian intolerance and barbaric persecution of people who today stand vindicated among the masses in the fight against white supremacy and Western hegemony. Such is the world we live in.
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