Time Saul became Paul

The MDC-T leader should realise that by continuing to speak for, and represent the interests of Westerners, he will never be relevant to the aspirations of the majority of Zimbabweans who will reject him in the same way they rejected the alien views and values his party hoped to entrench during the outreach.
The Herald (editorial)
WITH the formation of the inclusive Government, many hoped that by swearing allegiance to serve Zimbabwe and its people, MDC-T leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai would, like the biblical Saul who saw the light on the way to Damascus to persecute Christians, also have his Damascene transformation that would see him write beautiful chapters in nation-building.

How mistaken we all were as events have since proved that a leopard does not change its spots.

Judging by the goings on in the inclusive Government that have seen Tsvangirai reporting to and consulting Westerners on the business of the inclusive Government; once a Saul, always a Saul. The man is beyond redemption.

A case in point, as we report elsewhere in this issue, are the utterances Tsvangirai made at Cyril Jennings Hall in Highfield to the effect that his party would write its own national constitution in the event it attained power in elections scheduled for next year.

His justification: ‘‘The current Lancaster (House) constitution is not ours and this one again (the Copac-led draft) is not ours. We have to come with our own document.’’

While there is nothing wrong in any government seeking to revamp a constitution, there is everything wrong when the objective of the exercise is to disenfranchise the people for the interests of outsiders.

It has to be pointed out that the MDC-T was the most vocal in demanding a people-driven constitution when other parties were open to taking the document drawn by the three main parties, the Kariba draft, to the people; and now that the people have spoken against what the MDC-T stands for, Tsvangirai is basically saying, ‘‘to hell with them’’.

How can he try to deny, with a straight face, the Copac-led process when we all know that his party is part of the tri-partisan Copac chairpersonship and is also in the thematic committees and outreach teams that gathered views across Zimbabwe?

Zimbabweans have clearly spoken on what they want in their constitution, who does Tsvangirai think he is in trying to foist the views of his external handlers on them? 

We pose this answer rhetorically for the answer is not lost to us. 

It’s evident the outreach has been a nightmare for Tsvangirai and his backers for the simple reason that it served to consolidate perceived Zanu-PF positions on the land reform programme; indigenisation and economic empowerment, and our independence and sovereignty, among other things. What miffs them the most is that their money was used to entrench the values they set the MDC to fight.

Those same values explain why MDC-T was so averse to the current Constitution that was drafted at the Lancaster House Constitutional Conference in 1979. The MDC-T’s opposition to the Lancaster House document, that has since been amended 19 times to align it to the aspirations of the indigenous majority Zimbabweans, is precisely because it safeguards what the envisaged new constitution is going to safeguard: Everything that defines us as a people distinct from others in the community of nations.

The MDC-T leader should realise that by continuing to speak for, and represent the interests of Westerners, he will never be relevant to the aspirations of the majority of Zimbabweans who will reject him in the same way they rejected the alien views and values his party hoped to entrench during the outreach.


SEE ALSO
MDC-T searching for relevance

Gearing for post-GPA Zimbabwe

Western hegemony and intentional ignorance

The assumption is that the US provides leadership to the world, that the intentions of the United States are always good, even noble.So the interventions of the United States are always necessarily righteous in intent, if occasionally clumsy in execution.

Wafawarova Writes

By Reason Wafawarova

WE are supposed to sustain our firm belief in the exceptional leadership qualities of Barrack Obama when the black man in the White House retraces American history 64 years down the line and discovers that US public health researchers once deliberately infected unknown numbers of Guatemalans with syphilis and other deadly sexually transmitted diseases.

Obama’s spokesperson, Robert Gibbs, believes what the Americans did is "shocking, tragic and reprehensible" and the current Guatemalan President, Alvaro Colom recently declared the whole act must be treated as a "crime against humanity".

Obama has already apologised profusely to Alvaro Colom and he promised that the United States would make sure that all research done today will be according to international ethical and legal standards.

There is no reason to doubt whatsoever Obama’s sincerity on this matter, for as long as we isolate this sad historical happening from American foreign policy, something that Colom has already done by putting a disclaimer to his otherwise furious outbursts.

He said, "We are aware that this is not the policy of the United States . . . this happened so long ago."

He is better off without angering the Chicago Boys at the Pentagon.

The research was an unethical medical crime based on an agreement between Guatemala’s 24th President, Juan Jose Arevalo and Harry Truman’s administration, way back in 1946.

We can only be dispassionate about US acts of atrocities such as the above described if we make the fundamental assumption behind the imperial grand strategy, often considered unnecessary to interrogate because its truth is taken to be obvious, as propounded by the Wilsonian tradition of idealism.

The assumption is that the US provides leadership to the world, that the intentions of the United States are always good, even noble.

So the interventions of the United States are always necessarily righteous in intent, if occasionally clumsy in execution.

Woodrow Wilson said the US has "elevated ideals" and are dedicated to "stability and righteousness" and naturally the US "interests must march forward, altruists though we are; other nations must see to it that they stand off, and not seek to stay us".

When it comes to US hegemony, we all must in awe revere America as the "historical vanguard", all because the US is so unique that it is the only state blessed with the ability to comprehend and manifest history’s purpose, and even the Europeans must swallow that.

In US foreign policy lexicon, what history achieves is for the common good, the merest truism, so that empirical evaluation of US actions is unnecessary, if not faintly ridiculous.

The primary principle of US foreign policy, rooted in Wilsonian idealism and carried over from Ronald Reagan, through the Bush legacy of the two Bushes, all the way to Barrack Obama, is "the imperative of America’s mission as the vanguard of history, transforming the global order and, in doing so, perpetuating its own dominance," guided by "the imperative of military supremacy, maintained in perpetuity and projected globally", (Noam Chomsky, quoting Woodrow Wilson).

By virtue of its unique comprehension and manifestation of history’s purpose, the US is entitled, indeed obligated to act as its leaders determine to be best, for the good of all, whether others understand it or not, or whether they like or not.

The United States should not be deterred in realising democracy’s transcendent purpose in Zimbabwe even if the Empire is held up to obloquy by the foolish and the resentful, as should not be its junior partner and former empire, Great Britain, though hardly great these days.

This is the prevailing rhetoric from the most prestigious advocates for Western hegemony, be they the intellectual worshipers at the shrine of the Empire, or the insidious puppet politicians controlled by Washington within Africa and within the Zimbabwean political system itself — here they call themselves the "real change team", and Nelson Chamisa knows what that means.

We are meant to still any qualms that might arise by reminding ourselves that providence summons Americans to the task of reforming global order, and we must understand the Wilsonian tradition to which all occupants of the Oval Office, regardless of party or skin colour, will always adhere.

We need to reassure ourselves that the powerful Western elites are motivated by elevated ideals and altruism in the quest for stability and righteousness, and for us not to fail to comprehend this very important concept we need do adopt what Noam Chomsky called "intentional ignorance", himself borrowing from a critic of the terrible atrocities in Central America in the 80s.

When we adopt the stance of intentional ignorance we are capable of tidying up the past, conceding the inevitable flaws that accompany the US’s best intentions when they go out bombing so many nationalities abroad with reckless abandon.

We can surely come to understand that the US leaders mean so well when they kill so many children through a ruinous sanctions regime on Zimbabwe; that George W. Bush meant well when he and Tony Blair lied that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and that the innocent women and children killed by indiscriminate aerial bombings in Afghanistan today are unintended and unfortunate collateral damage of Obama’s good intentions of establishing a democratic government for the otherwise incapable and almost unthinking Afghans; who obviously are foolish enough to have a government like they had in the Taliban before 2001.

It is like those bucolic and directionless Palestinians voting for the terrorist Hamas in 2006.

That of course has to be corrected by the ever glorious civilised Westerners.

When we adopt the doctrine of intentional ignorance, we will understand so well the advent of the new norm of humanitarian intervention, and we can even successfully portray US foreign policy as noble and even fronted by a saintly glow.

How can we fail to understand the unique idealism of American leaders?

How can we do such a thing without missing the merest truism?

Max Boot has an answer for us critics of the United States, us the bunch of unthinking and obnoxious conspirators.

He says that we are often "driven by avarice" and that we cannot comprehend the "strain of idealism" that animates US foreign policy.

Robert Kagan adds and says those of us who criticise American foreign policy are consumed by "paranoid, conspiratorial anti-Americanism" which has "reached a fevered intensity".

Boot and Kagan are neo-Millians retracing the footprints of Stuart Mill who in his classic essay on humanitarian intervention urged Britain to undertake the enterprise vigorously — specifically to conquer more of India.

Mill wrote and explained that Britain had to pursue this high minded mission, even though it would be "held up to obloquy" by the whole of Europe.

Mills said Europeans were just "exciting odium against us", because they dismally failed to comprehend that England was truly "a novelty in the world", a remarkable nation that acted only "in the service of others".

Britain, like its Senior partner the US, is dedicated to democracy and peace, though the unsound actions of barbarians like Zimbabwe’s war veterans, who took away land from "productive white commercial farmers"; will always force the West to impose ruthless sanctions — sanctions at which the US and Britain will selflessly bear the cost of averting, as they come after the dying masses with humanitarian food aid.

The US and its Western allies are such a righteous lot that they bear all the cost of democratising this planet while sharing the fruit of their efforts in fraternal equality with the whole human race, including the barbarians and uncivilised tyrants they invade and conquer and destroy for their own benefit — as was the mission to liberate Iraq by invading and bombing to ashes its assets and infrastructure — all to liberate Iraqis from themselves.

As Mill wrote about Britain, Western policies are free of "aggressive designs" desiring "no benefit to (themselves) at the expense of others". Western policies are "blameless and laudable", Mill asserted.

Stuart Mill wrote at a time when Britain was engaging in some of the worst crimes of its imperial reign and he distinguished himself as a truly honourable intellectual — providing a legendary and unprecedented clear example of apologetics for terrible crimes.

He was not too different from Francis Fukuyama’s euphoric celebrations of the US’s Cold War victory over the Soviet Union — a clear example of unprecedented apologetics for the US’ excesses of the Cold War in Central America, Africa and other troubled parts of this world.

Thomas Jefferson made an incisive observation of what determines the interests of Western leaders on matters of foreign policy.

He said, "We believe no more in Bonaparte’s fighting merely for the liberties of the seas, than in Great Britain’s fighting for the liberties of mankind. The object is the same, to draw to themselves the power, the wealth, and the resources of other nations."

It is this very object that drives Western policy: to draw to themselves power, the wealth and the resources of other nations.

The US wants the world to view Washington as a centre for democracy and a source of liberties for mankind.

This is why Morgan Tsvangirai cannot utter the word sanctions in the same sentence with the US.

He knows how to do his job as the image keeper of his employer and master.

The phrases he freely associates with the United States include "democracy", "freedom", "progressive", "civilised" and any other such worshiping lexicon practised at the shrine of the Empire.

Tsvangirai finds it a lot easier to call Sadc "a club of dictators" and to label South Africa "dishonest", much as terms like "dictator", "tyrant", "despot" or "totalitarian" flow naturally from his mouth when he talks about President Mugabe.

Tsvangirai rhapsodises endlessly about the commitment of his Western masters to democracy and human rights and the Westerners return the favour by proclaiming that they are helping him to establish "a free society" in Zimbabwe; perhaps free of control of their own wealth and resources, as we were free of arable land prior to 2000.

Of course we have to adopt the stance of intentional ignorance to see the US as a centre for stability, peace, democracy and freedom.

We must blind ourselves to the aggression that saw the illegal invasion of Iraq, the ruthless murders carried indiscriminately on Afghan civilians since 2001, the economic strangulation that saw Zimbabwe squeezed to a land of less than hand to mouth, thousands and thousands of people succumbing to preventable diseases, starvation, HIV and Aids, while millions were displaced by the economic deprivation caused by a shrinking economy at the onslaught of illegally imposed Western sanctions.

Tsvangirai is paid to cover the backs of his masters by pushing the blame for what Zimbabwe went through on to "unsound policies" by his political rivals in Zanu PF.

Of course by "unsound policies", Tsvangirai is simply saying policies unendorsed by Washington cannot be sound, if only for the wrath they invite from the throne of the Emperor, wrath aimed at punishing the people for popularising anti-imperialism policies — squeezing their stomachs through starvation until they start stoning their own leaders; the whole idea behind the illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe.

Supported or merely unopposed, Zimbabwe’s land reclamation policy is so sound in that it is the only policy that can uplift the standard of living of the poor masses.

The greatest challenge so far faced by this policy is the sabotage from Western countries and the crippling effect of the illegally imposed sanctions on the country.

It is this onslaught from Western countries that makes the policy "unsound" in the eyes of would be followers, and Tsvangirai is employed to reiterate this message for the likes of South Africa and Kenya, places where the land issue still stands unresolved.

The message is very clear: try it and we will make you look like Zimbabwe.

The two people who funded the formation of the MDC-T the most, Tony Blair and George W. Bush; are undoubtable in their standing as ruthless murderers and unrepentant liars, but we are meant to forget all about them because "democracy", removed them from power.

We need a lot of intentional ignorance to be able to fully forget about the atrocities of George W. Bush and his British sidekick, Tony Blair.

Blair writes a book to make light of his murderous policies that saw over a million Iraqis killed and millions displaced.

The book is meant to regularise the barbaric acts into the archives of acceptable history as written by Western history makers, in this case self written history.

It is the legacy of true liberation fighters and stalwarts against colonisation and imperialism that is often rubbished and tainted by Western rhetoric experts so that the upright may be condemned while the vile and the evil are exalted.

This is why all efforts targeted at Zimbabwe from the West right now are centred on one man and one man only, Robert Mugabe — a man so hated for his ‘‘sins’’ against Western supremacy that his legacy has to be destroyed to make sure that future white generations will be spared the possibility of any neo-Mugabes in the future.

So the man is a target of unprecedented and unlimited slander and vilification, so obsessive a venture in the West that Mugabe is undoubtedly the most known leader in the world today, alongside the likes of Barrack Obama — the former known far more than Zimbabwe itself.

President Mugabe’s proclaimed sins are deeper than the oceans and higher than the mountains; and the hoax is not without takers even among some Zimbabweans.

The errors and excesses of the post-independence conflict that afflicted Zimbabwe in the mid-eighties are revisited, revised, exaggerated, spined, and tailor made to create a monster out of Mugabe.

We are even lectured on this new topic, "30 years of total failure" as is now the description of Zimbabwe’s post independence life — a span that propelled the country to the top of Africa’s literacy index, among a lot more other notable achievements.

Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga are spared media blame for a post election violence that reportedly claimed 1 500 people in Kenya and Robert Mugabe is portrayed as the Devil incarnate for the inter-party election violence that claimed over a 100 people in 2008, the same year with Kenya.

When Western interests are not threatened lives of 1 500 Kenyans are far less important than the lives of 100 Zimbabweans whose leader is an enemy of the superior breed in the West.

When our lives can only assume value as pretexts for Western acts of aggression against ourselves we have to adapt to the stance of intentional ignorance so that we do not get too angry with reality.

When one writes like this, intentional ignorance will tell us that the writer is a Mugabe apologist and not a revealer of the untold reality. So the persecution and victimisation begins unabated.

There is just no relationship between exposing Western spin and playing apologetics for the target of that spin. So we will not be deterred.

Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!

Reason Wafawarova is a political writer based in Sydney, Australia and can be contacted on wafawarova@yahoo.co.uk or reason@rwafawarova.com or visit www.rwafwarova.com

SEE ALSO

Western Democracy not going to free, prosper post-independent Africa

Gearing for post-GPA Zimbabwe

Zanu-PF’s heroism in seeing to it that the country was not upset by the evil machinations of MDC-T allies in and out of the West, entitles it to morally see through Zimbabwe’s battle to shrug off the cynical sanctions and also better the livelihoods of the people.
Zimbabweans look up to the boon of their rich resources to better their livelihoods and to assert their independence and sovereignty.
These two values have been threatened, and continue to be threatened, by MDC-T with its fawning identification with the West ideologically and materially.
The Herald

By Tichaona Zindoga
TALK about Zimbabwe’s political future has lately tended to stagnate at the point when the country will hold elections some time next year, ending the dalliance of Zanu-PF and the two MDC formations.

Under an agreement called the Global Political Agreement signed in September 2008, the three parties entered into the current outfit dubbed the "inclusive Government", which has been described as a marriage of convenience.

Lately, with this wobbly creature coming to breathe its last, we hear more descriptions: Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has reportedly revealed that it has been one mix of water and oil.

One can have some conjecture as to which part or parts of the inclusive Government have been water or oil in the above image.

Indeed, try as the leaders might have, this immiscibility has been demonstrated by the inclusive Government being a rather delicate, fragile or wobbly something, which condition has not been helped by the proclivity of some elements to carry out boycotts or threats of the same.

Now finally being killed out of its misery, for all the degree of stability that it surely has brought Zimbabwe, the post-GPA period represents considerable prospects.

And it will obviously prove with finality which elements have been floating along (as in lacking weight and significance) the duration of the had-to-be-short life of the GPA.

Significant guesses can be made.

With Zanu-PF successfully selling its ideas to 70 percent of those who participated in the making of a new constitution, whose conclusion sets the stage for elections, it would seem Zimbabwe will be grounded in the revolutionary and nationalist development agenda of the party.

Zanu-PF should be able to commit the momentum it has gained from this people-driven process to push this agenda that luckily has not been so offset by its GPA dalliance.

The other parties, in particular the one led by Tsvangirai who sought vainly to derail the process after finding few takers for his Western-imported ideals such as homosexuality, can only remain immersed in the substance-less, floating alien agendas.

For, what people have heard are references to some quantity called "real change" whose wistful repetition have only tended to amplify the idea’s own irrelevance and the people behind it.

With change being the constant of change itself, the absence of a sound ideological direction to underpin whatever change might come through MDC’s ideas like a "social democratic state", makes the situation worse.

Interestingly, the party’s secretary-general and supposed think-tank of the party, Tendai Biti, dismally failed to articulate, let alone convince anyone of, this idea of the social democratic state in the acres of space that were generously accorded him by this paper.

It will be noted that the said "change", or promise thereof, has certainly not manifested itself beyond attempts to tie Zimbabwe to a Western system that has on every turn, from colonialism to the present day, tried to suppress the material change of black people.

The MDC has fought to restore the unjust system of colonial land tenure, which Zanu-PF rejected, for the benefit of Western capital.

The party has also sought to reverse the indigenisation of the economy through black ownership of the means of production, all for the benefit of the same Western capital that at its most benign provides for the creation of local CEOs to manage its plunder.

And is it not coincidental that just when the people had rejected being CEOs of their economy but owners, as they expressed in the constitution outreach meetings, Tsvangirai sought to rubbish their revolutionary voices and try to negotiate on behalf of Western capital?

Tsvangirai then tried to precipitate a "constitutional crisis" that would allow his Western friends to influence things in Zimbabwe against the country’s interests.

But for an all too typical response that came from the West, nothing came out of it.

Except maybe that they will seek to prolong their ruinous sanctions on Zimbabwe when they meet next year.

That, of course, will tend to mean that MDC-T moves into a new post-GPA with its old treasonous and treacherous hand in calling for the sanctions in the first place and not being interested in their removal as the GPA stipulated.

With the sanctions having caused untold suffering among Zimbabweans in destroying every other productive and social services sectors, it would mean that MDC-T, and the "face" of its not so democratic struggle, Tsvangirai, have zero moral ground.

Sanctions have been a political tool of MDC-T, extending from the West, to coerce the economically terrorised people of Zimbabwe into political behaviour that the West wants.

The behaviour of being deprived.

As such Zanu-PF can, and will continue, to fight the moral battle to have not only these hateful sanctions removed, or if they are not, pursue sanctions-busting initiatives.

After all, the country has rich natural and human resources.

The vast diamond deposits in Chiadzwa, capable of providing for the country’s fiscal and material requirements and which MDC-T friends in the West tried to deny Zimbabwe are one example.

Zanu-PF’s heroism in seeing to it that the country was not upset by the evil machinations of MDC-T allies in and out of the West, entitles it to morally see through Zimbabwe’s battle to shrug off the cynical sanctions and also better the livelihoods of the people.

Zimbabweans look up to the boon of their rich resources to better their livelihoods and to assert their independence and sovereignty.

These two values have been threatened, and continue to be threatened, by MDC-T with its fawning identification with the West ideologically and materially.

At any rate, apart from the pain issuing from sanctions that the ordinary people have felt, nothing has come out of MDC-T's benefactors in the West.

Biti even acknowledges the same, when he speaks of the futility of "the vote of credit".

Or, whatever happened to the US$10 billion that MDC-T was promised on condition that they entered Government?

Zimbabwe’s modest growth has been driven by increased agricultural production, in particular tobacco farming headlined by resettled farmers that Tsvangirai derided as having settled like mushroom.

In essence, post-GPA, Zanu-PF should continue with its winning battle against evil Western machinations.

It can also continue with the dollarised economy, which Biti did not bring, by the way.

MDC-T: The Theatre of the Absurd

Given Tsvangirai’s history of unilateralism, a crime he ironically accuses President Mugabe of, it does not look like Tsvangirai will value whatever the supporters tell him, after all they have thick lips, broad noses and kinky hair when those he listens to have blonde hair, thin lips, hawkish noses, high foreheads and eyes of any colour other than brown.

The other irony of Tsvangirai’s latest charade is not only his attempt to pass himself off as someone who values the opinion of his party’s rank and file but the fact that he openly contradicts himself without even realising it. In one breath he says he does not want early elections, in another he says he wants to pull out of Government and the GPA, a development that will only abet the cause for early elections. 

The Herald/ Terra Firma (blog)

By Caesar Zvayi
PLAYWRIGHTS would tell you that their writings are mostly art imitating life. The absurdity of the human condition that at times manifests in man’s failure to understand his environment or his kith and kin, or simply the failure of some people to understand gave rise to a new form of theatre that broke dramatic conventions while highlighting the characters’ inability to understand each other. This type of theatre came to be known as, the Theatre of the Absurd.

Zimbabweans do not have to look far to find this type of theatre unfolding in real life because election season is nearly upon us and it tends to bring out the worst among those at Harvest House.

Elections by their nature bid aspirants to sell themselves and their programmes to the people. And in the absence of any programmes, some aspirants naturally become perspirants who try to divert attention from their shortcomings with side-shows in the hope of evading public scrutiny.

MDC-T leaders are masters at this game and the comedy of the absurd has truly opened at Harvest House.

Morgan Tsvangirai’s ill-advised letters to South Africa, the United States and Europe calling for the ousting of ambassadors posted there was Act 1, Scene 1 of the theatre of the absurd.

Scene 2 was MDC-T treasurer Roy Bennett’s announcement that he was now in ‘‘exile’’ in South Africa, fleeing what he called a ‘‘military junta’’. Bennett said he would not return to Zimbabwe until the political situation stabilises and rule of law is restored.

This was quite ironic given that in fleeing to SA, Bennett who faces a US$1 million defamation lawsuit and is wanted by the police, broke the law and became a fugitive from justice.

High Court judge Justice Chinembiri Bhunu is suing Bennett for allegedly defaming him in an interview he had with the British paper, the Guardian, on May 24 this year in which he was quoted as saying the judiciary was selective and that "the very judge that is trying me is the owner of a farm that he’s been given through political patronage". Suffice to say the same judge Bennett accused of ‘‘selective application of the law’’ acquitted him of the banditry charges he was facing.

In his tirade from South Africa, Bennett proclaimed his innocence saying he did not utter the defamatory remarks yet the comments are still there to this day on the archives of the Guardian newspaper. All he has to do is prove that he did not defame Justice Bhunu in a court of law, and he would be free to do whatever he wants in Zimbabwe without let or hindrance.

What Bennett does not realise is that in giving the courts a non-existent address before skipping the border he did not behave like the innocent man he passes himself for, but a guilty individual who deserves to be hauled to the courts by the scruff of the neck.

Isn’t he aware that he can still be arrested in SA and extradited to Zimbabwe to stand trial, and that can cause him considerable embarrassment than turning himself into the police and facing the music strummed by his own brutish hands.

I challenge the police to call Bennett’s bluff on rule of law, and show him that it really exists. They must contact their counterparts in the South African Police Services to nab Bennett and ship him back home. The courts need him.

Then, of course, Scene 3 was Tsvangirai’s announcement last week that he was launching ‘‘a nationwide consultative exercise’’ to find out whether the MDC-T should stay in or pull out of Government following the renewal of the tenures of provincial governors, appointment of judges and re-assignment of ambassadors, all of which are within the powers of the President to appoint and outside the powers of the Prime Minister to stop.

The biggest irony, of course, was that Tsvangirai has done this before and always when Bennett was in trouble, coincidence?

I don’t think so. This is a typical case of the tail wagging the dog.

Tsvangirai has taken his party structures for a ride with sham consultations before trashing whatever they would have suggested because baas Bennett’s hide would be in need of saving.

A typical example would suffice here.

Last year, October 2009, soon after the formation of the inclusive Government, Tsvangirai claimed there were differences with Zanu-PF and his party would consult its membership countrywide on whether they should stay in Government or pull out. The party members, we were told, resoundingly said the party should remain in Government, and as fate would have it, Bennett’s treason case opened at the High Court on October 16, and Tsvangirai promptly announced that MDC-T was ‘‘disengaging’’ from Government. It didn’t matter to him that his party’s supporters had said MDC-T should remain in the inclusive Government.

Given Tsvangirai’s history of unilateralism, a crime he ironically accuses President Mugabe of, it does not look like Tsvangirai will value whatever the supporters tell him, after all they have thick lips, broad noses and kinky hair when those he listens to have blonde hair, thin lips, hawkish noses, high foreheads and eyes of any colour other than brown.

The other irony of Tsvangirai’s latest charade is not only his attempt to pass himself off as someone who values the opinion of his party’s rank and file but the fact that he openly contradicts himself without even realising it. In one breath he says he does not want early elections, in another he says he wants to pull out of Government and the GPA, a development that will only abet the cause for early elections.

Tsvangirai would save himself the pain of acting all these sideshows by articulating his p

arty’s policies and proving that they are better than what Zanu-PF has to offer. The coming election will be different, very different.

He will have his new constitution, access to the public media, the Sadc guidelines and principles, all of which he used to take as campaign material; this time people need to hear fro

m his own lips what the MDC-T stands for.

What is the party’s position on indigenisation and economic empowerment; resource ownership by Zimbabweans, where exactly do they stand on the land reform programme, our independence and sovereignty.

Judging by MDC-T’s record in the local authorities they control, they stand for the dispossession of the vulnerable groups of society and the enrichment of a few.

No amount of sideshows will erase the images of widows, orphans, the elderly and infirm demonstrating against the party’s councillors who tried to boot them out of their houses.

This is a picture MDC-T party has made clear can happen at national level by promising to return land to white farmers.

Tsvangirai needs to become truly Zimbabwean. He needs to tune in to the majority sentiment.

As it is he manifests the worst of the human condition, failure to understand his environment and those around him, true, theatrics of the absurd.

caesar.zvayi@zimpapers.co.zw

Bitinomics: the art of hoodwinking the public

Some of the most painful episodes in the history of our country were championed by the MDC-T and today it cannot stand as a champion of reconstruction; without taking ownership of its role in the destruction of Zimbabwe.
The party fought against our sovereignty, our self-determination and our right to our ancestral lands calling the land redistribution programme a farce.
The Zimbabwe Guardian
By Nancy Lovedale
THE recent revelation by Finance Minister Tendai Biti that "donors have let us down" makes for grim reading because he proposed a cash budget for Zimbabwe, which he described as “What We Gather Is What We Eat”.
Although this phrase has almost become a cliché, Biti has not put it into practice.
Why did he budget for a Vote of Credit of US$800 million when his budget was a cash budget, or a “hunter-gatherer Budget”?
Government received “very little” of the US$800 million it had hoped to get come from donors in the 2009/10 fiscal year, said Biti, in self-contradiction.
He made a Vote of Credit provision of US$800 million in the 2009-10 Budget, about a third of his overall budget for the year 2010; although he told the country that he would adopt a ‘Cash Budget’. A Vote of Credit doesn’t sound like cash budgeting.
Biti conceded during a budget preparation meeting in Gweru that the provision had been “wishful thinking” – (read as wishful thinking on his part). 
He is the one who came up with the US$800 million figure – just under a third of the total budget of US$2,25 billion he proposed for 2010; while hoodwinking the public that we "were going to eat what we gather". 
Regardless of how one feels about the actions of the donor community, the MDC-T led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, cannot bemoan the lack of support for Zimbabwe. It is responsible for killing brand Zimbabwe and should not cry foul when the international donor community fails to support Zimbabwe.
Ironically Biti also made an interesting revelation that it will take a long time to go to the pre-1996 production levels in the country. In a sense, he is agreeing that the Zimbabwean government had made major strides between 1980-1996 to uplift millions of black Zimbabweans who had lived under the vicious and evil Apartheid system of Ian Douglas Smith.
The year 1996 was a watershed for Zimbabwe. It was the last year in which the country enjoyed cordial relations with its former colony, Britain. The Labour Government of Tony Blair came into power in 1997 and started a vicious international campaign against Zimbabwe, after it reneged on its obligations under the Lancaster House agreement. 
The MDC became a proxy of that Labour government three years later; and an unwitting puppet. Today that party is a conjoined twin of the MDC-T.
If there's anyone who has let Zimbabwe down, it is not the donors. The donors have simply responded to the call by the MDC-T to leave Zimbabwe to "crash and burn". The donor community, for ten years, was strangled and threatened by Britain and US over Zimbabwe. The MDC-T took part in that process as well. 
Prime Minister Tsvangirai indicated recently that he would draw from his "international resources" to ensure that the MDC-T won the next election. Biti should, therefore, ask Tsvangirai to mobilise these resources for the good of the country.
The revelation by Biti is as lame as his statement that "We are alone!" in the fight against poverty in Zimbabwe. We have been alone for the better part of the last decade. This is not some new revelation. Thanks to ten years of MDC-T disinformation and vilification campaign against Zimbabwe.
The snub by NGOs does not come as any great surprise to those with direct experience of the untrammelled cruelties of the MDC-T campaign.
Some of the most painful episodes in the history of our country were championed by the MDC-T and today it cannot stand as a champion of reconstruction; without taking ownership of its role in the destruction of Zimbabwe.
The party fought against our sovereignty, our self-determination and our right to our ancestral lands calling the land redistribution programme a farce.
Some of us are glad that Biti’s intellectual arrogance has been deconstructed and he has realised that his economics is flawed. Those who thought he had some lofty ideas about running a battered economy like Zimbabwe should think again. The minister has simply made a mess of himself by saying one thing and doing the other.
Those who pronounced him “The Best Finance Minister in Africa” are probably burying their heads in shame somewhere in Europe.

• Nancy Lovedale writes from Beijing, China. She is an avid supporter of Dynamos FC and Arsenal FC and can be reached via: nancy_lovedale@yahoo.com

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Integration or federation? Towards political unity for Africa

In other words, the African leaders became embroiled in the colonial problems they had inherited in their different territories, which they now called ‘nations,’ and forgot about the noble objective of declaring a political union of the three countries into an African nation of East Africans within which they could have collectively addressed the inherited ‘territorial problems’. By doing this they surrendered to the neocolonial project, which the colonisers were perfecting under the colonial idea of ‘nation-building’ by making the African leaders manage their former ‘territories’ for them as the new governors. Even the unilateral offer that Julius Nyerere had made to delay Tanganyika’s political independence until the other two countries were ready to federate was abandoned.

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Regional integration and the East African Federation as currently conceived are incompatible. This is because the concept of integration as understood and operationalised in regional arrangements is an economic project with superimposed political structures of authority that are top-down and authoritarian. On the other hand political federation understood in the Pan-African context is a political project that was conceived as part of the strategy for political and economic emancipation. The underlying understanding was that there was basic cultural and social unity of the African people and that was the basis of African nationalism (Kwame Nkrumah, 1963). An understanding of the political history of East and Central Africa shows that the nationalists of the period before independence believed in a political Pan-African federation as witnessed by the creation of Pan-African organisations, such as the Pan-African Federal Movement of East and Central-PAFMECA, the Pan-African Federal Movement of East, Central and Southern Africa-PAFMESCA and AFRICAN UNITY.

To be sure, the concept of regional integration was itself an adaptation of the customs union theory as propounded by Jacob Viner (1950) and as applied to the BENELUX customs union, the forerunner of the European Union. The customs union is a grouping of countries with a common external tariff in which free trade, free movement of labour and capital among the member countries is promoted. The theory examines the impact on trade following the removal of barriers (such as quotas and tariffs) between the countries and their establishment against other countries. It dates back to the classical economic concept of free trade expounded by Scottish economist Adam Smith and English economists David Ricardo as well as Robert Torrens. Jacob Viner just gave an updating to this theory from which the theory of regional integration is derived. This is the model that has been imitated by attempts at forming regional economic groupings.

As Adedeji Adebayo has pointed out, independent Africa came into existence during the age of regional integration. He points out that after the Second World War , the promotion of regional integration became a global phenomenon culminating in the establishment of the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1957, the Latin America Free Trade Association in 1960, the Central American Common Market in 1961, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1967, the Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA) in 1968 etc. He further goes on to state that it was these developments that strengthened the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa’s determination to pursue vigorously the policy of promoting regionalism in socio-economic development in Africa. But this was then quite a different agenda from that propounded by African nationalist leaders about the political unity of Africa.

THE IDEA OF FEDERATION

Indeed, the idea of federation is not an African creation. It is therefore necessary to recognise three main trends in the evolution of the concept of ‘federation’ since the European colonisation of East Africa. The first is a colonial concept, the second is a Pan-African concept and the third is a neo-colonial concept. The first concept was advanced for the sake of domination and the other was advanced as a tool of resistance against exploitation and domination, crafted as a response to the European ‘balkanisation’ of Africa, and the third, a neo-colonial concept, which exploits the Pan-African idea of federation and instead promotes an imperialist integration project in the form of ‘nation building’ and ‘regional integration’ as neo-colonial projects under British imperialist hegemony and later under neo-liberal globalisation. We pursue these issues in  the larger manuscript, which we are publishing separately as a document.

One point, however, needs to be brought out here. The East African situation has indeed shown that the three trends of federation are real ones in the way the advocacy of a Pan-African federation for East Africa was abandoned for a scheme of regional integration due to the reality of neo-colonial domination. In this connection, it should be pointed out as proof of this that, in 1963, the three East African leaders (Kenyatta, Nyerere and Obote) in their Declaration of Federation by the Governments of East Africa issued in Nairobi on 5 June 1963, were clear on the need for the urgency to federate politically in order to avoid their narrow differences ballooning into irreconcilable differences due to the ‘territorial factor’. In the declaration they pointed out that:

‘We the leaders of the people and governments of East Africa assembled in Nairobi on 5th June 1963, pledge ourselves to the political Federation of East Africa. Our meeting today is motivated by the spirit of Pan-Africanism and not by mere regional interests. We are nationalists and reject tribalism, racialism, or inward looking policies. We believe that the day of decision has come, and to all our people we say there is no more room for slogans and words. This is our day of action in the cause of the ideals that we believe in and the unity and freedom for which we have suffered and sacrificed so much (Hughes, 1963).’

This declaration was an expression of a Pan-African desire to bring the people of Africa together into a political unity. The leaders went further to declare that they believed that the East African Federation could be ‘a practical step towards the goal of Pan-African unity.’ They referred to the declaration made at the Addis Ababa conference of Heads of States and governments and added: ‘practical steps should be taken wherever possible to accelerate the achievements of our common goal.’ The leaders recognised that certain ‘territorial factors’ existed and that these had to be taken into account because they believed that ‘some of these territorial problems can be solved in the context of such an East African Federation.’

Indeed, just like the current leaders who in 2005 ‘resolved to expedite the process of integration so that the ultimate goal of a Political Federation is achieved’ through a Fast Track Committee, the political leaders in 1963 also decided to set up a ‘Working party’ that was supposed to ‘prepare a framework of a draft constitution for the Federation of East African.’ Again, just like the Wako Fast Track Committee, the 1963 working party was required to report back in the third week of August of that year to the full Conference of East African governments ‘to consider the proposals of the Working party.’

But this never happened because in the meantime, the more pressing economic issues emanating from the management of the ‘territorial economy’ and the ‘territorial factors’ and ‘problems’ that arose began to overwhelm the Work of the Party. As a result the leaders abandoned the political initiative for a political federation. These ‘territorial problems’ and pressures had emerged within the workings of the East African Common Services Organisation (EACSO) that had replaced the colonial East African High Commission to take care of the interests of an independent Tanganyika before the independence of Uganda and Kenya (Nabudere, 1982).

In other words, the African leaders became embroiled in the colonial problems they had inherited in their different territories, which they now called ‘nations,’ and forgot about the noble objective of declaring a political union of the three countries into an African nation of East Africans within which they could have collectively addressed the inherited ‘territorial problems’. By doing this they surrendered to the neocolonial project, which the colonisers were perfecting under the colonial idea of ‘nation-building’ by making the African leaders manage their former ‘territories’ for them as the new governors. Even the unilateral offer that Julius Nyerere had made to delay Tanganyika’s political independence until the other two countries were ready to federate was abandoned.

So while the idea of Pan-Africanism continued in the minds of East Africans, the economic problems emanating from EACSO became the new reality on which immediate focus was placed. The management of the economic problems that the British had left in this new organisation took precedence over any talk about a political East African Federation that was envisaged by the Nairobi Declaration. Hence the political federation of Africa never materialised for these leaders. The differences between Nyerere and Amin had their roots in this failure of the leaders to go beyond ‘territorial factors’ and problems in the interest of the unity of the people of East Africa and to respect the principles of democracy, which were denied the people of Uganda. Thus, although the working party met in Kampala on 30 May 1964 to produce a constitution for a Pan African Federation for East Africa, this working party, according to Franck, ‘did little but wind up the books’ on a Pan-African federation in East Africa (Franck, 1964). It is clear that the on-going ‘Fast tracking” of the political federation is going to end in a similar manner since currently they are all bogged down in determining who will get more ‘benefits’ through the customs union and common market.

THE WAY FORWARD

It can already been seen that the real reason for the lack of achievement of a political Pan-African federation is the existence of power of neo-colonialism which still dominates our political space. This means that the sovereign power of the people has been negated and relegated into the background. Instead of ensuring that the power of the people of East Africa is asserted, the three leaders and their governments (now five with the admission of Rwanda and Burundi) are ‘sensitising’ the people to accept their ‘fast-tracking’ process which will not produce any positive results. As such what is required is for the leaders of East Africa to put forward the issue of referendum at the fore as the starting point. They must frame a single question to be answered by the people throughout the region on the same day. This question should be: ‘Do you want the borders between the existing states to be dissolved and for East Africa to become one federated State?’ This is because dissolving the current borders will be the only way the ‘sovereignties’ of the people of the three countries based on foreign domination and elite interest can be dismantled. If it is true that the people of East Africa have clearly expressed their desire to unite, as the leaders keep on repeating, then it is clear that the answer in the referendum will be: YES.

Following such a response, the leaders should on a single day put a resolution to their respective parliaments to implement the peoples’ decision by resolving to irrevocably to dissolve the existing colonial borders and constitute one single federated state with inviolable East African borders with the prospect of them only expanding to include the rest of Africa through stages. The decision will be a momentous one because for the first time, the people of East Africa would have expressed their sovereign will to constitute themselves into a state of their own in determination within the modern reality.

Prior to the referendum, there should be a process of grassroots discussions and consultations at village level about the implications of removing the borders and this discussion will include the issue of how to form new states, which will constitute the federation. This is their sovereign right. These discussions will include the issue of what to do once the current colonial borders are dissolved. The people will discuss the effect of dissolution and anarchy that could arise and for them to discuss how to avoid it. They will determine that once the colonial borders are dissolved, the new East African border cannot at any cost be dissolved or interfered with except through its future expansion from time to time to include other African states towards the achievement of a United States of Africa. As Professor Cheick Anta Diop emphasised:

‘The permanency of the federal structures must be inviolable. This principle should be upheld whether the case be national federation like Nigeria, a regional federation, or a continental federation. Once a federal structure is set up it should become irreversible. Once federal structures are elaborated, confirmed and consolidated, succession of any kind must be prevented. … However, its counterpart must be the granting of cultural freedom and autonomy of the various communities. Africa must be protected against anarchy. … While Africa must be protected, we cannot (also) condone the other extreme, which leads to the stifling of the cultural freedom and autonomy of the various communities inhabiting the continent. Each community must able to enjoy to the fullest a freedom compatible with its desire to fulfil itself culturally and linguistically.’ (Diop, in Sertima, 1986).

Thus with the surrender of their sovereignty to the federal state, the communities will have the right to regroup across former colonial boundaries and determine whether they want to constitute new cultural-linguistic states of their own, which can enable them to enjoy self-determination and autonomy within their own states as free members of the federal state, which they would have formed and in which they will all be citizens. This right to reconstitute their own states fits with the reversal of the colonial injustice that saw to the fragmentation and dismemberment of the communities along ‘tribal’ lines into which they were fixed in the colonial states. This will create greater cultural and linguistic unities across former colonial borders, which will enable them to develop their cultures, including their languages in the way they want.

The issue of sovereignty is important to consider in the context of what the ordinary people of East Africa really want. You cannot convince a Maasai of Laikipia in Kenya and a Maasai in Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania that removing the boundaries between Tanzania and Kenya is a ‘risk’ to them, when in their daily life activities; they ignore these borders to feed their cattle and goats and to maintain their cultural identities and solidarities. They do this because they have never accepted the colonially-imposed borders between Kenya and Tanzania. That is why they cross the borders on a daily basis without ‘national identity cards’ or ‘national passports’ to assert their sovereign rights over the territories! So unless we are thinking of other human beings than those that exist on the ground in East Africa, doing away with the existing colonial state sovereignties and borders cannot be considered to be a ‘risk’ for the people involved.

It follows that the issue to be debated in the communities is not about ‘sensitisation’ or ‘mobilisation’ of the communities about the ‘benefits of the political federation’. The issue should be about the leaders taking bold and irrevocable decision to dissolve the existing colonial borders that separate the peoples of East Africa. This will be an empowering process that will, for the first time in colonial and post-colonial history give an opportunity to the people of East Africa to decide their fate. Having done that, the leaders will then engage ‘experts’ from the communities and from the elites to draft an East African constitution that will devolve powers to local state levels as well as defining those at a federal level after the people have decided the political question. Such State constitutions of the different communities will also be written to incorporate the wishes of the respective communities, (including the rights of minorities in each state), which need not be the same.

The ultra-nationalist will argue that the steps proposed above will ‘take us back’ to ‘tribalism’. In fact these ultra-nationalists are the very ones that practice political tribalism even in their political parties to entrench themselves in power by claiming to ‘represent’ the ‘people’ even when they have to buy their votes to do so! Removing borders will reunite colonially created ‘tribes’ and reinstate cultural-linguistic communities that are a feature of all modern nations. Most European constitutions recognise cultural and linguistic identities of the people in their states. African post-colonial states because of the colonial character are the only exception in this regard. Thus the Interim Constitution that will come in force for the short period while new states are being formed will provide for certain short-term institutions and measures, which will replace the former ‘national institutions’ without letup for any anarchy. These will include:

- The creation of the Presidential Council of State that will recognise the existing political heads of state who are currently in position of leadership at the time of the declaration who will act in rotation for a year each until constitutional and legal mechanisms have been put in place for the election of the head of state of the Federation of East Africa on a popular basis in 2010 or such date as will be decided by the Council of State.

- Traditional Leaders and Elders Council, which will have the functions of advising the Presidential Council of State and the East African Federation Parliament, especially on matters of state formation having regard to the cultural and linguistic heritages of the people of East Africa and other matters of importance to the people of East Africa.

- An East African Interim Federal Parliament out of the existing territorial parliaments by each parliament turning itself in an electoral college to elect 100 of their members (on equal gender representation) to join the existing East African Legislative Assembly to constitute a 327-Member East African Federal Parliament-MEAP to legislate on matters submitted to them by new institutions that will emerge as a transition to the emergence of new constituent states

- An East African Constituent Assembly drawn from all the nationalities and base communities identified by the Traditional Leaders and Elders Council in consultation with the Presidential Council of State as well as some of the members of the existing parliaments who do not find their way into the East African Parliament to discuss a new Federal Constitution based on the new state formations

- An East African Armed and Security Forces under one command structure from the existing three armies and security agencies. One third of each of the three armies will be posted to the other three existing states. These forces will ensure the security of the new federal sate as the communities set about recreating new constituent states under a new constitutional arrangement as well as ensuring a peaceful transition.

Other administrative and security measures will be taken in conformity with the need to transition to a new political system. These will include the merging existing Central banks into one East African Central Bank with the responsibility to manage the three currencies, which will continue to relate through the market until one of the currencies emerges as the strongest able to serve the communities in the new Federation. The issue of a monetary union would have been confronted directly through the market and the common market would also have arisen out of the existence of one market created by the fusion of the states into one customs union with the common external tariff, which is currently being worked on, protecting the whole East African market externally and not internally. No single industry inside East African Federation will be protected, but will operate on a competitive basis. Only those enterprises that are able to provide goods and services cheaply will get the entire market.

The above process of state formation leading to the political federation of East Africa, although slower, would have solved the four stage approach proposed in article 5(2) of the East African Treaty. The approach would also have done away with the ‘fast-tracking’ process that has ignored the sovereign rights of the people of East Africa to participate and own the process of political unification. In our view instead of bureaucratic approaches to political federation, the people of East Africa should have participated in creating new states, which they can own. This is in conformity with the new enlightened view of international law, which recognises the rights of indigenous communities over their resources and governance institutions. It is also in line with the Pan-African principles adopted by the Fathers of African Independence both in Africa such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and those in the Diaspora such as Marcus Mosiah Garvey, among others.

It is for this reason that we differ with Professor Shivji in his approach regarding the way a Pan-African unity project could be achieved. In his paper, Prof Shivji, poses the question as to who would constitute the ‘driving forces’ for a new anti-imperialist Pan Africanism. He further poses the question as to where we must begin. He proposes that the place to begin to ‘resurrect a Pan-African discourse and ‘to turn Pan Africanism into a category of intellectual thought’ is to follow Mwalimu Nyerere’s path, which he articulated in his speech on ‘the dilemma of a Pan Africanism’, in which he posed a challenge to students and the staffs of the African universities. Nyerere’s ‘dilemma’ was to find out ‘who will have the time and the ability to think out practical problems of achieving this goal of unification if it is not those who have an opportunity to think and learn direct responsibility of day-to-day affairs.’ His response was that the universities could move in this direction themselves in serving the interests of the nation and those of Africa at the same time.

From this formulation, Professor Shivji draws the conclusion that ‘linking our intellectual life together indissolubly to generate a Pan-Africanist discourse is the task of the post neoliberal generation of African intellectuals.’[1] While I agree with both former President Nyerere and Professor Shivji that an anti-imperialist intellectual and discourse is necessary to the project of achieving Pan-African political unification, there is no doubt that such an intellectual capacity has always existed since Pan-Africanism begun to be articulated on the continent. In our view, what is lacking is not the capacity to ‘think’ about its achievement, but the determination to implement the desire of the people of Africa for unity. We the present generation of intellectuals should discover why it is that the idea of Pan-Africanism, which was ably propounded by the founders of Pan-Africanism, has never been implemented? Our role is to link ourselves to our communities and ensure that their sovereign rights are promoted and protected. It is only then that a Pan-African federation can be realised.