Maravi

Remembering Smith

Remembering Smith
By Editor
Friday November 23, 2007 [03:00]

There is no doubt Robert Mugabe and his comrades have created a far much superior society in Zimbabwe than Ian Smith and his racist friends did.

Mugabe and his comrades have demonstrated a far much higher sense of humanity than Smith and his friends. But for those who have more to give, more should be demanded of them. It is probably for this reason that more is being demanded of Mugabe than was demanded of Smith.

The death of Smith brings a lot of things to mind. It reminds us of his racism and atrocities - crimes against humanity. Smith not only killed Zimbabweans, he also killed Zambians. We will never forget how Smith caused the death of Alick Nkhata in Mkushi, robbing our country the life of one of its greatest musicians. There are many Zambians who died at the hands of Smith's racist forces.

But there are double standards in the world. The crimes Smith committed have really been played down by the forces that today control world opinion. Instead, Mugabe has been made to look more of a criminal than Smith. We wonder what would have happened to Smith if he was not a white man, if he was a Mugabe.

We have no doubt he would have ended up at The Hague. It seems we still live in a world where a man is judged by the colour of his skin, and not by the measure of his mind and character or deeds. These factors have to be taken into account when we look at the way Zimbabwe is being treated today and how it was treated by the same forces under Smith.

It is very clear to us that the lack of human dignity experienced by Africans is the direct result of the policy of racist supremacy. All of us know only too well that racism demeans the victims and dehumanises its perpetrators.

Racism has not ended in the world, it is still there and should still be fought. It still needs a universal struggle as an affirmation of our common humanity. Out of our experience with the likes of Smith must be born a society of which all humanity will be proud.

We are not being cruel or insensitive by talking negatively about Smith, a dead man. It would actually be immoral for us to keep quiet at the death of a racist tyrant who sought to reduce an entire people into a status worse than that of beasts of the forest.

The thousands of graves strewn across Southern Africa which are the result of a tyranny of racism, the destructive trail of racist tyranny against humanity - all these are like a haunting question that floats in the wind: why did the powerful West that is today so intolerant of Mugabe allow these to happen under Smith?

As we dream and work for the regeneration of our continent, we should remain conscious that our renaissance can only succeed as part of the development of a new and equitable world order, a world without double standards and in which the formally marginalised take their rightful place, makers of history rather than the possessions of others. We should teach our children that they are not one iota inferior to others.

Our challenge is to steer the continent through the tide of history. Our people are capable of deciding upon their own future form of government and discovering and themselves dealing with any dangers that might arise.

We need to exert ourselves that much more, and break out of the vicious cycle of dependence imposed on us by the financially powerful; those in command of immense market power and those who dare to fashion the world in their own image.

Our continent, more than any other continent has had to contend with the consequences of conquest in a denial of its own role in history, including the denial that its people had the capacity to bring about change and progress.

It would be a cruel irony of history if Africa's actions to regenerate the continent where to unleash a new scramble for Africa which, like that of the nineteenth century, plundered the continent's wealth and left it once more the poorer. Can we continue to tolerate ourselves being shown as people locked in time?

Our people yearn and deserve to redeem their glory, to reassert their centuries-old contribution to economics, politics, culture and the arts; and once more to be pioneers in the main fields of human endeavour.

But let's not forget that for as long as the majority of our people on the continent feel oppressed, are not allowed democratic participation in decision-making processes, and cannot elect their own leaders in free and fair elections, we will not make much progress and we will open a fissure which those who once colonised us will quickly fill.

These are the issues Smith's death should remind us to deeply meditate over.

Labels: KENNETH KAUNDA, MUGABE

posted by MrK @ 12:33 PM