"When you have an imperial press corps that does nothing but defend the state, defend the empire and try to advance its goals, any country that gets in its way is going to be seen as an adversary or as an enemy, so in the American media there are a lot of countries that are deemed at least suspicious, if not enemy-countries"
Trinicenter.com
Most propaganda images from the Cold War look outdated now, but the idea of embedding a message in Cold War style could be more relevant than ever in propaganda of the modern.
With a little hate here and a little fear-mongering there, could the raging positions of mainstream pundits on certain issues be stemming from something a little deeper than mood swings?
What do Cold War and modern day propaganda have in common?
“The two are connected to one another. What we’ve seen is the continuation of Cold War propaganda under new conditions,” said Rutgers University professor Norman Markowitz.
The Pentagon has proven time and again its love of creating, chasing and trying to undermine what it calls enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as several other nations it deems rogue.
“The United States is always involved in some kind of war of aggression. It rarely spends an entire year without invading some foreign country,” said editorial columnist Ted Rall.
The media is almost constantly right there to march in lockstep.
“We have a military-industrial media complex today. Most of the media is zoned in ideologically into what the Government is saying,” said media critic and film maker Danny Schechter.
The Pentagon seems to like to get carried away with its military.
“If you call the Pentagon, they can’t tell you if it is 700, 800, 900 or a thousand bases,” said Rall.
Meanwhile, the media doesn’t seem to question much.
“American media is saying as a matter of fact that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. The drums beaten for war in Washington are being echoed by our mainstream media,” said Steve Rendall, a senior analyst at FAIR.
The list of America’s antagonists keeps building up.
“When you have an imperial press corps that does nothing but defend the state, defend the empire and try to advance its goals, any country that gets in its way is going to be seen as an adversary or as an enemy, so in the American media there are a lot of countries that are deemed at least suspicious, if not enemy-countries,” explained Rendall.
Meant to be a fourth independent branch of power and watchdog to the powers that be, the media is instead earning a nickname of “a ministry of propaganda” for the White House.
“You got to CNN, you go to FOX NEWS, you get these hyper-adrenalin arguments between two combatants. One – allegedly from a liberal point of view, one – from a conservative point of view. But the context is so narrowed that you don’t get any critique of the national security state, nor the military industrial complex, nor the corporate structure,” said poet, lyricist and philosopher Phil Rockstroh.
The lack of substance and narrow context is becoming all the more obvious in the age of the Internet, which makes alternative and often more relevant information available to anyone.
While the establishment – politicians, corporations and media giants – embrace, and widen the circle of buddies.
“It’s not only Government. It’s in coalition – tacit or otherwise – with think-tanks, with pundits, with others who have big money interest, certainly with lobbyists. Planting stories,” said Norman Solomon, the founder and president of the Institute for Public Accuracy in Washington DC.
Russ Baker, an investigative journalist and the author of “Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty”, explained the US media in general, mainly large corporate media, is driven by profits and not good journalism.
The media tailors to those in power to aid in their mission to grow and profit, this means not offending the government.
“That’s why George W. Bush got so much coverage, uncritical coverage, of his own new memoirs whereas a book like mine which is full of staggering new information, really shocking well documented information, I can’t get on there,” he said.
The US government security structure subverts true democracy, Baker argued. The media helps the government sustain a state of conflict because it benefits the elites who are in charge.
“Our own country [United State] is basically run by a kind of an oligarchy and this begins to explain why the media is owned by a fairly small number of corporate interests, and why irrespective of what party holds the White house, the policies always seem to be the same. They always benefit a wealth interest,” said Baker.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
WikiLeaks and myth of Western Press freedom
The US and its Western allies are now too used to the media that serve the purpose of defending elitist interests and that is done in so many ways. There is the infamous selection of topics, the elitist distribution of concerns, the disgusting framing of issues, filtering of information, emphasis and tone, as well as the confining of debate to acceptable premises and bounds.
The Herald
By Reason Wafawarova
IN his defence piece "Why shoot the Messenger?" recently published by The Australian, WikiLeaks founder and editor-in-chief Julian Assange quoted a young Rupert Murdoch writing in 1958 and saying: "In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win."
Assange defended his "scientific journalism" as practised by his four-year-old website and he argues in the piece that his style of journalism enables readers to make independent judgments both about the journalist and also about the content of the published material.
Assange says he is inspired most by his childhood background when he grew up in the "dark days of corruption" in the State of Queensland, Australia.
When a society is riddled with corruption there is always this irresistible urge to expose the perpetrators and whistle-blowing has always been known to be the best way of exposing the powerful and corrupt elites.
While it is not a secret to the average Zimbabwean that MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai is a "flawed figure", chinhu chakadhanganyika in Shona, the confirmation of this characterisation by the very person who spent half a decade in Zimbabwe publicly propping up and magnifying the image of Tsvangirai was most revealing. Christopher Dell made truth prevail over secrecy — here the secrecy being not the flawed character of Tsvangirai, but the truthful attitude of American elites towards Africa’s most prominent puppet politician.
It was also very informative for Zimbabweans to learn that Christopher Dell called President Mugabe "a dictator" in public and "a brilliant tactician" in private, or at his honest best.
WikiLeaks brought out hard truths about the Iraq and Afghan wars, mainly the fact that these are not just wars but unjust wars based on falsehoods and deliberately told lies meant to mislead the Western public into committing both their lives and resources to a cause that is no less than con.
Also revealed are secrets on corporate corruption, Hillary Clinton’s instruction that US diplomats were to steal information and personal details from UN officials, the call for the US invasion of Iran by Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah and that Britain’s Iraq war inquiry was no more than a fixed act designed to protect "US interests".
These revelations have been described as "risking people’s lives", "threatening national security" and "endangering troops" and the US has shown ruthless determination to eliminate both the website WikiLeaks and its members, particularly its founder member, Julian Assange.
Credit card corporations Visa and MasterCard were both bullied and arm-twisted into pulling the pin on WikiLeaks and the US government made this a very public gesture. PayPal was instructed to do the same and Amazon and many other website host companies were also ordered to terminate relationships with WikiLeaks. The instruction from the White House has been to "knive Julian Assange’s baby".
One would think this was a nasty piece of act from a notorious totalitarian state run by a tyrant irreversibly addicted to dynastical power, not from the self-proclaimed home of freedom and democratic values — the United States of America.
Barrack Obama’s administration has told the world that Julian Assange needs to be "taken out" and US maverick Sarah Palin has said Assange must be "hunted down like Osama bin Laden".
An advisor to the Canadian Prime Minister publicly called for the assassination of Assange and threats have been extended to the family of Julian Assange, including to his 20-year-old son, who has been threatened with kidnapping and harm so his father can be silenced.
It is very hard to imagine this repressive behaviour is emanating from a Western community, and it is even harder to imagine that Barrack Obama has something to do with it, and that the targeted victim of this most uncivilised brutality is an Australian, a Westerner and a citizen of a country that prides itself as a leading democracy.
Such persecution of journalists is often reported from countries accused of totalitarianism and despotism and the persecuted journalists from these countries often receive numerous awards from the West for bravery and courageous journalism.
One wonders if any such award will come from the US’ many foundations that often claim to champion the cause for democracy and accountability.
Julian Assange’s award comes from the people, the very people who for years have been cheated, misled and conned by successive US governments, and that award has already been given.
The persecution of Julian Assange and his subsequent arrest on what appears to be contrived charges for sexual crimes allegedly committed in Sweden are all a pathetic sign of US hypocrisy and many people are clearly appalled.
The US is basically charging that WikiLeaks and other media publishing these secret US diplomatic cables have all become too independent and too powerful for the public good and this charge is not new at all — it is not the first and will not be the last.
Defending the media against a similar charge, Anthony Lewis of the New York Times once wrote: "The Press is protected (by the First Amendment) not for its own sake but to enable a free political system to operate. In the end, the concern is not for the reporter or the editor but for the citizen-critic of government."
In his argument, Lewis made it clear that when we speak about freedom of the Press, what is at stake "is the freedom to perform a function on behalf of the polity".
He cited Supreme Court judge Powell, who observed: "no individual can obtain for himself the information needed for the intelligent discharge of his political responsibilities . . . By enabling the public to assert meaningful control over the political process, the Press performs a crucial function in effecting the societal purpose of the First Amendment".
Judge Gurfein ruled in support of the New York Times’ right to publish the Pentagon Papers after the US government had failed to show any threat of a breach of security but only the possibility of embarrassment.
Said Judge Gurfein: "A cantankerous Press, an obstinate Press, a ubiquitous Press must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the even greater values of freedom of expression and the right of the people to know."
In the book "Manufacturing Consent", Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky co-wrote: "We do not accept the view that freedom of expression must be defended in instrumental terms, by virtue of its contribution to some higher good; rather, it is a value in itself."
The self-image of Western media and the reality in the Western political culture is today a matter of no mean concern.
The contrast to the view that the media are cantankerous, obstinate and ubiquitous in their search for truth and their independence of authority and Herman and Chomsky looked at the propaganda model that sees the media as serving a "societal purpose".
This societal purpose is not that of enabling the public to assert meaningful control over the political process by providing them with the information needed for the intelligent discharge of political responsibilities, something the leaked US diplomatic cables certainly do. It is rather a contrived societal purpose that serves elitist aspirations and goals.
Zimbabweans, for example, can exercise full political responsibility in the coming election as they are now very clear of the relationship between the ever-meddling US and the puppet MDC-T party, as captained by its "flawed figure" leader, Tsvangirai, thanks to the leaked cables.
The propaganda model suggests that the societal purpose of the media is to inculcate and defend the economic, social, and political agenda of privileged groups that dominate the domestic society and the state.
The US and its Western allies are now too used to the media that serve the purpose of defending elitist interests and that is done in so many ways. There is the infamous selection of topics, the elitist distribution of concerns, the disgusting framing of issues, filtering of information, emphasis and tone, as well as the confining of debate to acceptable premises and bounds.
In the book "Manufacturing Consent" Herman and Chomsky sought to show that the Western propaganda model’s expectations are often realised, even surpassed, and this is why Western governments preach that their media are free to express themselves, but not when they do what WikiLeaks just did. Julian Assange’s case falls out of these expectations and in this regard his media outlet is an act of "terrorism" and this is why the man is being hunted down.
Chief Justice Hughes cited "the primary need of a vigilant and courageous Press" in order for democratic processes to function in a meaningful way and that is fairly straightforward and expected. However, the evidence reviewed by Herman and Chomsky indicated that this need is not met or even "weakly approximated" in real practice.
Some have argued that today’s media, particularly those in the West, are more independent than the media in past years. Lewis asserted that the past generations taught the modern media to exercise "the power to root about in our national life, exposing what they deem right for exposure", without regard to external pressures or the dictates of authority. Assange will disagree today.
In the 1970s and the 1980s, the reporting on the Tet offensive was taken as a classical example of how the media had gone too far in their exuberant independence and challenge to authority, so far that they had to be curbed if democracy were to survive.
But even these cases demonstrated the subordination of the media to the requirements of the state propaganda system. At the peak of this alleged media independence, and as the Vietnam War entered its final period, and as the media were threatening Richard Nixon’s presidency, the subordination to these demands never flagged.
This was illustrated by the media coverage of the Paris peace treaty of 1973, one of the most flagrant examples of media misrepresentation based on an uncritical reiteration of official claims and adherence to the political agenda of the state — only comparable to the media misrepresentations that hit Nicaragua in the eighties when the US was propping the Contras against the democratically elected and popular Sandinista government led by Daniel Ortega, or perhaps the onslaught on Zimbabwe after the country embarked on a popular land reform programme that displaced white commercial farmers.
The Watergate affair is to critics of the media an illustration of the media’s irresponsible excesses and the word "irresponsible" has been used by the Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, in describing Julian Assange.
To those who defend the media Watergate represents media independence and commitment to the values of professional journalism. So we have two sides of the story here.
The major scandal of Watergate as portrayed by the mainstream media was that the Nixon government sent a bunch of petty criminals to break into the Democratic Party Headquarters for obscure reasons.
The only reason Nixon’s actions were scandalous was that he carried his mischief against an organisation that represented powerful domestic interests in the United States — the interests of the powerful from the business community.
At the time Nixon got involved in the Watergate scandal, the Socialist Workers Party, a legally registered political party, which represented no powerful interests, had several break-ins and disruptions from the FBI.
This was not a scandal at all, and the disruptions and break ins kept going on for a decade — a violation of democratic principles far more serious and extensive than any of the charges brought up during the Watergate hearings.
The actions of the FBI were only part of a well-calculated government plan extending over many administrations to deter independent political action, stir up violence in the ghettos, and undermine the popular movements that were beginning to engage sectors of the generally marginalised public in decision making.
Despite being brought up in court, the actions of the FBI did not attract much media attention and that is why the police assassination of a Black Panther organiser in Chicago was not a scandal at all.
The genocide carried out by the US in Cambodia only entered the Watergate marginally, not because this gruesome war crime killed hundreds of thousands of Cambodians, but precisely because Congress was not properly notified, so much that its privileges were infringed.
When the Western media criticises President Mugabe for calling for an election, the crime in question is not the act of calling for an election, but the fact that such an election is called for when Morgan Tsvangirai’s party is in disarray and therefore when Tsvangirai is not ready.
It is not a scandal when Tsvangirai discussed illegal ways of removing a democratically elected government with US diplomats, but it is a scandal when Mugabe announces that after the lifespan of the Zanu-PF-MDC inclusive Government, there will be elections.
This is the propaganda model that manipulates the media and yet we stand lectured that there exists in the West something called Press freedom.
Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!
Reason Wafawarova is a political writer and can be contacted on wafawarova@yahoo.co.uk or reason@rwafawa rova. com or visit www.rwafawarova.com
SEE ALSO
Wikileaks confirms the puppets in MDC that we already knew
The Herald
 |
| WikiLeaker...Julian Assange persecuted for exposing US diplomatic hypocrisy |
IN his defence piece "Why shoot the Messenger?" recently published by The Australian, WikiLeaks founder and editor-in-chief Julian Assange quoted a young Rupert Murdoch writing in 1958 and saying: "In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win."
Assange defended his "scientific journalism" as practised by his four-year-old website and he argues in the piece that his style of journalism enables readers to make independent judgments both about the journalist and also about the content of the published material.
Assange says he is inspired most by his childhood background when he grew up in the "dark days of corruption" in the State of Queensland, Australia.
When a society is riddled with corruption there is always this irresistible urge to expose the perpetrators and whistle-blowing has always been known to be the best way of exposing the powerful and corrupt elites.
While it is not a secret to the average Zimbabwean that MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai is a "flawed figure", chinhu chakadhanganyika in Shona, the confirmation of this characterisation by the very person who spent half a decade in Zimbabwe publicly propping up and magnifying the image of Tsvangirai was most revealing. Christopher Dell made truth prevail over secrecy — here the secrecy being not the flawed character of Tsvangirai, but the truthful attitude of American elites towards Africa’s most prominent puppet politician.
It was also very informative for Zimbabweans to learn that Christopher Dell called President Mugabe "a dictator" in public and "a brilliant tactician" in private, or at his honest best.
WikiLeaks brought out hard truths about the Iraq and Afghan wars, mainly the fact that these are not just wars but unjust wars based on falsehoods and deliberately told lies meant to mislead the Western public into committing both their lives and resources to a cause that is no less than con.
Also revealed are secrets on corporate corruption, Hillary Clinton’s instruction that US diplomats were to steal information and personal details from UN officials, the call for the US invasion of Iran by Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah and that Britain’s Iraq war inquiry was no more than a fixed act designed to protect "US interests".
These revelations have been described as "risking people’s lives", "threatening national security" and "endangering troops" and the US has shown ruthless determination to eliminate both the website WikiLeaks and its members, particularly its founder member, Julian Assange.
Credit card corporations Visa and MasterCard were both bullied and arm-twisted into pulling the pin on WikiLeaks and the US government made this a very public gesture. PayPal was instructed to do the same and Amazon and many other website host companies were also ordered to terminate relationships with WikiLeaks. The instruction from the White House has been to "knive Julian Assange’s baby".
One would think this was a nasty piece of act from a notorious totalitarian state run by a tyrant irreversibly addicted to dynastical power, not from the self-proclaimed home of freedom and democratic values — the United States of America.
Barrack Obama’s administration has told the world that Julian Assange needs to be "taken out" and US maverick Sarah Palin has said Assange must be "hunted down like Osama bin Laden".
An advisor to the Canadian Prime Minister publicly called for the assassination of Assange and threats have been extended to the family of Julian Assange, including to his 20-year-old son, who has been threatened with kidnapping and harm so his father can be silenced.
It is very hard to imagine this repressive behaviour is emanating from a Western community, and it is even harder to imagine that Barrack Obama has something to do with it, and that the targeted victim of this most uncivilised brutality is an Australian, a Westerner and a citizen of a country that prides itself as a leading democracy.
Such persecution of journalists is often reported from countries accused of totalitarianism and despotism and the persecuted journalists from these countries often receive numerous awards from the West for bravery and courageous journalism.
One wonders if any such award will come from the US’ many foundations that often claim to champion the cause for democracy and accountability.
Julian Assange’s award comes from the people, the very people who for years have been cheated, misled and conned by successive US governments, and that award has already been given.
The persecution of Julian Assange and his subsequent arrest on what appears to be contrived charges for sexual crimes allegedly committed in Sweden are all a pathetic sign of US hypocrisy and many people are clearly appalled.
The US is basically charging that WikiLeaks and other media publishing these secret US diplomatic cables have all become too independent and too powerful for the public good and this charge is not new at all — it is not the first and will not be the last.
Defending the media against a similar charge, Anthony Lewis of the New York Times once wrote: "The Press is protected (by the First Amendment) not for its own sake but to enable a free political system to operate. In the end, the concern is not for the reporter or the editor but for the citizen-critic of government."
In his argument, Lewis made it clear that when we speak about freedom of the Press, what is at stake "is the freedom to perform a function on behalf of the polity".
He cited Supreme Court judge Powell, who observed: "no individual can obtain for himself the information needed for the intelligent discharge of his political responsibilities . . . By enabling the public to assert meaningful control over the political process, the Press performs a crucial function in effecting the societal purpose of the First Amendment".
Judge Gurfein ruled in support of the New York Times’ right to publish the Pentagon Papers after the US government had failed to show any threat of a breach of security but only the possibility of embarrassment.
Said Judge Gurfein: "A cantankerous Press, an obstinate Press, a ubiquitous Press must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the even greater values of freedom of expression and the right of the people to know."
In the book "Manufacturing Consent", Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky co-wrote: "We do not accept the view that freedom of expression must be defended in instrumental terms, by virtue of its contribution to some higher good; rather, it is a value in itself."
The self-image of Western media and the reality in the Western political culture is today a matter of no mean concern.
The contrast to the view that the media are cantankerous, obstinate and ubiquitous in their search for truth and their independence of authority and Herman and Chomsky looked at the propaganda model that sees the media as serving a "societal purpose".
This societal purpose is not that of enabling the public to assert meaningful control over the political process by providing them with the information needed for the intelligent discharge of political responsibilities, something the leaked US diplomatic cables certainly do. It is rather a contrived societal purpose that serves elitist aspirations and goals.
Zimbabweans, for example, can exercise full political responsibility in the coming election as they are now very clear of the relationship between the ever-meddling US and the puppet MDC-T party, as captained by its "flawed figure" leader, Tsvangirai, thanks to the leaked cables.
The propaganda model suggests that the societal purpose of the media is to inculcate and defend the economic, social, and political agenda of privileged groups that dominate the domestic society and the state.
The US and its Western allies are now too used to the media that serve the purpose of defending elitist interests and that is done in so many ways. There is the infamous selection of topics, the elitist distribution of concerns, the disgusting framing of issues, filtering of information, emphasis and tone, as well as the confining of debate to acceptable premises and bounds.
In the book "Manufacturing Consent" Herman and Chomsky sought to show that the Western propaganda model’s expectations are often realised, even surpassed, and this is why Western governments preach that their media are free to express themselves, but not when they do what WikiLeaks just did. Julian Assange’s case falls out of these expectations and in this regard his media outlet is an act of "terrorism" and this is why the man is being hunted down.
Chief Justice Hughes cited "the primary need of a vigilant and courageous Press" in order for democratic processes to function in a meaningful way and that is fairly straightforward and expected. However, the evidence reviewed by Herman and Chomsky indicated that this need is not met or even "weakly approximated" in real practice.
Some have argued that today’s media, particularly those in the West, are more independent than the media in past years. Lewis asserted that the past generations taught the modern media to exercise "the power to root about in our national life, exposing what they deem right for exposure", without regard to external pressures or the dictates of authority. Assange will disagree today.
In the 1970s and the 1980s, the reporting on the Tet offensive was taken as a classical example of how the media had gone too far in their exuberant independence and challenge to authority, so far that they had to be curbed if democracy were to survive.
But even these cases demonstrated the subordination of the media to the requirements of the state propaganda system. At the peak of this alleged media independence, and as the Vietnam War entered its final period, and as the media were threatening Richard Nixon’s presidency, the subordination to these demands never flagged.
This was illustrated by the media coverage of the Paris peace treaty of 1973, one of the most flagrant examples of media misrepresentation based on an uncritical reiteration of official claims and adherence to the political agenda of the state — only comparable to the media misrepresentations that hit Nicaragua in the eighties when the US was propping the Contras against the democratically elected and popular Sandinista government led by Daniel Ortega, or perhaps the onslaught on Zimbabwe after the country embarked on a popular land reform programme that displaced white commercial farmers.
The Watergate affair is to critics of the media an illustration of the media’s irresponsible excesses and the word "irresponsible" has been used by the Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, in describing Julian Assange.
To those who defend the media Watergate represents media independence and commitment to the values of professional journalism. So we have two sides of the story here.
The major scandal of Watergate as portrayed by the mainstream media was that the Nixon government sent a bunch of petty criminals to break into the Democratic Party Headquarters for obscure reasons.
The only reason Nixon’s actions were scandalous was that he carried his mischief against an organisation that represented powerful domestic interests in the United States — the interests of the powerful from the business community.
At the time Nixon got involved in the Watergate scandal, the Socialist Workers Party, a legally registered political party, which represented no powerful interests, had several break-ins and disruptions from the FBI.
This was not a scandal at all, and the disruptions and break ins kept going on for a decade — a violation of democratic principles far more serious and extensive than any of the charges brought up during the Watergate hearings.
The actions of the FBI were only part of a well-calculated government plan extending over many administrations to deter independent political action, stir up violence in the ghettos, and undermine the popular movements that were beginning to engage sectors of the generally marginalised public in decision making.
Despite being brought up in court, the actions of the FBI did not attract much media attention and that is why the police assassination of a Black Panther organiser in Chicago was not a scandal at all.
The genocide carried out by the US in Cambodia only entered the Watergate marginally, not because this gruesome war crime killed hundreds of thousands of Cambodians, but precisely because Congress was not properly notified, so much that its privileges were infringed.
When the Western media criticises President Mugabe for calling for an election, the crime in question is not the act of calling for an election, but the fact that such an election is called for when Morgan Tsvangirai’s party is in disarray and therefore when Tsvangirai is not ready.
It is not a scandal when Tsvangirai discussed illegal ways of removing a democratically elected government with US diplomats, but it is a scandal when Mugabe announces that after the lifespan of the Zanu-PF-MDC inclusive Government, there will be elections.
This is the propaganda model that manipulates the media and yet we stand lectured that there exists in the West something called Press freedom.
Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!
Reason Wafawarova is a political writer and can be contacted on wafawarova@yahoo.co.uk or reason@rwafawa rova. com or visit www.rwafawarova.com
SEE ALSO
Wikileaks confirms the puppets in MDC that we already knew
Saturday, December 11, 2010
(Hypocritical) Western human rights concept vs Ubuntu
This celebration of the dispensation of torture and inhuman treatment in the 21st century by the same government that had violated Africans’ human and people’s rights in the name of fighting communism in the 20th century underlines the reason why all of the governments of Africa (except one) oppose the establishment of the US Africa Command. This hypocrisy of the US must be denounced on this international day for human rights.
Western concept of human rights and democracy has been premised on the liberal concept of property rights, which for centuries included the right to own, dehumanise, and exploit fellow human beings...
Western concept of human rights and democracy has been premised on the liberal concept of property rights, which for centuries included the right to own, dehumanise, and exploit fellow human beings...
By Horace Campbell
The celebration of Human Rights Day across the world will be meaningless without interrogating the significance of peoples’ rights in relationship to human livelihood and peaceful co-existence among humans and between humans and planet earth in the 21st century. Such interrogation should be geared towards unravelling the implications of new phenomena for our collective humanity in the 21st century. These phenomena include the Western conception of human rights based on exclusions and hierarchies, biotechnology and robotics revolution, genetic perdition and cloning, capitalist plundering of the earth, as well as the dehumanisation of human beings by neo-liberal capitalism.
Following the devastating war associated with the capitalist depression of 1929-1945, an international organisation, the United Nations, was formed with a mandate to promote world peace. There were four salient objectives outlined in the UN Charter: 1) to maintain world peace and security; 2) to protect the fundamental human rights and uphold the dignity and equality of all humans; 3) to create a forum for cooperation in solving international problems and in providing respect for international law; and 4) to promote freedom, advance human progress and achieve better standards of living.
In 1948, the UN agreed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which codified a common universal standard for the upholding of human dignity. Today, 10 December 2010, 62 years after the declaration, it is important for all people to reflect deeply on the meaning of human dignity in the 21st century. We want to remind our readers that the challenges of the moment demand that, in tandem with the ideals of Ubuntu, we elevate the new principle of the collective rights of human beings in the 21st century. The principle of Ubuntu which is now emerging as a core organising principle links humans to each other, to nature, and to the universe. It is this concept of shared humanity that we want to reflect on today so that we can promote an inclusive concept of peace, human dignity, and human rights.
THE UN DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
The idea of an international organisation such as the League of Nations had been shattered by military aggression, racism and xenophobia in Europe. Just as the US is now making mockery of the UN Charter, so the Germans and the Italians scuttled the idea of respect for national sovereignty and mutual respect. Africans remember vividly the Italian invasion of Abyssinia and the use of chemical and biological weapons against Africans by the fascist Benito Mussolini of Italy. The attempt to create an international organisation to settle disputes among nations took shape only after the debacles of fascism, war, capitalist depression, the Nazi Holocaust, and the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The genocide and mass killings of the Second World War had emanated from the genocidal mindset that had been celebrated as ‘development and progress.’ During the carnage of war the international momentum for peace gained force in the UN Charter, the Convention on Genocide, and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR). Despite the limitations of the implementation of the core elements of this declaration, it is important to state that oppressed peoples recognised the UDHR as a mobilising tool for the expansion of human and people’s rights. In the present environment of torture and the so-called global war on terror, the onslaught of austerity measures against people’s economic and cultural rights, and the general conflation of human rights with the rights of capitalists, it is important to expose the hollowness of Western human rights campaigns. Hence, we want to restate the importance of all the articles of the UDHR, but especially articles 1, 5, 22, and 25.
NO ONE SHALL BE SUBJECTED TO TORTURE
Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: ‘No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.’ Yet, capitalist torture is visited upon the majority of the citizens of the planet. Capitalist torture stretches from the sweatshops of Asia and the illegal mining fields of Eastern Congo to the toxic environmental pollution in the Niger Delta and the cancer alleys of New Orleans, as well as the threat of human incineration and denial of livelihood through global warming and biological colonisation of peoples of the Third World. To quote the former Irish president Mary Robinson, climate change now constitutes ‘the biggest human rights issue of the 21st century.’ International institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO and their capitalist allies lobby against the collective rights of working people as much as they do against governments’ collective will to solve such pressing problems as global warming. They align with governments to violate labour laws and prevent environmental protection that could guarantee ordinary people’s rights to habitable environments.
This torture is supported by an information war to insure that citizens are dumbed down so that they do not get up and stand up for their rights. The right to information as a basic right is now being highlighted by the intense campaign against Wikileaks. This campaign against information freedom and democratic access to information underlines the vulnerability of the ruling classes and the reality that they are now retreating from the basic liberal principles of the system of capitalism. In order to maintain this social system, a vast military machinery has been deployed by the USA to prop up dictators and torturers around the world. This international support for torture and inhuman treatment has meant that the leaders of the USA openly celebrate torturing humans. In his book, ‘Decision Point’, former US President George W. Bush boasted of giving orders for water boarding. Water boarding is torture. Torture is a violation of international law. But George W. Bush was simply giving voice to the opposition of the principles of the rights of human beings. It is the same US government that spends millions of dollars hypocritically promoting human rights and fighting terrorism.
This celebration of the dispensation of torture and inhuman treatment in the 21st century by the same government that had violated Africans’ human and people’s rights in the name of fighting communism in the 20th century underlines the reason why all of the governments of Africa (except one) oppose the establishment of the US Africa Command. This hypocrisy of the US must be denounced on this international day for human rights.
Western concept of human rights and democracy has been premised on the liberal concept of property rights, which for centuries included the right to own, dehumanise, and exploit fellow human beings. In the United States the liberal agenda of the rights of individuals has been to reinforce and extend the right of absolute private property. This meant that those who had the right to absolute private property could dehumanise others and designate them less than human. It was for this reason that the USA designated African peoples as three-fifths of human. It required a major war for the US constitution to recognise Africans as full humans.
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.’ This article no doubt was framed with the understanding of the Western concept of property rights which had legalised enslavement and claimed slaves were not equal humans with their European slave holders. The slave holders owned and commercialised the rights of enslaved persons, including their right to life. This is not only a question of the past. Those who want to patent life forms in the 21st century seek to give the right over life to profit-driven corporations. As sought by the intellectual property rights regime of the World Trade Organization, just about everything will be made into a commodity and corporations should have the right to patent life forms. There will be a new hierarchy of humans. In this context, select individuals and corporations would exercise the right to own the abstract and biological properties of things, such as genetic materials. They would monopolise the right to exclude others humans from freely using the products of the corporations’ patented genetic materials.
Digital technology now permeates the world with major implications for the concept of human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was written before the era when biotechnology rapidly moved from a purely academic field for research to a corporate forum. This year, Craig Venter announced that he had produced ‘synthetic’ life. For more than two decades the legal infrastructure of the USA has been preparing humans for this moment when capitalists could play God. In 1987, the Patents and Trademark Office (PTO) of the USA laid the basis for transnational corporations to grab new powers when the PTO decided to reverse its position regarding patenting and issued a ruling that all genetically engineered multi-cellular organisms (including animals) could be patented. The ruling excluded human beings however, due to the fact that the 13th amendment forbids human slavery. But the invention of ‘artificial’ life raises new issues for our common humanity. Jeremy Rifkin had reflected on this challenge when he noted, ‘genetically altered human embryos and fetuses as well as human genes, cell lines, tissues, and organs are potentially patentable, leaving open the possibility of patenting all of the separate parts, if not the whole, of a human being.’
Thus, the international human rights day should be seen as an opportunity to strengthen the articles of UDHR and all local and international legal tools that could be used to confront the challenges posed by property rights rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Samir Amin in his book, ‘The Liberal Virus’, demonstrates how the intellectual property rights regime, especially in the field of agriculture could lead to the decimation of a billion poor people. This magnitude of this challenge reinforces the question of what constitutes human rights in the 21st century.
EVERYONE HAS A RIGHT TO SOCIAL SECURITY
Article 22 of the UDHR states that: ‘Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.’ Though this article was not gender sensitive enough as evident in the use of ‘his’ in reference to men and women, the main point we want to highlight here is that the economic and social-cultural dimensions of rights are as important as the political rights. But in the dominant Western conception of human rights, the individual rights of capitalists to accumulate wealth (at the expense of the economic, social, and cultural wellbeing of human beings) are touted as though those were the essence of the totality of human dignity, peace, and freedom. This is especially evident in this era of capitalist depression when austerity measures are being imposed by the IMF, undermining the rights of workers and ordinary people to defend their socio-economic wellbeing. Today, the right to organise by women, students, workers, ordinary folks, and same gender loving persons remain core elements of international human rights agitation. One part of the commitment that could be made on this day of the celebration of international human rights is to study and expose these capitalist corporations instead of diverting attention through window-dressed studies on poverty alleviation that do not get to the roots of the problem.
At this juncture, we want to highlight article 25 of the UDHR. The first part of this article states that: ‘Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.’ Only the effects of the austerity measures as a response to the crumbling capitalist mode of economic organisation/re-organisation say it all: article 25 cannot be realised under the present mode of economic organisation. Realising the social and economic rights of humans requires a new social system in the 21st century.
The ruling classes are vulnerable on so many fronts, so they want people to forget the articles of the UDHR. The task of organising, educating, and mobilising people to this reality is becoming urgent but is confronted with the sophisticated propaganda machine that has been deployed by the generals and high priests of capitalism who make people fight against their own economic and social rights through the demonisation of the ideas of social collectivism.
EXTENDING RIGHTS IN THE 21ST CENTURY
In Africa, working people supported the UDHR as a document to use for mobilisation. In 1948, when this document was written, most African countries were under colonial rule. In the process of achieving their independence, Africans wrote their own Charter on Human and People’s Rights. Throughout the anti-colonial struggles, African intellectuals and human rights activists refused to accept the Western concept of human rights that excluded the question of self determination. These activists exposed the intellectual deformity that was manifest in the international campaign of powers that supported apartheid while championing human rights.
The African Charter on Human and People’s Rights which came into force in 1986 recognised that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights did not cover people’s collective rights, especially the right to self determination. The limitations of the UDHR were even clearer in terms of the rights of women. In 1979 the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was instituted as an attempt to repair one of the limitations of the UDHR. Thirty-one years after this convention, the US remains a non-signatory to it. The reproductive rights of women and their right to bodily integrity have taken the question of human rights beyond the state, church, patriarchal family forms, and conservative women. The battles over reproductive rights have brought into focus the fact that human rights cannot be separated from the rights of women and the right to healthcare. This is even more so in the context of the debate over the provision of universal health care in the United States. The healthcare industry and their allied politicians have so commercialised healthcare that not only was government intervention to provide universal healthcare coverage for tens of millions uninsured Americans denied, the over 200 million citizens who have health insurance are tied up in rigorous procedural complications designed to deny them access to the coverage they pay for while maximising profits for the health insurance companies. It is on the question of the reproductive rights of women that religious fundamentalists have now emerged as negative forces in the struggle for human rights. These fundamentalists mobilise ideas about tradition to reinforce patriarchal domination over women. The oppression of women is also linked to the oppression of same gender loving persons. Even some of the leading human rights advocates in Africa have been silent on the extreme anti-human statements that have been propounded by so-called ‘radical’ leaders in Africa. Within the rank of religious organisations, the most profound work is needed to challenge the anti-human position of those who would oppress same gender loving persons. Human rights in the 21st century must be extended to protect all human beings against all forms of torture and dehumanisation, whether in the name of religion and tradition or through the invisible hands of capitalism and neo-liberalism.
UBUNTU AND 21ST CENTURY HUMAN RIGHTS CHALLENGES
Those who organised for the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights worked hard to oppose dictatorship yesterday. Today, the new tasks require new thinking and new forms of organising. The task of re-humanisation and healing are linked to new modes of thinking and new forms of consciousness. At the time of the 1948 human rights declaration, Western governments gave themselves the prerogative to decide who is human and what is right. This was most evident in South Africa, where in the same 1948; the principles of apartheid were entrenched. Since the end of formal apartheid in 1994, international capitalism has sought to entrench a new global apartheid based on the kind of class structure that defends 1 or 2 per cent of the population. The towering challenges that confront humanity in the 21st century – environmental crisis, the crises of the capitalist mode of economic organisation, militarisation of the earth, and crises arising from the binary and hierarchical conception of human being – are now enough to take the veil of Western ideation of human and property rights off the face of our collective humanity. One of the central ideas I put forward in my book, ‘Barack Obama and 21st Century Politics’, is that a new concept of social collectivism (Ubuntu) must be the basis of economic, social, and political organisation if humans are to survive the challenges of the 21st century. As we celebrate international human rights day, we want to reiterate here that we cannot separate the question of human rights and Ubuntu – our linked humanity and our peaceful coexistence with planet earth – in the 21st century if we must have international peace and security.
Following the devastating war associated with the capitalist depression of 1929-1945, an international organisation, the United Nations, was formed with a mandate to promote world peace. There were four salient objectives outlined in the UN Charter: 1) to maintain world peace and security; 2) to protect the fundamental human rights and uphold the dignity and equality of all humans; 3) to create a forum for cooperation in solving international problems and in providing respect for international law; and 4) to promote freedom, advance human progress and achieve better standards of living.
In 1948, the UN agreed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which codified a common universal standard for the upholding of human dignity. Today, 10 December 2010, 62 years after the declaration, it is important for all people to reflect deeply on the meaning of human dignity in the 21st century. We want to remind our readers that the challenges of the moment demand that, in tandem with the ideals of Ubuntu, we elevate the new principle of the collective rights of human beings in the 21st century. The principle of Ubuntu which is now emerging as a core organising principle links humans to each other, to nature, and to the universe. It is this concept of shared humanity that we want to reflect on today so that we can promote an inclusive concept of peace, human dignity, and human rights.
THE UN DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
The idea of an international organisation such as the League of Nations had been shattered by military aggression, racism and xenophobia in Europe. Just as the US is now making mockery of the UN Charter, so the Germans and the Italians scuttled the idea of respect for national sovereignty and mutual respect. Africans remember vividly the Italian invasion of Abyssinia and the use of chemical and biological weapons against Africans by the fascist Benito Mussolini of Italy. The attempt to create an international organisation to settle disputes among nations took shape only after the debacles of fascism, war, capitalist depression, the Nazi Holocaust, and the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The genocide and mass killings of the Second World War had emanated from the genocidal mindset that had been celebrated as ‘development and progress.’ During the carnage of war the international momentum for peace gained force in the UN Charter, the Convention on Genocide, and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR). Despite the limitations of the implementation of the core elements of this declaration, it is important to state that oppressed peoples recognised the UDHR as a mobilising tool for the expansion of human and people’s rights. In the present environment of torture and the so-called global war on terror, the onslaught of austerity measures against people’s economic and cultural rights, and the general conflation of human rights with the rights of capitalists, it is important to expose the hollowness of Western human rights campaigns. Hence, we want to restate the importance of all the articles of the UDHR, but especially articles 1, 5, 22, and 25.
NO ONE SHALL BE SUBJECTED TO TORTURE
Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: ‘No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.’ Yet, capitalist torture is visited upon the majority of the citizens of the planet. Capitalist torture stretches from the sweatshops of Asia and the illegal mining fields of Eastern Congo to the toxic environmental pollution in the Niger Delta and the cancer alleys of New Orleans, as well as the threat of human incineration and denial of livelihood through global warming and biological colonisation of peoples of the Third World. To quote the former Irish president Mary Robinson, climate change now constitutes ‘the biggest human rights issue of the 21st century.’ International institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO and their capitalist allies lobby against the collective rights of working people as much as they do against governments’ collective will to solve such pressing problems as global warming. They align with governments to violate labour laws and prevent environmental protection that could guarantee ordinary people’s rights to habitable environments.
This torture is supported by an information war to insure that citizens are dumbed down so that they do not get up and stand up for their rights. The right to information as a basic right is now being highlighted by the intense campaign against Wikileaks. This campaign against information freedom and democratic access to information underlines the vulnerability of the ruling classes and the reality that they are now retreating from the basic liberal principles of the system of capitalism. In order to maintain this social system, a vast military machinery has been deployed by the USA to prop up dictators and torturers around the world. This international support for torture and inhuman treatment has meant that the leaders of the USA openly celebrate torturing humans. In his book, ‘Decision Point’, former US President George W. Bush boasted of giving orders for water boarding. Water boarding is torture. Torture is a violation of international law. But George W. Bush was simply giving voice to the opposition of the principles of the rights of human beings. It is the same US government that spends millions of dollars hypocritically promoting human rights and fighting terrorism.
This celebration of the dispensation of torture and inhuman treatment in the 21st century by the same government that had violated Africans’ human and people’s rights in the name of fighting communism in the 20th century underlines the reason why all of the governments of Africa (except one) oppose the establishment of the US Africa Command. This hypocrisy of the US must be denounced on this international day for human rights.
Western concept of human rights and democracy has been premised on the liberal concept of property rights, which for centuries included the right to own, dehumanise, and exploit fellow human beings. In the United States the liberal agenda of the rights of individuals has been to reinforce and extend the right of absolute private property. This meant that those who had the right to absolute private property could dehumanise others and designate them less than human. It was for this reason that the USA designated African peoples as three-fifths of human. It required a major war for the US constitution to recognise Africans as full humans.
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.’ This article no doubt was framed with the understanding of the Western concept of property rights which had legalised enslavement and claimed slaves were not equal humans with their European slave holders. The slave holders owned and commercialised the rights of enslaved persons, including their right to life. This is not only a question of the past. Those who want to patent life forms in the 21st century seek to give the right over life to profit-driven corporations. As sought by the intellectual property rights regime of the World Trade Organization, just about everything will be made into a commodity and corporations should have the right to patent life forms. There will be a new hierarchy of humans. In this context, select individuals and corporations would exercise the right to own the abstract and biological properties of things, such as genetic materials. They would monopolise the right to exclude others humans from freely using the products of the corporations’ patented genetic materials.
Digital technology now permeates the world with major implications for the concept of human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was written before the era when biotechnology rapidly moved from a purely academic field for research to a corporate forum. This year, Craig Venter announced that he had produced ‘synthetic’ life. For more than two decades the legal infrastructure of the USA has been preparing humans for this moment when capitalists could play God. In 1987, the Patents and Trademark Office (PTO) of the USA laid the basis for transnational corporations to grab new powers when the PTO decided to reverse its position regarding patenting and issued a ruling that all genetically engineered multi-cellular organisms (including animals) could be patented. The ruling excluded human beings however, due to the fact that the 13th amendment forbids human slavery. But the invention of ‘artificial’ life raises new issues for our common humanity. Jeremy Rifkin had reflected on this challenge when he noted, ‘genetically altered human embryos and fetuses as well as human genes, cell lines, tissues, and organs are potentially patentable, leaving open the possibility of patenting all of the separate parts, if not the whole, of a human being.’
Thus, the international human rights day should be seen as an opportunity to strengthen the articles of UDHR and all local and international legal tools that could be used to confront the challenges posed by property rights rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Samir Amin in his book, ‘The Liberal Virus’, demonstrates how the intellectual property rights regime, especially in the field of agriculture could lead to the decimation of a billion poor people. This magnitude of this challenge reinforces the question of what constitutes human rights in the 21st century.
EVERYONE HAS A RIGHT TO SOCIAL SECURITY
Article 22 of the UDHR states that: ‘Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.’ Though this article was not gender sensitive enough as evident in the use of ‘his’ in reference to men and women, the main point we want to highlight here is that the economic and social-cultural dimensions of rights are as important as the political rights. But in the dominant Western conception of human rights, the individual rights of capitalists to accumulate wealth (at the expense of the economic, social, and cultural wellbeing of human beings) are touted as though those were the essence of the totality of human dignity, peace, and freedom. This is especially evident in this era of capitalist depression when austerity measures are being imposed by the IMF, undermining the rights of workers and ordinary people to defend their socio-economic wellbeing. Today, the right to organise by women, students, workers, ordinary folks, and same gender loving persons remain core elements of international human rights agitation. One part of the commitment that could be made on this day of the celebration of international human rights is to study and expose these capitalist corporations instead of diverting attention through window-dressed studies on poverty alleviation that do not get to the roots of the problem.
At this juncture, we want to highlight article 25 of the UDHR. The first part of this article states that: ‘Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.’ Only the effects of the austerity measures as a response to the crumbling capitalist mode of economic organisation/re-organisation say it all: article 25 cannot be realised under the present mode of economic organisation. Realising the social and economic rights of humans requires a new social system in the 21st century.
The ruling classes are vulnerable on so many fronts, so they want people to forget the articles of the UDHR. The task of organising, educating, and mobilising people to this reality is becoming urgent but is confronted with the sophisticated propaganda machine that has been deployed by the generals and high priests of capitalism who make people fight against their own economic and social rights through the demonisation of the ideas of social collectivism.
EXTENDING RIGHTS IN THE 21ST CENTURY
In Africa, working people supported the UDHR as a document to use for mobilisation. In 1948, when this document was written, most African countries were under colonial rule. In the process of achieving their independence, Africans wrote their own Charter on Human and People’s Rights. Throughout the anti-colonial struggles, African intellectuals and human rights activists refused to accept the Western concept of human rights that excluded the question of self determination. These activists exposed the intellectual deformity that was manifest in the international campaign of powers that supported apartheid while championing human rights.
The African Charter on Human and People’s Rights which came into force in 1986 recognised that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights did not cover people’s collective rights, especially the right to self determination. The limitations of the UDHR were even clearer in terms of the rights of women. In 1979 the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was instituted as an attempt to repair one of the limitations of the UDHR. Thirty-one years after this convention, the US remains a non-signatory to it. The reproductive rights of women and their right to bodily integrity have taken the question of human rights beyond the state, church, patriarchal family forms, and conservative women. The battles over reproductive rights have brought into focus the fact that human rights cannot be separated from the rights of women and the right to healthcare. This is even more so in the context of the debate over the provision of universal health care in the United States. The healthcare industry and their allied politicians have so commercialised healthcare that not only was government intervention to provide universal healthcare coverage for tens of millions uninsured Americans denied, the over 200 million citizens who have health insurance are tied up in rigorous procedural complications designed to deny them access to the coverage they pay for while maximising profits for the health insurance companies. It is on the question of the reproductive rights of women that religious fundamentalists have now emerged as negative forces in the struggle for human rights. These fundamentalists mobilise ideas about tradition to reinforce patriarchal domination over women. The oppression of women is also linked to the oppression of same gender loving persons. Even some of the leading human rights advocates in Africa have been silent on the extreme anti-human statements that have been propounded by so-called ‘radical’ leaders in Africa. Within the rank of religious organisations, the most profound work is needed to challenge the anti-human position of those who would oppress same gender loving persons. Human rights in the 21st century must be extended to protect all human beings against all forms of torture and dehumanisation, whether in the name of religion and tradition or through the invisible hands of capitalism and neo-liberalism.
UBUNTU AND 21ST CENTURY HUMAN RIGHTS CHALLENGES
Those who organised for the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights worked hard to oppose dictatorship yesterday. Today, the new tasks require new thinking and new forms of organising. The task of re-humanisation and healing are linked to new modes of thinking and new forms of consciousness. At the time of the 1948 human rights declaration, Western governments gave themselves the prerogative to decide who is human and what is right. This was most evident in South Africa, where in the same 1948; the principles of apartheid were entrenched. Since the end of formal apartheid in 1994, international capitalism has sought to entrench a new global apartheid based on the kind of class structure that defends 1 or 2 per cent of the population. The towering challenges that confront humanity in the 21st century – environmental crisis, the crises of the capitalist mode of economic organisation, militarisation of the earth, and crises arising from the binary and hierarchical conception of human being – are now enough to take the veil of Western ideation of human and property rights off the face of our collective humanity. One of the central ideas I put forward in my book, ‘Barack Obama and 21st Century Politics’, is that a new concept of social collectivism (Ubuntu) must be the basis of economic, social, and political organisation if humans are to survive the challenges of the 21st century. As we celebrate international human rights day, we want to reiterate here that we cannot separate the question of human rights and Ubuntu – our linked humanity and our peaceful coexistence with planet earth – in the 21st century if we must have international peace and security.
Friday, December 10, 2010
New diamond move welcome
Diamonds have assumed strategic significance and could soon be to Zimbabwe what oil is to Saudi Arabia. In fact, it is believed that by 2013 this country will be the largest producer of the gems, with potential to earn at least US$2 billion per year, enough to finance an entire national budget.
WITH the discovery and commercial exploitation of diamonds in Marange, millions of Zimbabweans have pinned hopes for a better standard of living on the resource although the real benefits have so far not accrued to the ordinary man.
The mining and sale of the gems have largely remained far-fetched processes exclusive to a few, with very little, if anything trickling down.
It is against this background that we applaud the bold move by Cabinet this week to allow the State to own 100 percent of all alluvial diamond mining activities in this country. This is the way to go as the country seeks to harness its resources to improve the economy, hence the welfare of its citizenry.
We hope Parliament will move with haste to put in place the necessary laws.
Diamonds have assumed strategic significance and could soon be to Zimbabwe what oil is to Saudi Arabia. In fact, it is believed that by 2013 this country will be the largest producer of the gems, with potential to earn at least US$2 billion per year, enough to finance an entire national budget.
Statistics show that the world market for rough diamonds is valued at US$19 billion annually while the retail diamond jewellery sector is estimated at US$90 billion.
Therefore, we need to make the most of this God-given resource and better our lives and even those of future generations.
Thus, if the State gains control of the mining and processing, the revenue accrued therefrom will directly benefit the country at large while enhancing Government’s capacity to determine the allocation of such benefits.
Alluvial diamond mining is not a very complicated process hence Government should be able to mobilise skills in this regard. Training will be required for beneficiation, with small companies and other such gaining opportunities to cut and polish and even retail the gems.
These measures should leave the State with more resources at its disposal.
Government expenditure in recent years has been minimal because of lack of fiscal space hence revenue generated from diamonds and other minerals should give it more muscle while ensuring such projects as infrastructure development and social welfare are adequately financed.
Its failure to sufficiently remunerate the civil service could soon become a thing of the past given the potential resident in the diamond sector in particular and the mining industry in general.
A few months ago the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation declared a US$30 million dividend to Government.
Had the State fully owned the diamond sector, much more would have been injected into the fiscus.
The economy needs significant funds to boost turnaround efforts.
The proposed Community Share Ownership Scheme through which local communities will be entitled to 10 percent of gross profits should also give impetus to efforts to uplift such communities.
The funds will be used for health, education, roads, agricultural activities and others as desired by the respective communities.
Gone are the days when locals would just watch while their resources were taken away.
This move will also promote ownership of resources by locals while discouraging leakages and other illegal mining activities.
For instance, the people of Marange should be able to enjoy the fruits of diamond mining in a more legal and structured manner as opposed to illegal and costly activities that welcomed the discovery of diamonds in that part of the country a few years ago.
While this may prove too bitter a pill to swallow for some investors, the new requirement for Government to also own 51 percent of all new mining projects bodes well for Zimbabwe’s socio-economic development.
Investors will need to understand the importance of any country to own its resources.
It is only logical that that happens.
It is time Zimbabwe and other African countries were in control of their God-given resources.
Inclusive Government: the marriage we could do without
For the mere reason that the MDC is incorrigible in Sadc’s sense of expecting African babies, the inclusive Government justifiably passes for a sick and disgusting arrangement.
The HeraldReflections with Tichaona Zindoga
Yesterday, we woke up to a screaming announcement that the inclusive Government’s life would be extended by six months.
The reason was to give the administration more time to stick around.
Zanu-PF, we were told, was hoping "to influence the passage of cosmetic electoral reforms during the six months" to win over the regional bloc, Sadc.
MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai, at his other home in Brussels, is reported to have hinted on the extension of the life of the GPA on the same grounds, although, in the paper’s view Tsvangirai’s call was more magnanimous (after all he is by and large a democrat, is he not?).
And has Arthur Mutambara not been derided before for saying that the inclusive Government’s life should be extended, for five years even?
The GPA, after all, did not cast in stone the life of the inclusive Government except for some timelines, which in all pragmatism can or cannot be met.
But then the GPA is paradox itself.
For all the modest good it has achieved so far, it is one that has been derided for the whole of its obviously-short lifetime.
And when it should be given a coup de grace, it would seem it gets some cruel sympathy for longevity, one way or the other.
The question of elections in 2011 has aptly demonstrated this.
We then see extraordinary common resolve among our politicians to halt any mercy-blow to the wobbly "inclusive" Government.
Just recently, there was unison that it was either hefty payouts or no election term-enders for parliamentarians.
This institution since its formation via the agreement among Zimbabwe’s top political parties — Zanu-PF and the two MDC formations — in September 2008, has earned — or suffered — a lot of descriptions.
Call it the creativity of Zimbabwean people, for which we are famed, but many people have come up with adjectives and names relating to this institution that one can never be sure of what kind of a grotesque creature it is.
Suffice to say we do not much recall the previous Zanu-PF administrations being as labelled or qualified as the present one.
One can ask the question: does the fact that Zanu-PF came together with the other parties in Government make the administration any less — or more — a government warranting the prefix "inclusive" all the time?
Does leaving out the same prefix at some point have any bearing on the nature and operations of the unitary being of the Government, though made up of oft-contradictory forces it might be?
This brings the one important point that has been the "inclusive" Government’s idiosyncrasy.
The idiosyncrasy of being named, and derided; never of course, to name and shame in reply.
Just recently, the man from our very own area now in the lofty heights of the Prime Minister’s Office who, last time I checked this week was in Brussels and later updated us that he was in Dubai, and yet further in Jo’burg, personally confided to me just one more description.
"To tell you," he confided in me, "the inclusive Government is akin to a forced gay marriage of two heterosexual partners. Both partners are sleeping at the edges of the bed after being forced into this bedroom, but Sadc is patiently expecting a child."
(He later put that on his Facebook wall, which confirmed my very observation at the time that he was quite pleased with his new-found philosophy and loving the very sound of his voice, just like the other motor-mouth one.)
It will be interesting to visit the import of this new-found construct.
The first dimension will be that of a "forced gay marriage".
We thought all along that the GPA was not signed at gunpoint, as Chamisa would put it?
Was the GPA not some kind of sensible arrangement, which would bring goodwill for the parties after gruelling encounters that sometimes treaded on the poor grass in the ordinary man and woman?
The breather could even give the MDCs, in particular that one led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, the chance to muscle out Zanu-PF and get power on behalf of the masters in the West.
Zanu-PF, in turn, could be trusted to use this arrangement to regain lost ground and eventually bury the quisling MDCs.
Given such strong undercurrents, and the high stakes, surely the parties entered into the "marriage" with some kind of bliss, if not of the evil, scheming kind.
And necessarily for some outcome or the other, uncharacteristic of gay consorting.
An important point though, for all that is known, the "heterosexual" MDC-T is married to America and its allies, while Zanu-PF is reposed on its people and on the continent.
(And thanks to WikiLeaks, we know just what a despicable and despised mistress the MDC is in the eyes of its "partners").
That is strictly the reason why the partners could sleep on the edges of the Sadc-brokered GPA bed.
Remember Thabo Mbeki having to remind Tsvangirai and co. in a strong-worded letter that their fate lay in the African neighbourhood rather than far away in America or Europe?
In that context Sadc always thought and hoped that the MDC would reform and bring forth African babies.
For the mere reason that the MDC is incorrigible in Sadc’s sense of expecting African babies, the inclusive Government justifiably passes for a sick and disgusting arrangement.
President Mugabe recently revealed that he felt "awkward" being in the coalition government.
The frustration is understandable.
He revealed to The Sunday Mail: "I told President Zuma I am a lawyer and I am unhappy to be in a thing which is semi-legal. We have to be in a thing which is proper; which is constitutional. I feel awkward in a thing like that (the GPA), absolutely awkward.
"Our authority as a Government does not derive from a properly constituted constitutional position but from a makeshift arrangement and Zimbabwe should never be governed on such a makeshift arrangement for too long."
He must also have added that it feels awkward to work with the mistresses of the West parading as political parties.
These are the very same forces that asked for hurtful sanctions to be imposed on the country by the West and when the treason faced up to them disowned them in public while urging the West to maintain the sanctions.
Even when the very West has clearly bared the soul that they are out to use, condom-like, the MDC for their selfish ends Tsvangirai, my village boy in tow, goes there and pretends he is a statesman.
That is disgusting stuff.
The makeshift MDC with a makeshift leadership in Tsvangirai in a makeshift "inclusive" Government are not made to inspire much confidence.
The better the revolutionary Zanu-PF comes to continue with its liberating mandate, which had suffered the Western-made setback the better.
The reason was to give the administration more time to stick around.
Zanu-PF, we were told, was hoping "to influence the passage of cosmetic electoral reforms during the six months" to win over the regional bloc, Sadc.
MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai, at his other home in Brussels, is reported to have hinted on the extension of the life of the GPA on the same grounds, although, in the paper’s view Tsvangirai’s call was more magnanimous (after all he is by and large a democrat, is he not?).
And has Arthur Mutambara not been derided before for saying that the inclusive Government’s life should be extended, for five years even?
The GPA, after all, did not cast in stone the life of the inclusive Government except for some timelines, which in all pragmatism can or cannot be met.
But then the GPA is paradox itself.
For all the modest good it has achieved so far, it is one that has been derided for the whole of its obviously-short lifetime.
And when it should be given a coup de grace, it would seem it gets some cruel sympathy for longevity, one way or the other.
The question of elections in 2011 has aptly demonstrated this.
We then see extraordinary common resolve among our politicians to halt any mercy-blow to the wobbly "inclusive" Government.
Just recently, there was unison that it was either hefty payouts or no election term-enders for parliamentarians.
This institution since its formation via the agreement among Zimbabwe’s top political parties — Zanu-PF and the two MDC formations — in September 2008, has earned — or suffered — a lot of descriptions.
Call it the creativity of Zimbabwean people, for which we are famed, but many people have come up with adjectives and names relating to this institution that one can never be sure of what kind of a grotesque creature it is.
Suffice to say we do not much recall the previous Zanu-PF administrations being as labelled or qualified as the present one.
One can ask the question: does the fact that Zanu-PF came together with the other parties in Government make the administration any less — or more — a government warranting the prefix "inclusive" all the time?
Does leaving out the same prefix at some point have any bearing on the nature and operations of the unitary being of the Government, though made up of oft-contradictory forces it might be?
This brings the one important point that has been the "inclusive" Government’s idiosyncrasy.
The idiosyncrasy of being named, and derided; never of course, to name and shame in reply.
Just recently, the man from our very own area now in the lofty heights of the Prime Minister’s Office who, last time I checked this week was in Brussels and later updated us that he was in Dubai, and yet further in Jo’burg, personally confided to me just one more description.
"To tell you," he confided in me, "the inclusive Government is akin to a forced gay marriage of two heterosexual partners. Both partners are sleeping at the edges of the bed after being forced into this bedroom, but Sadc is patiently expecting a child."
(He later put that on his Facebook wall, which confirmed my very observation at the time that he was quite pleased with his new-found philosophy and loving the very sound of his voice, just like the other motor-mouth one.)
It will be interesting to visit the import of this new-found construct.
The first dimension will be that of a "forced gay marriage".
We thought all along that the GPA was not signed at gunpoint, as Chamisa would put it?
Was the GPA not some kind of sensible arrangement, which would bring goodwill for the parties after gruelling encounters that sometimes treaded on the poor grass in the ordinary man and woman?
The breather could even give the MDCs, in particular that one led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, the chance to muscle out Zanu-PF and get power on behalf of the masters in the West.
Zanu-PF, in turn, could be trusted to use this arrangement to regain lost ground and eventually bury the quisling MDCs.
Given such strong undercurrents, and the high stakes, surely the parties entered into the "marriage" with some kind of bliss, if not of the evil, scheming kind.
And necessarily for some outcome or the other, uncharacteristic of gay consorting.
An important point though, for all that is known, the "heterosexual" MDC-T is married to America and its allies, while Zanu-PF is reposed on its people and on the continent.
(And thanks to WikiLeaks, we know just what a despicable and despised mistress the MDC is in the eyes of its "partners").
That is strictly the reason why the partners could sleep on the edges of the Sadc-brokered GPA bed.
Remember Thabo Mbeki having to remind Tsvangirai and co. in a strong-worded letter that their fate lay in the African neighbourhood rather than far away in America or Europe?
In that context Sadc always thought and hoped that the MDC would reform and bring forth African babies.
For the mere reason that the MDC is incorrigible in Sadc’s sense of expecting African babies, the inclusive Government justifiably passes for a sick and disgusting arrangement.
President Mugabe recently revealed that he felt "awkward" being in the coalition government.
The frustration is understandable.
He revealed to The Sunday Mail: "I told President Zuma I am a lawyer and I am unhappy to be in a thing which is semi-legal. We have to be in a thing which is proper; which is constitutional. I feel awkward in a thing like that (the GPA), absolutely awkward.
"Our authority as a Government does not derive from a properly constituted constitutional position but from a makeshift arrangement and Zimbabwe should never be governed on such a makeshift arrangement for too long."
He must also have added that it feels awkward to work with the mistresses of the West parading as political parties.
These are the very same forces that asked for hurtful sanctions to be imposed on the country by the West and when the treason faced up to them disowned them in public while urging the West to maintain the sanctions.
Even when the very West has clearly bared the soul that they are out to use, condom-like, the MDC for their selfish ends Tsvangirai, my village boy in tow, goes there and pretends he is a statesman.
That is disgusting stuff.
The makeshift MDC with a makeshift leadership in Tsvangirai in a makeshift "inclusive" Government are not made to inspire much confidence.
The better the revolutionary Zanu-PF comes to continue with its liberating mandate, which had suffered the Western-made setback the better.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
No, Haiti should NOT become a UN Protectorate
A critical assessment of Haiti’s history and current affairs reveals that the one thing Haiti has never enjoyed is the right to govern itself and develop on its own terms without significant foreign intervention of all forms, economic, political, social. Thus, it is difficult to see how a UN Protectorate being made of Haiti would mean anything other than a re-packaging of more of the same that would result in furthering the underdevelopment of Haiti...
- A closer look at Haiti’s history demonstrating ‘how deeply problematic it is to think that the US and France should play any role in the governance and internal policy-making of Haiti in response to Winston D. Munnings’ commentary entitled, ‘Should Haiti Become a UN Protectorate?’, which was published by Caribbean News Now on 22 November 2010.
By Anthony Morgan.
Indeed, as Mr Munnings notes, it is true that the Haitian people have endured and continue to endure some of the worst tragedies we have come to learn of in recent history. However, the fact that ‘there is no other nation in the Western Hemisphere that has endured the adversities and misfortunes as that of the Republic of Haiti and its people’, as Mr Munnings writes, seems to suggest that foreign interventions in the country need to be reduced instead of increased given the proven and unprecedented strength, resilience and spirit the Haitian people have demonstrated in the face of incredible odds, and which they have exemplified to the world since achieving independence in 1804.
As Mr Munnings rightfully notes, Haiti’s problem did not begin with the devastating earthquake of 12 January 2010. However, it is not true that the country’s problems ‘started a half century ago under a merciless dictatorship, a poorly planned economy, greed, corruption, isolation’. Yes, the dual Duvalier dictators (first of Papa Doc Duvalier 1957-71, and his son, Baby Doc Duvalier,1971-1986) engaged in an appalling and criminal campaign of tyranny, terrorism, repression and neglect against the Haitian people for the entire duration of their reign. But Haiti’s problems began at least 185 years ago in 1825. Here’s how:
In the early 1800s, the existence of a free black republic was a great threat to the major profiteers and politicians of Europe and America because of their heavy economic dependence on the unfree labour of enslaved Blacks at the time. As such, Haiti was diplomatically and commercially isolated by the rest of the world out of fear that other enslaved Africans around the world would revolt in demand of their freedom. In other words, Haiti’s punishment for achieving freedom and independence was that the economic powers of the world totally isolated Haiti in attempts to make the Haitian economy fall into total collapse, the purpose of which was dissuade other blacks from entertaining ideas of living free and governing their own affairs (this logic is currently being applied to Cuba).
By 1825 Haiti’s leaders had decided that the people of Haiti could suffer the effects of global economic isolation no more. With a bankrupt economy, they invited officials from France to a summit. As if Haitian people had not paid enough through being stolen from Africa and enslaved to make European descendants wealthy, or through the blood shed to defeat European armies and gain independence, the French officials decided that they would only recognise Haiti as a sovereign state and engage in commercial relations with this black republic if Haiti paid France 150 million gold francs. This, they said, was the value of what France’s slave-holders lost when Haiti gained its independence. Hoping to end Haiti’s global economic and political isolation, repayment instalments equal to 90 per cent of the Haitian economy began immediately and did not finish until 1925 when the last franc was paid, exactly 100 years later.
In a campaign launched at the 2001 UN Conference on Race in Durban, South Africa, it was shown by financial actuaries that 150 million gold francs in 1825 was equivalent to US$21 billion in 2001. Today, this amount, with interest, is some US$40 billion dollars. France still refuses to repay any of this money.
The story does not stop there, however. Although Europe and North America slowly began to recognise and open up trade and commerce with Haiti, the Haitian economy remained severely strained to the point that by the late 19th century and into the early 20th century, Haiti was falling short on its repayments to France. To keep Haiti paying the promised instalments, French officials encouraged American bankers to step in. The American bank, City Bank, responded and eventually offered Haiti a debt exchange with a lower interest rate and longer-term debt. Thus, the illegally extracted debt was not fully paid by Haiti until 1947.
Despite the new terms of repayment offered by City Bank, Haiti still struggled to pay the exorbitant sums. Payments slowed to such a level that the US invaded Haiti in 1915 to protect the financial interests of France and City Bank. As a pre-text, the US claimed this invasion was necessary for strategic military purposes given that North America and other leaders of Europe were in the midst of a ‘Great’ War. That war ended in 1919, the US occupation of Haiti ended in 1934. After 1934, Haiti rightfully became of less interest to global powers, as the world’s interest most appropriately turned towards crushing Hitler and the Nazis.
The purpose of recounting this history is to demonstrate how deeply problematic it is to think that the US and France should play any role in the governance and internal policy-making of Haiti through the establishment of a UN Protectorate or any other meaningful form.
More recent history also speaks to why France and the US should most certainly not be called on to play such a role in Haiti. In particular, let us recall the support the US and France tacitly and actively gave to the aforementioned Duvalier dictatorships:
The US offered financial and military support for the Duvalier dictatorships because of their communist paranoia, which gripped the world during the Cold War (the Duvaliers were radically anti-communist, which at the time translated into Haiti enjoying the support of the US because of US fears of communism and another Cuba emerging in the Caribbean). The US also gave this support to protect the immense profits of American apparel and textile companies operating in Haiti. France similarly supported these dictatorships by colluding with the US to ensure that properties and businesses owned by French citizens and corporations in Haiti were protected. The Duvaliers, their cronies, family members and the Haitian elite that supported them actually frequented back and forth between Haiti and France, quite often holding much of the wealth they plundered from the Haitian people in France in the form of property and bank accounts. Further, it is now in France that Baby Doc Duvalier resides and lives comfortably. Moreover, in further consideration of the US and France's relationship to Haiti, it is interesting to note that when Baby Doc was forced from power in 1986 he was brought to France in and American Air Force aircraft.
Given this long history that the US and France have in destabilising a the Republic of Haiti, and their active and passive participation in ravaging of the Haitian people from at least 1825 to 1986, it is hard to give any credibility to suggestions that Haiti should come under the grips of the US and France as a UN Protectorate. Further, one need not spend too much time reading about Haiti’s recent history to see overwhelming evidence concerning how the US-led and French co-signed embargoes and sanctions imposed against Haiti during the 1990s, as well as the removal (both in 1991 and 2004) of Haiti’s only freely and fairly elected leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, are directly linked to the punishing poverty and 'failed-state' status of the Republic of Haiti.
There are also extensive publications and reports concerning neo-liberal policies that the US imposed on Haiti, the partial result of which caused Haiti, once totally self sufficient in terms of rice production, to become dependent on the rice of American farmers. American farmers have enjoyed massive subsidies from the US government and thus have been dumping their rice into Haiti since the 1990s. This has totally undercut Haitian-produced rice, as well as decimated the Haitian rice production industry along with the country’s overall food security and food sovereignty. Bill Clinton who was behind the introduction of these policies, has recently publicly admitted his total wrong-doing in this regard and also regarding the crushing sanctions he imposed on Haiti during his administration. Sadly though, a very recent article by the Inter Press Service (IPS) Africa showed that not much has changed as it reported that a recently released US official report reveals that as late as 2008, the US provided US$13 billion dollars in subsidies to its farmers.
Except for the underlying question of ‘where was the UN when France and the US were doing all of this to Haiti?’, all that has been written so far speaks only to why the US and France should play no kind of serious governance and administration role in Haiti, and does not address the UN. Thus, let us now consider why a UN Protectorate should not be made of Haiti, with reference to the UN in particular:
The popular masses of Haiti are vehemently opposed to the presence of the UN as it has manifested itself since 2005. Haitians are currently in the streets, beating down, stoning and road-blocking UN vehicles throughout the country in protest of their UN’s 'over-presence' in the country. Further, despite incessant attempts to deny and suppress the truth about the origins of the recent cholera outbreak in Haiti, the Swedish Ambassador to Haiti, Claes Hammer, just last week publicly stated that a US official informed him that it has been confirmed that UN soldiers from Nepal are the ones who brought cholera to Haiti. Haitians have responded by protesting en mass, sometimes violently, to express their opposition to the UN presence in Haiti.
The Haitian masses are also opposed to the UN’s MINUSTAH soldiers, which have been in the country since 2005. These soldiers have been known to engage in recurrent air and land arsenal attacks against Haitian citizens in slums such as Cité Soleil in Port-au-Prince.
All of this is to say that the popular masses of Haiti deeply distrust the UN, and that recent history and current events demonstrate that they have more than ample reason for this disaffection. To be clear, I am not suggesting that the UN abandon Haiti totally, for there are many health and well-being services that the UN is providing that would likely be unavailable otherwise. Indeed, it is also clear that some military presence is needed at present. However, given the forceful opposition of the Haitian people to the UN since 2005 to present, it would be a flagrant assault on the principles of democracy to go as far as to make Haiti a UN Protectorate. Other forms of assistance may be welcome, but UN Protectorate status would not be.
Further, it must also be noted that the UN’s legitimacy and credibility concerning Haiti strongly come into question by the mere fact that they named Bill Clinton the UN Special Envoy to Haiti. This is the very same man who is largely responsible for Haiti’s more recent economic underdevelopment woes, namely through the severe sanctions, embargoes, economic and agricultural policies he forced Haiti to accept (as discussed above). Regardless of his recent mea culpa, Clinton had ample time to admit and remedy his wrongs during and after his presidency. It reeks of the vilest form of opportunism for him to come out now as a ‘friend of Haiti‘. It behooves us to ask, what is behind his about-face? Mr Clinton, why Haiti and why now and not before?
Everything that has been outlined in this present commentary speaks not to an attempt to intellectualise anything, but, quite the opposite. The aim is to do nothing more than draw attention to the cold hard facts of history and current affairs to demonstrate why the idea of making Haiti a UN Protectorate is a misguided idea, no matter who is voicing. There is still more to be said, however:
Contrary to what Mr Munnings states, Haiti needs no external ‘guidance’ or to be ‘taken care of’ by ‘parents’. As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, ‘The devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape’. Considering this, the UN, US, Clinton and France should be regarded with, at the very least, significant suspicion when it comes to Haiti and decisions about how it will and should be governed.
Moreover, despite what Mr Munnings writes, it is offensive to the history and spirit of the Haitian people to seriously state that, ‘this is not the time to talk of Haiti’s autonomy as a sovereign entity’, and that Haiti’s ‘survival’ should instead be our focus. From 1804 to present, Haitians have shown the world time and time again that if there is one thing they have absolutely no need for it is lessons from others on ‘survival’. In fact, they should probably be paid to give the people of the Western world lessons on just that considering how up in arms they are about current austerity measures (Greece, Portugal, Spain, Slovenia, Lithuania, France, UK) and bailouts (Greece, US, Ireland) being used by their governments to safeguard their fragile economies.
If we want to seriously serve Haiti’s ‘industrious and hardworking people who deserve, like other peoples, the opportunity to live and to be recognised and treated as human beings’, the UN, US and France should immediately begin with the following:
Ensuring the return, in full and without conditions of:
1. The US$40 Billion dollars France stole from Haiti in 1825
2. The tens of millions Haiti paid to City Bank between the late 19th century up until 1947, after this bank re-financed the illegally extracted debt Haiti was forced to pay France
3. The tens of millions of dollars in revenue and profits that the US apparel and textile companies have pocketed from their exploitation of Haitians in their factories since the late 1950s
4. The tens of millions of dollars in revenue and profits gained by US farmers through the dumping of their rice and other agricultural products into the Haitian market since the 1990s.
A critical assessment of Haiti’s history and current affairs reveals that the one thing Haiti has never enjoyed is the right to govern itself and develop on its own terms without significant foreign intervention of all forms, economic, political, social. Thus, it is difficult to see how a UN Protectorate being made of Haiti would mean anything other than a re-packaging of more of the same that would result in furthering the underdevelopment of Haiti.
Indeed, there are many other ways the UN, US and France can be involved in partnering with Haitian people. One such way is public-private partnership initiatives geared towards capacity building of Haitians in areas of farming, agriculture, construction, medical, health, education services and infrastructure development. These should be led and informed by Haitians legitimately selected by the popular masses. Business loans should also be made more accessible. The Haitian diaspora also needs to play an active role in this process, being deeply engaged in it and not just consulted after decisions have already been made.
Finally, It would be absolutely wrong, absurd and offensive to disregard the agency of Haitians and claim that they have played no part in creating a situation where, before the quake, 80 per cent of the population was living under the poverty line and 54 per cent of its people lived in abject poverty. However, the point of this commentary is to show that there is a long and relatively unknown history of the US, France and the UN’s action and omissions have resulted in the effects of the earthquake, hurricane Tomas and cholera being exponentially greater than they ever should have been. In light of the history and current affairs outlined in this commentary, it becomes clear that a UN Protectorate is not the way for Haiti.
The Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey is known for openly championing the statement, ‘Africa for the Africans, at home and abroad!’, in a time when even the thought of such a thing seemed absolutely absurd to European and African descendants alike. Today it is most important to update and particularise this clarion call by asserting, ‘Haiti for the Haitians, at home and abroad!’, such is the only way to fully and rightfully recognise the dignity, humanity and history of the Haitian people.
Indeed, as Mr Munnings notes, it is true that the Haitian people have endured and continue to endure some of the worst tragedies we have come to learn of in recent history. However, the fact that ‘there is no other nation in the Western Hemisphere that has endured the adversities and misfortunes as that of the Republic of Haiti and its people’, as Mr Munnings writes, seems to suggest that foreign interventions in the country need to be reduced instead of increased given the proven and unprecedented strength, resilience and spirit the Haitian people have demonstrated in the face of incredible odds, and which they have exemplified to the world since achieving independence in 1804.
As Mr Munnings rightfully notes, Haiti’s problem did not begin with the devastating earthquake of 12 January 2010. However, it is not true that the country’s problems ‘started a half century ago under a merciless dictatorship, a poorly planned economy, greed, corruption, isolation’. Yes, the dual Duvalier dictators (first of Papa Doc Duvalier 1957-71, and his son, Baby Doc Duvalier,1971-1986) engaged in an appalling and criminal campaign of tyranny, terrorism, repression and neglect against the Haitian people for the entire duration of their reign. But Haiti’s problems began at least 185 years ago in 1825. Here’s how:
In the early 1800s, the existence of a free black republic was a great threat to the major profiteers and politicians of Europe and America because of their heavy economic dependence on the unfree labour of enslaved Blacks at the time. As such, Haiti was diplomatically and commercially isolated by the rest of the world out of fear that other enslaved Africans around the world would revolt in demand of their freedom. In other words, Haiti’s punishment for achieving freedom and independence was that the economic powers of the world totally isolated Haiti in attempts to make the Haitian economy fall into total collapse, the purpose of which was dissuade other blacks from entertaining ideas of living free and governing their own affairs (this logic is currently being applied to Cuba).
By 1825 Haiti’s leaders had decided that the people of Haiti could suffer the effects of global economic isolation no more. With a bankrupt economy, they invited officials from France to a summit. As if Haitian people had not paid enough through being stolen from Africa and enslaved to make European descendants wealthy, or through the blood shed to defeat European armies and gain independence, the French officials decided that they would only recognise Haiti as a sovereign state and engage in commercial relations with this black republic if Haiti paid France 150 million gold francs. This, they said, was the value of what France’s slave-holders lost when Haiti gained its independence. Hoping to end Haiti’s global economic and political isolation, repayment instalments equal to 90 per cent of the Haitian economy began immediately and did not finish until 1925 when the last franc was paid, exactly 100 years later.
In a campaign launched at the 2001 UN Conference on Race in Durban, South Africa, it was shown by financial actuaries that 150 million gold francs in 1825 was equivalent to US$21 billion in 2001. Today, this amount, with interest, is some US$40 billion dollars. France still refuses to repay any of this money.
The story does not stop there, however. Although Europe and North America slowly began to recognise and open up trade and commerce with Haiti, the Haitian economy remained severely strained to the point that by the late 19th century and into the early 20th century, Haiti was falling short on its repayments to France. To keep Haiti paying the promised instalments, French officials encouraged American bankers to step in. The American bank, City Bank, responded and eventually offered Haiti a debt exchange with a lower interest rate and longer-term debt. Thus, the illegally extracted debt was not fully paid by Haiti until 1947.
Despite the new terms of repayment offered by City Bank, Haiti still struggled to pay the exorbitant sums. Payments slowed to such a level that the US invaded Haiti in 1915 to protect the financial interests of France and City Bank. As a pre-text, the US claimed this invasion was necessary for strategic military purposes given that North America and other leaders of Europe were in the midst of a ‘Great’ War. That war ended in 1919, the US occupation of Haiti ended in 1934. After 1934, Haiti rightfully became of less interest to global powers, as the world’s interest most appropriately turned towards crushing Hitler and the Nazis.
The purpose of recounting this history is to demonstrate how deeply problematic it is to think that the US and France should play any role in the governance and internal policy-making of Haiti through the establishment of a UN Protectorate or any other meaningful form.
More recent history also speaks to why France and the US should most certainly not be called on to play such a role in Haiti. In particular, let us recall the support the US and France tacitly and actively gave to the aforementioned Duvalier dictatorships:
The US offered financial and military support for the Duvalier dictatorships because of their communist paranoia, which gripped the world during the Cold War (the Duvaliers were radically anti-communist, which at the time translated into Haiti enjoying the support of the US because of US fears of communism and another Cuba emerging in the Caribbean). The US also gave this support to protect the immense profits of American apparel and textile companies operating in Haiti. France similarly supported these dictatorships by colluding with the US to ensure that properties and businesses owned by French citizens and corporations in Haiti were protected. The Duvaliers, their cronies, family members and the Haitian elite that supported them actually frequented back and forth between Haiti and France, quite often holding much of the wealth they plundered from the Haitian people in France in the form of property and bank accounts. Further, it is now in France that Baby Doc Duvalier resides and lives comfortably. Moreover, in further consideration of the US and France's relationship to Haiti, it is interesting to note that when Baby Doc was forced from power in 1986 he was brought to France in and American Air Force aircraft.
Given this long history that the US and France have in destabilising a the Republic of Haiti, and their active and passive participation in ravaging of the Haitian people from at least 1825 to 1986, it is hard to give any credibility to suggestions that Haiti should come under the grips of the US and France as a UN Protectorate. Further, one need not spend too much time reading about Haiti’s recent history to see overwhelming evidence concerning how the US-led and French co-signed embargoes and sanctions imposed against Haiti during the 1990s, as well as the removal (both in 1991 and 2004) of Haiti’s only freely and fairly elected leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, are directly linked to the punishing poverty and 'failed-state' status of the Republic of Haiti.
There are also extensive publications and reports concerning neo-liberal policies that the US imposed on Haiti, the partial result of which caused Haiti, once totally self sufficient in terms of rice production, to become dependent on the rice of American farmers. American farmers have enjoyed massive subsidies from the US government and thus have been dumping their rice into Haiti since the 1990s. This has totally undercut Haitian-produced rice, as well as decimated the Haitian rice production industry along with the country’s overall food security and food sovereignty. Bill Clinton who was behind the introduction of these policies, has recently publicly admitted his total wrong-doing in this regard and also regarding the crushing sanctions he imposed on Haiti during his administration. Sadly though, a very recent article by the Inter Press Service (IPS) Africa showed that not much has changed as it reported that a recently released US official report reveals that as late as 2008, the US provided US$13 billion dollars in subsidies to its farmers.
Except for the underlying question of ‘where was the UN when France and the US were doing all of this to Haiti?’, all that has been written so far speaks only to why the US and France should play no kind of serious governance and administration role in Haiti, and does not address the UN. Thus, let us now consider why a UN Protectorate should not be made of Haiti, with reference to the UN in particular:
The popular masses of Haiti are vehemently opposed to the presence of the UN as it has manifested itself since 2005. Haitians are currently in the streets, beating down, stoning and road-blocking UN vehicles throughout the country in protest of their UN’s 'over-presence' in the country. Further, despite incessant attempts to deny and suppress the truth about the origins of the recent cholera outbreak in Haiti, the Swedish Ambassador to Haiti, Claes Hammer, just last week publicly stated that a US official informed him that it has been confirmed that UN soldiers from Nepal are the ones who brought cholera to Haiti. Haitians have responded by protesting en mass, sometimes violently, to express their opposition to the UN presence in Haiti.
The Haitian masses are also opposed to the UN’s MINUSTAH soldiers, which have been in the country since 2005. These soldiers have been known to engage in recurrent air and land arsenal attacks against Haitian citizens in slums such as Cité Soleil in Port-au-Prince.
All of this is to say that the popular masses of Haiti deeply distrust the UN, and that recent history and current events demonstrate that they have more than ample reason for this disaffection. To be clear, I am not suggesting that the UN abandon Haiti totally, for there are many health and well-being services that the UN is providing that would likely be unavailable otherwise. Indeed, it is also clear that some military presence is needed at present. However, given the forceful opposition of the Haitian people to the UN since 2005 to present, it would be a flagrant assault on the principles of democracy to go as far as to make Haiti a UN Protectorate. Other forms of assistance may be welcome, but UN Protectorate status would not be.
Further, it must also be noted that the UN’s legitimacy and credibility concerning Haiti strongly come into question by the mere fact that they named Bill Clinton the UN Special Envoy to Haiti. This is the very same man who is largely responsible for Haiti’s more recent economic underdevelopment woes, namely through the severe sanctions, embargoes, economic and agricultural policies he forced Haiti to accept (as discussed above). Regardless of his recent mea culpa, Clinton had ample time to admit and remedy his wrongs during and after his presidency. It reeks of the vilest form of opportunism for him to come out now as a ‘friend of Haiti‘. It behooves us to ask, what is behind his about-face? Mr Clinton, why Haiti and why now and not before?
Everything that has been outlined in this present commentary speaks not to an attempt to intellectualise anything, but, quite the opposite. The aim is to do nothing more than draw attention to the cold hard facts of history and current affairs to demonstrate why the idea of making Haiti a UN Protectorate is a misguided idea, no matter who is voicing. There is still more to be said, however:
Contrary to what Mr Munnings states, Haiti needs no external ‘guidance’ or to be ‘taken care of’ by ‘parents’. As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, ‘The devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape’. Considering this, the UN, US, Clinton and France should be regarded with, at the very least, significant suspicion when it comes to Haiti and decisions about how it will and should be governed.
Moreover, despite what Mr Munnings writes, it is offensive to the history and spirit of the Haitian people to seriously state that, ‘this is not the time to talk of Haiti’s autonomy as a sovereign entity’, and that Haiti’s ‘survival’ should instead be our focus. From 1804 to present, Haitians have shown the world time and time again that if there is one thing they have absolutely no need for it is lessons from others on ‘survival’. In fact, they should probably be paid to give the people of the Western world lessons on just that considering how up in arms they are about current austerity measures (Greece, Portugal, Spain, Slovenia, Lithuania, France, UK) and bailouts (Greece, US, Ireland) being used by their governments to safeguard their fragile economies.
If we want to seriously serve Haiti’s ‘industrious and hardworking people who deserve, like other peoples, the opportunity to live and to be recognised and treated as human beings’, the UN, US and France should immediately begin with the following:
Ensuring the return, in full and without conditions of:
1. The US$40 Billion dollars France stole from Haiti in 1825
2. The tens of millions Haiti paid to City Bank between the late 19th century up until 1947, after this bank re-financed the illegally extracted debt Haiti was forced to pay France
3. The tens of millions of dollars in revenue and profits that the US apparel and textile companies have pocketed from their exploitation of Haitians in their factories since the late 1950s
4. The tens of millions of dollars in revenue and profits gained by US farmers through the dumping of their rice and other agricultural products into the Haitian market since the 1990s.
A critical assessment of Haiti’s history and current affairs reveals that the one thing Haiti has never enjoyed is the right to govern itself and develop on its own terms without significant foreign intervention of all forms, economic, political, social. Thus, it is difficult to see how a UN Protectorate being made of Haiti would mean anything other than a re-packaging of more of the same that would result in furthering the underdevelopment of Haiti.
Indeed, there are many other ways the UN, US and France can be involved in partnering with Haitian people. One such way is public-private partnership initiatives geared towards capacity building of Haitians in areas of farming, agriculture, construction, medical, health, education services and infrastructure development. These should be led and informed by Haitians legitimately selected by the popular masses. Business loans should also be made more accessible. The Haitian diaspora also needs to play an active role in this process, being deeply engaged in it and not just consulted after decisions have already been made.
Finally, It would be absolutely wrong, absurd and offensive to disregard the agency of Haitians and claim that they have played no part in creating a situation where, before the quake, 80 per cent of the population was living under the poverty line and 54 per cent of its people lived in abject poverty. However, the point of this commentary is to show that there is a long and relatively unknown history of the US, France and the UN’s action and omissions have resulted in the effects of the earthquake, hurricane Tomas and cholera being exponentially greater than they ever should have been. In light of the history and current affairs outlined in this commentary, it becomes clear that a UN Protectorate is not the way for Haiti.
The Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey is known for openly championing the statement, ‘Africa for the Africans, at home and abroad!’, in a time when even the thought of such a thing seemed absolutely absurd to European and African descendants alike. Today it is most important to update and particularise this clarion call by asserting, ‘Haiti for the Haitians, at home and abroad!’, such is the only way to fully and rightfully recognise the dignity, humanity and history of the Haitian people.
Wikileaks confirms the puppets in the MDC that we already knew.
By agreeing to be used by the Anglo-Saxon powers to reverse the legacy of the African liberation movement led by President Mugabe, the MDC formations became purveyors of a creeping “know-nothing” culture whose objective was to recolonise the African mind through “terror by forgetting” and through the “free flow of lies”. Zimbabweans were suddenly confronted by an opposition movement characterised by intellectual hooliganism and intolerance sponsored by the former colonial power.
The Sunday Mail
AFRICAN FOCUS
By Tafataona Mahoso.
The undiplomatic cables of the US government recently leaked by Wikileaks show that by 2007 US Ambassador to Zimbabwe Christopher Dell blamed Morgan Tsvangirai’s lack of strategic intelligence for the failure of the MDC formations to effect illegal regime change in Zimbabwe.
Christopher Dell was one of the thuggish Anglo-American envoys transferred here by Britain and the US from Angola and Yugoslavia specifically to oversee the illegal overthrow of the African liberation movement in government.
Illegal regime change had already succeeded in former Yugoslavia, but Angola survived 30 years of US-sponsored war which also involved white South Africa.
Neither the MDC formations nor the envoys of the US and UK were meant to be great thinkers. Even if they were personally intelligent, the job they were given required them to behave as foolhardy and brazen numbskulls who should neither flinch nor blink while administering white-sponsored imperialist terror against a peace-loving Zimbabwean people and their leaders.
In other words, the allegation of stupidity and lack of foresight levelled against Tsvangirai by Mr Dell should actually be shared between the Anglo-Saxon ambassadors to Zimbabwe and sponsored leaders within the MDC formations.
Neither of them really understood Zimbabwean society. But they did not need understanding in order to destroy that society.
Long before the cables were leaked, a Zimbabwean educated at Cambridge and Oxford universities in the UK, with the help of Professor Terence Ranger, revealed the same problem in his research carried out in Zimbabwe.
This research has resulted in a book called Making History in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe: Politics, Intellectuals and the Media, and it is Volume 4 of a running series called Nationalisms Across the Globe.
The original purpose of the research was to foreground and promote the supposed intellectuals and technocrats who surrounded and advised leaders of the foreign-sponsored Zimbabwe Democracy Project and the MDC formations while denigrating what the author calls “patriotic intellectuals” as mere “praise singers”.
However, the realities on the ground in Zimbabwe made it difficult for the research to produce such a binary outcome, just as by 2007 the realities on the ground frustrated the regime change envoys of the US and UK in Zimbabwe.
The destructive purpose of the so-called Zimbabwe Democracy Project made it necessary to create a clique of anti-intellectual pretenders around the MDC leadership. The job of the anti-intellectual clique was to pretend to be great and original thinkers while spinning and spewing huge billows and yarns of lies which would justify subjecting the country and the people to mass terror and mass torture through illegal sanctions, financial warfare, information warfare, industrial shutdowns and urban riots in the midst of an HIV-Aids pandemic.
On Pages 59 and 60 of his book, Blessing-Miles Tendi cites Lewis Coser, who observed that the supposed intellectuals in the foreign-sponsored Zimbabwe Democracy Project, just like their political leaders, discredited themselves because they saw Zimbabwe’s salvation as coming from the same Western powers who had colonised and looted Zimbabwe for the last 100 years. They served as mere “legitimisers of external power”. The late Masipula Sithole is cited as “the most palpable example”. In 2000, at the time the MDC formations were agitating for illegal sanctions to be imposed on the people, Sithole was sponsored by the US government to go and observe the US Presidential election there. The purpose was to generate propaganda which would be used to discredit the 2000 and 2002 elections in Zimbabwe. Sithole wrote back to newspapers and magazines in Zimbabwe in the manner expected by his handlers.
“I am in the United States observing public opinion polls and American party conventions. No margin of terror here, no farm invasions, no electoral violence. Neither is Al Gore accusing George Bush of attempting to sell America back to the former colonialists, who are ironically, the (same) British (implicated in Zimbabwe).”
Blessing-Miles Tendi observes in his book:
“The 2000 American Presidential election Sithole extolled proved to be an incompetently administered election fraught with sharply disputed vote counts and recounts, and was ruled in favour of Republican candidate George Bush (not by the people but) by a US Supreme Court dominated by judges with a Republican predilection. Prisoner abuses committed by American and British troops at Iraq’s Abu Graib prison in 2004 demonstrated amply that (self-proclaimed) champions of human rights also disregarded human rights, despite their criticism of smaller powers, such as Zimbabwe.”
So, Sithole was trying to hide from Zimbabweans facts about the US which US citizens were not denying to themselves or to the world. George W. Bush’s election was a disaster.
The other supposed intellectual supporting the MDC in embarrassing ways was UZ Professor John Makumbe who, at the very same time the US and UK were illegally invading Iraq, made a point of proclaiming on his office computer screen: “REGIME CHANGE NOW!”
Blessing-Miles Tendi comments that:
Makumbe did not see any possible hazards for local (Zimbabwean) democratic forces in conscripting (that is uncritically borrowing) terms and concepts from external centres of (imperialist) power viewed as harbouring imperial objectives by Zanu-PF and its local and international sympathisers.”
The worst thing that ever happened to Zimbabwe in the last 13 years is the willingness of leaders of the MDC formations and the supposed intellectuals and activists supporting them to lie about and against Zimbabwe in exchange for money, sponsorship and other Western inducements. The 2000 election in the US was a disaster, but Masipula Sithole wrote glowing reports on it which were proudly displayed in The Financial Gazette and included in Sithole’s book.
Blessing-Miles Tendi quotes yet another UZ lecturer who admitted that:
“I do consultancy work for NGOs and I bend my analysis to please them. (That means lying to get money.) I tell NGOs what they want to hear. I tell them Mugabe is bad and there is a serious crisis and I say it loudly so they are satisfied. That way they will come again next time for my analysis and even bring me new clients.”
One cannot build an intellectual legacy, let alone a democratic movement, solely on lying for money. Even the forces who pay for the lies cannot respect the paid liars. That is what the undiplomatic US cables reveal, especially on Christopher Dell’s assessment of the MDC formations and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. It is not so much lack of intelligence as willingness to tell lies against one’s own people in order to earn sponsorship which disgraces Tsvangirai as an aspiring leader.
By agreeing to be used by the Anglo-Saxon powers to reverse the legacy of the African liberation movement led by President Mugabe, the MDC formations became purveyors of a creeping “know-nothing” culture whose objective was to recolonise the African mind through “terror by forgetting” and through the “free flow of lies”. Zimbabweans were suddenly confronted by an opposition movement characterised by intellectual hooliganism and intolerance sponsored by the former colonial power.
l A web of lies had to be spun to justify illegal and racist sanctions, imposed by white racist nations only, against Zimbabwe.
l A web of media lies had to be spun to make the people of Zimbabwe believe that the destruction of their livelihoods concurrent with the sanctions had nothing to do with the same sanctions.
l Third, yet another layer of lies had to be developed to say that the sanctions did not constitute real economic warfare but just travel bans and “restrictive measures”.
l Then, when it became clear that the majority of the people knew that the sanctions were real and they really hurt, yet another layer of lies had to be created to argue that the now real sanctions were doing so much good that they needed to be “calibrated” (in the words of David Miliband) or “staggered” (in the words of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai).
The effects of this creeping culture of denial have been devastating. The MDC formations, particularly MDC-T, have had to train and deploy an army of “know-nothing” anti-intellectuals and activists whose duty is to suppress African knowledge and memory on behalf of the Anglo-Saxon regime change axis. Let me give a few examples, for lack of space.
The Zimbabwe Independent on February 12 2010 carried a piece entitled GNU birthday: Consolidate democratic culture. But how was “democratic culture” and “inclusivity” supposed to be consolidated?
The writer for The Zimbabwe Independent wrote: “Political institutions and civil society need to be infused (which means they are not so infused) with democratic practices . . . Authoritarian political discourses need to be rejected and authoritarian political actors such as Christopher Mutsvangwa, Jonathan Moyo and Tafataona Mahoso need to be neutralised . . . ”
This is because of the realisation that informed people are creators, bearers and transmitters of knowledge. This is the same knowledge which Blessing-Miles Tendi admires in his book, despite his dislike of the intellectuals who have defended Zimbabwe against illegal regime change for the last 15 years and more.
The Financial Gazette of February 4 2010 published a long letter entitled “Mahoso’s Haiti piece showed lack of soul”. The key passage there says:
“Human life is of paramount importance such that Dr Mahoso should have drawn a clear line (veil) between social and political issues. No one gets political mileage through linking a genuine and timeous humanitarian rescue operation to a ‘perceived regime change agenda’ unless one is addressing a ‘dark-age’ readership.”
So any obvious connections between “social” and “political” issues should not be allowed.
This was an effort by a Mr Benjamin Bendera, suggesting that The Sunday Mail’s African Focus instalment of January 24 2010 should not have been published because the truth told in it was cruel and offensive to Haitians in the darkest hour of their history. Why? Because the African Focus article dared to suggest, as Sir Hilaty Beckles and masses of Haitians themselves were also saying: That without US regime change, without French and Anglo-Saxon interference in and strangulation of the independence of Haiti since 1791, the cost of the January 2010 earthquake in human lives would have been less by more than 50 percent; and that all the humanitarian relief coming to Haiti would have been on the basis of solidarity and sovereignty (as in Indonesia recently) rather than on the basis of colonialist and paternalistic charity.
Indeed, on February 18 2010 the people of Haiti mounted demonstrations against the visiting racist French head of state Nicholas Sarkozy because, as Sir Hilaty Beckles has documented, the value of what France alone owes Haiti for its looting of Haiti (before the period of US regime-change interference) amounts to more than US$21 billion.
In other words, Benjamin Bendera is saying that The Sunday Mail should have suppressed the February 24 column because it tried to make a distinction between relief based on solidarity, mutual respect and sovereignty, on one hand, and the criminal humanitarianism the world has witnessed in former Yugoslavia (Serbia 1999), Nicaragua, Iraq and Zimbabwe. Criminal humanitarianism refers to relief which has the following characteristics:
l It is given by the same forces which either caused or worsened the crisis.
l It is meant to hide the active roles of those same forces in precipitating or worsening the humanitarian crisis.
l It is counter-revolutionary in that it seeks to further deepen the dependency of the population, making sure that the people won’t be able to help themselves or to have any say in how they should be helped.
l It is meant to make the recipients of relief forever grateful to the very same powers and forces who have done them the biggest harm in their history. These are the powers represented by Christopher Dell and Morgan Tsvangirai; and Wikileaks confirms that reality in Dell’s own words.
What made The Sunday Mail column so upsetting was its relevance to the deceit which the same Anglo-Saxon powers are trying to get away with in Zimbabwe which their involvement in Haiti in the last 100 years undercuts directly.
Much of the damage to the economy of Zimbabwe was inflicted by the very same forces who cry the loudest about the deterioration in the livelihoods of the people of Zimbabwe.
That is criminal humanitarianism, especially since the very same forces are already campaigning against Zimbabwe’s economic empowerment laws and against the legitimate exploitation and sale of Zimbabwe’s gold, diamonds and platinum!
In other words, since the creation of a Western-funded opposition in Zimbabwe in 1999, Zimbabweans have been subjected to a growing tendency to deny or suppress historical information relevant for their continuing emancipation.
So we find that MDC-T members of the House of Assembly, on February 3 2010, sought to suppress a motion by Cde Kudakwashe Basikiti because that motion again made a link, revealed connections, where MDC-T wants to maintain a veil. The motion sought to compel leaders of the MDC formations to go abroad and campaign against the same illegal sanctions which they asked for and got 10 years ago. Such a motion made uncomfortable linkages between sanctions and the damage to Zimbabwe’s economy; between the MDC formations and the Anglo-Saxon powers opposing Zimbabwe’s economic sovereignty; and between that opposition to Zimbabwe’s economic sovereignty and the charity which the same powers are so willing to dish out and publicise as a cover-up for their contribution to the current crisis.
Likewise, on February 2 2010, on ZTV’s Melting Pot programme, Senator Obert Gutu of MDC-T sought to prevent me from explaining to the people the meaning of British Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s House of Commons statement of January 19 2010. The Senator attempted to use insults and name-calling to stop me from being understood by the audience and to try to reduce (through sheer noise) the dignity and truth of the information I had. This is the essence of intellectual hooliganism.
Equally, on November 12 2010, Zimbabweans woke up to yet another MDC-T attempt to suppress debate.
In the second week of November 2009, Mashonaland East farmers demonstrated against the inclusive Government’s decision to remove direct Government support to farmers prematurely and in the middle of illegal sanctions and an impending drought.
Two days after the demonstration, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s spokesman James Maridadi told The Herald (November 12 2009) that Zimbabwe was not subject to sanctions at all:
“Which sanctions? I am not aware of them, I only read about them in your newspaper.”
On September 22 2009, former MDC Member of Parliament for Budiriro Gabriel Chaibva appeared on ZTV’s Melting Pot programme, again with Senator Obert Gutu. Chaibva said that he was there in Nyanga in 2000 when top MDC leaders then drafted the document which they submitted to the US Congress before it was turned into the US sanctions law against Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (Zidera).
In that programme as elsewhere, Senator Gutu’s role became one of suppressing the truth, trying to heckle and insult his counterpart in order to prevent him from communicating what he had witnessed at Nyanga in 2000, where Gutu was definitely not present. The current official MDC-T spokesperson, Nelson Chamisa, on May 21 2008 played a similar role on ZTV’s Zimbabwe Today programme.
My first encounter with this intolerant approach to debate and information was on ZTV’s Talking Business programme on July 15 2001, when Zidera was still a Bill in the US Congress and the then MDC party was campaigning to convince the people of Zimbabwe that the US was helping them by presenting the Bill for congressional approval.
I asked my counterpart, the late Learnmore Jongwe, who was the official MDC spokesperson then, if he knew the meaning of what his party had just done.
They had drafted a proposal for the US to wage economic war on their own people. The channels they used to submit the document to the US Congress were exactly the same channels used by Rhodesian Foreign Minister P. K. van der Byl in 1979, including the same US Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Senator Jesse Helms:
“I then read, on air, P. K. van der Byl’s letter to the US government dated 12 January 1979, in which the Smith regime appealed to the US government and to whites in the US to help destroy Zapu and Zanu in order to save white supremacy in the Southern African region.”
Learnmore Jongwe threw a tantrum on screen and violently threw his papers around in order to drown the importance of what I had just said. He shouted that the US Bill which later became Zidera had nothing to do with sanctions!
Therefore the leaked Dell cables confirm from the point of view of the US, that the MDC formations and most NGOs supporting them were set up to destroy Zimbabwe and deliver it to Anglo-Saxon powers as a failed state.
They almost succeeded. As a result The Daily News on Sunday for July 13 2003 carried an article by Barnabas Thondhlana entitled “Cyclone Bush hits Africa”. Its essence was that “The Final Push” organised by the MDC formations and their NGOs allies had flopped. But not to worry, “Cyclone Bush” was coming to the region in the form of the then US President George W. Bush. Bush would deliver the final hammer against Zimbabwe.
“We can shout ‘Yankee go home’ until we are hoarse, but we cannot ignore Bush. Be afraid, be very afraid, Cyclone Bush is here.”
And the leaders of the MDC formations rushed to South Africa to meet Bush and ask him to hold their hands in the partnership for the destruction of the Zimbabwe economy. That is what Dell’s cables confirm.
SEE ALSO:
Tsvangirai: the star that will fade in Bethlehem
The Sunday Mail
AFRICAN FOCUS
By Tafataona Mahoso.
The undiplomatic cables of the US government recently leaked by Wikileaks show that by 2007 US Ambassador to Zimbabwe Christopher Dell blamed Morgan Tsvangirai’s lack of strategic intelligence for the failure of the MDC formations to effect illegal regime change in Zimbabwe.
Christopher Dell was one of the thuggish Anglo-American envoys transferred here by Britain and the US from Angola and Yugoslavia specifically to oversee the illegal overthrow of the African liberation movement in government.
Illegal regime change had already succeeded in former Yugoslavia, but Angola survived 30 years of US-sponsored war which also involved white South Africa.
Neither the MDC formations nor the envoys of the US and UK were meant to be great thinkers. Even if they were personally intelligent, the job they were given required them to behave as foolhardy and brazen numbskulls who should neither flinch nor blink while administering white-sponsored imperialist terror against a peace-loving Zimbabwean people and their leaders.
In other words, the allegation of stupidity and lack of foresight levelled against Tsvangirai by Mr Dell should actually be shared between the Anglo-Saxon ambassadors to Zimbabwe and sponsored leaders within the MDC formations.
Neither of them really understood Zimbabwean society. But they did not need understanding in order to destroy that society.
Long before the cables were leaked, a Zimbabwean educated at Cambridge and Oxford universities in the UK, with the help of Professor Terence Ranger, revealed the same problem in his research carried out in Zimbabwe.
This research has resulted in a book called Making History in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe: Politics, Intellectuals and the Media, and it is Volume 4 of a running series called Nationalisms Across the Globe.
The original purpose of the research was to foreground and promote the supposed intellectuals and technocrats who surrounded and advised leaders of the foreign-sponsored Zimbabwe Democracy Project and the MDC formations while denigrating what the author calls “patriotic intellectuals” as mere “praise singers”.
However, the realities on the ground in Zimbabwe made it difficult for the research to produce such a binary outcome, just as by 2007 the realities on the ground frustrated the regime change envoys of the US and UK in Zimbabwe.
The destructive purpose of the so-called Zimbabwe Democracy Project made it necessary to create a clique of anti-intellectual pretenders around the MDC leadership. The job of the anti-intellectual clique was to pretend to be great and original thinkers while spinning and spewing huge billows and yarns of lies which would justify subjecting the country and the people to mass terror and mass torture through illegal sanctions, financial warfare, information warfare, industrial shutdowns and urban riots in the midst of an HIV-Aids pandemic.
On Pages 59 and 60 of his book, Blessing-Miles Tendi cites Lewis Coser, who observed that the supposed intellectuals in the foreign-sponsored Zimbabwe Democracy Project, just like their political leaders, discredited themselves because they saw Zimbabwe’s salvation as coming from the same Western powers who had colonised and looted Zimbabwe for the last 100 years. They served as mere “legitimisers of external power”. The late Masipula Sithole is cited as “the most palpable example”. In 2000, at the time the MDC formations were agitating for illegal sanctions to be imposed on the people, Sithole was sponsored by the US government to go and observe the US Presidential election there. The purpose was to generate propaganda which would be used to discredit the 2000 and 2002 elections in Zimbabwe. Sithole wrote back to newspapers and magazines in Zimbabwe in the manner expected by his handlers.
“I am in the United States observing public opinion polls and American party conventions. No margin of terror here, no farm invasions, no electoral violence. Neither is Al Gore accusing George Bush of attempting to sell America back to the former colonialists, who are ironically, the (same) British (implicated in Zimbabwe).”
Blessing-Miles Tendi observes in his book:
“The 2000 American Presidential election Sithole extolled proved to be an incompetently administered election fraught with sharply disputed vote counts and recounts, and was ruled in favour of Republican candidate George Bush (not by the people but) by a US Supreme Court dominated by judges with a Republican predilection. Prisoner abuses committed by American and British troops at Iraq’s Abu Graib prison in 2004 demonstrated amply that (self-proclaimed) champions of human rights also disregarded human rights, despite their criticism of smaller powers, such as Zimbabwe.”
So, Sithole was trying to hide from Zimbabweans facts about the US which US citizens were not denying to themselves or to the world. George W. Bush’s election was a disaster.
The other supposed intellectual supporting the MDC in embarrassing ways was UZ Professor John Makumbe who, at the very same time the US and UK were illegally invading Iraq, made a point of proclaiming on his office computer screen: “REGIME CHANGE NOW!”
Blessing-Miles Tendi comments that:
Makumbe did not see any possible hazards for local (Zimbabwean) democratic forces in conscripting (that is uncritically borrowing) terms and concepts from external centres of (imperialist) power viewed as harbouring imperial objectives by Zanu-PF and its local and international sympathisers.”
The worst thing that ever happened to Zimbabwe in the last 13 years is the willingness of leaders of the MDC formations and the supposed intellectuals and activists supporting them to lie about and against Zimbabwe in exchange for money, sponsorship and other Western inducements. The 2000 election in the US was a disaster, but Masipula Sithole wrote glowing reports on it which were proudly displayed in The Financial Gazette and included in Sithole’s book.
Blessing-Miles Tendi quotes yet another UZ lecturer who admitted that:
“I do consultancy work for NGOs and I bend my analysis to please them. (That means lying to get money.) I tell NGOs what they want to hear. I tell them Mugabe is bad and there is a serious crisis and I say it loudly so they are satisfied. That way they will come again next time for my analysis and even bring me new clients.”
One cannot build an intellectual legacy, let alone a democratic movement, solely on lying for money. Even the forces who pay for the lies cannot respect the paid liars. That is what the undiplomatic US cables reveal, especially on Christopher Dell’s assessment of the MDC formations and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. It is not so much lack of intelligence as willingness to tell lies against one’s own people in order to earn sponsorship which disgraces Tsvangirai as an aspiring leader.
By agreeing to be used by the Anglo-Saxon powers to reverse the legacy of the African liberation movement led by President Mugabe, the MDC formations became purveyors of a creeping “know-nothing” culture whose objective was to recolonise the African mind through “terror by forgetting” and through the “free flow of lies”. Zimbabweans were suddenly confronted by an opposition movement characterised by intellectual hooliganism and intolerance sponsored by the former colonial power.
l A web of lies had to be spun to justify illegal and racist sanctions, imposed by white racist nations only, against Zimbabwe.
l A web of media lies had to be spun to make the people of Zimbabwe believe that the destruction of their livelihoods concurrent with the sanctions had nothing to do with the same sanctions.
l Third, yet another layer of lies had to be developed to say that the sanctions did not constitute real economic warfare but just travel bans and “restrictive measures”.
l Then, when it became clear that the majority of the people knew that the sanctions were real and they really hurt, yet another layer of lies had to be created to argue that the now real sanctions were doing so much good that they needed to be “calibrated” (in the words of David Miliband) or “staggered” (in the words of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai).
The effects of this creeping culture of denial have been devastating. The MDC formations, particularly MDC-T, have had to train and deploy an army of “know-nothing” anti-intellectuals and activists whose duty is to suppress African knowledge and memory on behalf of the Anglo-Saxon regime change axis. Let me give a few examples, for lack of space.
The Zimbabwe Independent on February 12 2010 carried a piece entitled GNU birthday: Consolidate democratic culture. But how was “democratic culture” and “inclusivity” supposed to be consolidated?
The writer for The Zimbabwe Independent wrote: “Political institutions and civil society need to be infused (which means they are not so infused) with democratic practices . . . Authoritarian political discourses need to be rejected and authoritarian political actors such as Christopher Mutsvangwa, Jonathan Moyo and Tafataona Mahoso need to be neutralised . . . ”
This is because of the realisation that informed people are creators, bearers and transmitters of knowledge. This is the same knowledge which Blessing-Miles Tendi admires in his book, despite his dislike of the intellectuals who have defended Zimbabwe against illegal regime change for the last 15 years and more.
The Financial Gazette of February 4 2010 published a long letter entitled “Mahoso’s Haiti piece showed lack of soul”. The key passage there says:
“Human life is of paramount importance such that Dr Mahoso should have drawn a clear line (veil) between social and political issues. No one gets political mileage through linking a genuine and timeous humanitarian rescue operation to a ‘perceived regime change agenda’ unless one is addressing a ‘dark-age’ readership.”
So any obvious connections between “social” and “political” issues should not be allowed.
This was an effort by a Mr Benjamin Bendera, suggesting that The Sunday Mail’s African Focus instalment of January 24 2010 should not have been published because the truth told in it was cruel and offensive to Haitians in the darkest hour of their history. Why? Because the African Focus article dared to suggest, as Sir Hilaty Beckles and masses of Haitians themselves were also saying: That without US regime change, without French and Anglo-Saxon interference in and strangulation of the independence of Haiti since 1791, the cost of the January 2010 earthquake in human lives would have been less by more than 50 percent; and that all the humanitarian relief coming to Haiti would have been on the basis of solidarity and sovereignty (as in Indonesia recently) rather than on the basis of colonialist and paternalistic charity.
Indeed, on February 18 2010 the people of Haiti mounted demonstrations against the visiting racist French head of state Nicholas Sarkozy because, as Sir Hilaty Beckles has documented, the value of what France alone owes Haiti for its looting of Haiti (before the period of US regime-change interference) amounts to more than US$21 billion.
In other words, Benjamin Bendera is saying that The Sunday Mail should have suppressed the February 24 column because it tried to make a distinction between relief based on solidarity, mutual respect and sovereignty, on one hand, and the criminal humanitarianism the world has witnessed in former Yugoslavia (Serbia 1999), Nicaragua, Iraq and Zimbabwe. Criminal humanitarianism refers to relief which has the following characteristics:
l It is given by the same forces which either caused or worsened the crisis.
l It is meant to hide the active roles of those same forces in precipitating or worsening the humanitarian crisis.
l It is counter-revolutionary in that it seeks to further deepen the dependency of the population, making sure that the people won’t be able to help themselves or to have any say in how they should be helped.
l It is meant to make the recipients of relief forever grateful to the very same powers and forces who have done them the biggest harm in their history. These are the powers represented by Christopher Dell and Morgan Tsvangirai; and Wikileaks confirms that reality in Dell’s own words.
What made The Sunday Mail column so upsetting was its relevance to the deceit which the same Anglo-Saxon powers are trying to get away with in Zimbabwe which their involvement in Haiti in the last 100 years undercuts directly.
Much of the damage to the economy of Zimbabwe was inflicted by the very same forces who cry the loudest about the deterioration in the livelihoods of the people of Zimbabwe.
That is criminal humanitarianism, especially since the very same forces are already campaigning against Zimbabwe’s economic empowerment laws and against the legitimate exploitation and sale of Zimbabwe’s gold, diamonds and platinum!
In other words, since the creation of a Western-funded opposition in Zimbabwe in 1999, Zimbabweans have been subjected to a growing tendency to deny or suppress historical information relevant for their continuing emancipation.
So we find that MDC-T members of the House of Assembly, on February 3 2010, sought to suppress a motion by Cde Kudakwashe Basikiti because that motion again made a link, revealed connections, where MDC-T wants to maintain a veil. The motion sought to compel leaders of the MDC formations to go abroad and campaign against the same illegal sanctions which they asked for and got 10 years ago. Such a motion made uncomfortable linkages between sanctions and the damage to Zimbabwe’s economy; between the MDC formations and the Anglo-Saxon powers opposing Zimbabwe’s economic sovereignty; and between that opposition to Zimbabwe’s economic sovereignty and the charity which the same powers are so willing to dish out and publicise as a cover-up for their contribution to the current crisis.
Likewise, on February 2 2010, on ZTV’s Melting Pot programme, Senator Obert Gutu of MDC-T sought to prevent me from explaining to the people the meaning of British Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s House of Commons statement of January 19 2010. The Senator attempted to use insults and name-calling to stop me from being understood by the audience and to try to reduce (through sheer noise) the dignity and truth of the information I had. This is the essence of intellectual hooliganism.
Equally, on November 12 2010, Zimbabweans woke up to yet another MDC-T attempt to suppress debate.
In the second week of November 2009, Mashonaland East farmers demonstrated against the inclusive Government’s decision to remove direct Government support to farmers prematurely and in the middle of illegal sanctions and an impending drought.
Two days after the demonstration, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s spokesman James Maridadi told The Herald (November 12 2009) that Zimbabwe was not subject to sanctions at all:
“Which sanctions? I am not aware of them, I only read about them in your newspaper.”
On September 22 2009, former MDC Member of Parliament for Budiriro Gabriel Chaibva appeared on ZTV’s Melting Pot programme, again with Senator Obert Gutu. Chaibva said that he was there in Nyanga in 2000 when top MDC leaders then drafted the document which they submitted to the US Congress before it was turned into the US sanctions law against Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (Zidera).
In that programme as elsewhere, Senator Gutu’s role became one of suppressing the truth, trying to heckle and insult his counterpart in order to prevent him from communicating what he had witnessed at Nyanga in 2000, where Gutu was definitely not present. The current official MDC-T spokesperson, Nelson Chamisa, on May 21 2008 played a similar role on ZTV’s Zimbabwe Today programme.
My first encounter with this intolerant approach to debate and information was on ZTV’s Talking Business programme on July 15 2001, when Zidera was still a Bill in the US Congress and the then MDC party was campaigning to convince the people of Zimbabwe that the US was helping them by presenting the Bill for congressional approval.
I asked my counterpart, the late Learnmore Jongwe, who was the official MDC spokesperson then, if he knew the meaning of what his party had just done.
They had drafted a proposal for the US to wage economic war on their own people. The channels they used to submit the document to the US Congress were exactly the same channels used by Rhodesian Foreign Minister P. K. van der Byl in 1979, including the same US Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Senator Jesse Helms:
“I then read, on air, P. K. van der Byl’s letter to the US government dated 12 January 1979, in which the Smith regime appealed to the US government and to whites in the US to help destroy Zapu and Zanu in order to save white supremacy in the Southern African region.”
Learnmore Jongwe threw a tantrum on screen and violently threw his papers around in order to drown the importance of what I had just said. He shouted that the US Bill which later became Zidera had nothing to do with sanctions!
Therefore the leaked Dell cables confirm from the point of view of the US, that the MDC formations and most NGOs supporting them were set up to destroy Zimbabwe and deliver it to Anglo-Saxon powers as a failed state.
They almost succeeded. As a result The Daily News on Sunday for July 13 2003 carried an article by Barnabas Thondhlana entitled “Cyclone Bush hits Africa”. Its essence was that “The Final Push” organised by the MDC formations and their NGOs allies had flopped. But not to worry, “Cyclone Bush” was coming to the region in the form of the then US President George W. Bush. Bush would deliver the final hammer against Zimbabwe.
“We can shout ‘Yankee go home’ until we are hoarse, but we cannot ignore Bush. Be afraid, be very afraid, Cyclone Bush is here.”
And the leaders of the MDC formations rushed to South Africa to meet Bush and ask him to hold their hands in the partnership for the destruction of the Zimbabwe economy. That is what Dell’s cables confirm.
SEE ALSO:
Tsvangirai: the star that will fade in Bethlehem
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