(ALLAFRICA, HERALD) Zimbabwe: Why MDC-T is Unlikely to Change
Zimbabwe: Why MDC-T is Unlikely to ChangeThe Herald (Harare)
Published by the government of Zimbabwe
The Herald (Harare)
OPINION
8 September 2008
Posted to the web 9 September 2008
Then during President Mugabe's official speech opening that Seventh Parliament of Zimbabwe, about 20 or more opposition MPs disrupted Parliament on camera. It is alleged by legal experts that disruption of Parliament was clearly in violation of Section 21 (Schedule) of the Privileges, Immunities and Powers of Parliament Act, Chapter 2:08.
The fact that neither the opposition nor individual members have apologised for what happened at the opening of the Seventh Parliament is consistent with the role of the opposition required by the UK, the US and the EU, but totally inconsistent with the expectations and aspirations of the majority of the people of Zimbabwe who want an inclusive government focused on reversing the damage caused by unilateral and illegal sanctions invited by the same opposition in 2000-2001.
It is therefore important at this stage in the history of the Anglo-Saxon onslaught on Zimbabwe for the media to alert the majority of the people of Zimbabwe to the dangers which the opposition continues to pose for this country.
First, from its beginning in 1999, the opposition and its "civil society" NGOs have allowed the Anglo-Saxon powers to parade the same opposition as part and parcel of the illegal regime change apparatus and as an internal proxy of the white West. When the leader of the Mutambara faction of this opposition recently allowed a belated interview to tell the same white powers to leave Zimbabweans to solve their own problems, that was exactly when seven MPs from that faction allegedly deserted the faction and rejoined the intransigent MDC-T.
Since late 2007, Zanu-PF and the Government of Zimbabwe have been urging the opposition to join them in denouncing and resisting the illegal, unilateral and racist sanctions invited upon the country by the same opposition back in 2000. The opposition continues to refuse to join Zanu-PF and the Government in this urgent effort.
Instead, a large number of officials and supporters of that opposition continued to lie about the reality of economic sanctions, choosing to define them as just travel bans. Morgan Tsvangirai, Learnmore Jongwe, Nelson Chamisa, Obert Gutu, Douglas Mwonzora, Rashweat Mukundu and scores of others have misled the people into believing that the sanctions were just travel bans meant to keep President Mugabe and a few of his "cronies" from travelling.
The unashamed denials were made on television, although other footage already existed on ZTV and BBC, in which Morgan Tsvangirai and Fidelis Mhashu had openly begged the world, and especially South Africa, to cut off the flow of petrol, diesel, electricity, finance, trade and everything else of consequence going to or coming out of Zimbabwe.
It was only after the British Labour government, the US Republican administration, and the EU began to target and threaten specific multinational companies over Zimbabwe in July and August 2008 that Tapiwa Mashakada of MDC-T finally admitted on ZTV that the sanctions were real economic measures targeting the whole economy and the people and not just travel bans on a few individuals. Yet, even after that, the opposition has remained silent on the issue of sanctions here, while its supporters abroad openly celebrate the effects of those same sanctions on the entire population of Zimbabwe.
In late 2002, NGOs supporting the MDC showed their support for Anglo-Saxon efforts to divide and destroy Zimbabwean society. They published a big document called "Is Zimbabwe on the Brink of Genocide?" They proceeded to answer their own question, indicating which alleged "tribe" was going to set up and massacre which other "tribe" using what issues and what means.
The MDC formations for their part helped the efforts of their NGO supporters by claiming that genocide was indeed an ongoing process in Zimbabwe, targeted against the opposition. How the MDC formations could be defined as a tribe or race subject to genocide remains beyond comprehension.
During the opening of the Seventh Parliament, those members of the opposition disrupting the proceedings clearly shouted that President Robert Mugabe and Government had no right to honour Kirsty Coventry as a sports heroine of national and international stature who won gold and silver medals for Zimbabwe at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing
It was in this part of their disruption of Parliament that the 20 or more MPs displayed the binary logic which the MDC-T has adopted from the rightwing who sponsored and founded the party.
The MPs shouted that, because Kirsty Coventry was of Caucasian ancestry, she could not and should not be hailed on behalf of the people by President Robert Mugabe and his Government. They went further to say that Kirsty Coventry belonged to them, to the opposition by virtue of her being of Caucasian ancestry.
This display of racist dualism has been an integral part of opposition thinking in Zimbabwe especially since 1999.
As a project sponsored by Anglo-Saxon powers, the MDC has adopted as one of its responsibilities the duty to erase the history of the African liberation movement by equating it with that of Nazism, fascism, apartheid and even UDI. The techniques used include what Naomi Klein calls recasting and conflating or conflation.
(Page 2 of 2)
In recasting, the African land reclamation movement which seeks to enable the dispossessed African majority to reclaim their land which was once stolen by white settlers is presented as reverse racism which leaves no room for whites who are reconciled to Zimbabwe. But, in fact, this movement merely requires all Zimbabwean citizens of all racial origins to accept that the State now controls land on behalf of all.
The people and that all those who have reconciled themselves with the new Zimbabwe are entitled to queue for land on an equal basis and they shall be resettled. The sponsors of the MDC formations want the opposition to portray the land reclamation movement a racist war by Africans and against all the people of Caucasian descent.
This recasting erases the fact that Guy Clutton-Brock, a Caucasian Briton from Wales, was among the first Zimbabwean heroes to be buried at the National Heroes Acre. This recasting erases the fact that former East Germany, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and former Soviet republics, together with China, were among the most faithful supporters of the African liberation movements of Southern Africa. This recasting seeks to erase the historical fact that it was President Mugabe who as Prime Minister in 1980 invited all Zimbabweans of all races to join the liberation movement in a process of national healing and reconciliation.
From the recasting, it becomes easy for the MDC formations and their white sponsors to conflate the interests of the few unreconstructed Rhodesians and Britons who rejected the hand of African reconciliation as if they are the universal interest of every Caucasian person who has ever lived on this planet. For it is only the few unreconstructed and defiant former Rhodesians and Britons who have so lost is because, by refusing to be resettled, they have refused to share that land with the dispossessed Africans.
The MDC formations are on the record claiming that the Daily News which used to be published by the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe, was meant to be their mouthpiece.
It is from that mouthpiece that we find the roots of binary linking (in the MDC formations) which claims that President Mugabe, Zanu-PF and the Government of Zimbabwe cannot and should not honour a national star of Caucasian ancestry because "she is not yours; she is ours (MDC)." In other words, by virtue of her ancestry, Kirsty Coventry or any other white heroine or hero belongs to the foreign-sponsored MDC formations.
Proof of this binary logic and the assigned role of the MDC formations can be found in the Daily News, April 19 2002. R. S. Mazoyo published a letter entitled "White Presence in MDC gives Zanu-PF Hallucinations". The writer claimed that white people began to sit in harmony with Africans for the first time in the MDC and because of the MDC.
From there it was easy to claim that the African land reclamation movement was merely an African revenge orgy against all white people. It was driven not by desire for justice, fairness and restitution but by sheer black hatred of whites. The Daily News, June 15 2002, published a lengthy letter by one Marko Phiri, which conveyed this conflated message: Mugabe's white hate gospel has failed to poison race relations. The writer returned to paternalistic Rhodesian language of the late 1950s, race relations, rather than revolutionary solidarity.
Then on March 26 2003, The Daily News took the recasting and conflation to extremes. The President, in an address to mourners at Heroes' Acre, scoffed at British efforts to portray him as an African Hitler's reputation is one of over-running other people's countries and destroying other people's nations and institutions.
On the contrary, President Mugabe's only ambition was to enable the people of Zimbabwe to reclaim and control the territory and assets of Zimbabwe and nothing more. However, The Daily News of March 26 2003 turned the meaning of the President's remark completely up side down and inside out, declaring: "Mugabe equates himself to Hitler".
This MDC mission on behalf of white Rhodesians and the Euro-American white right explains the remarks shouted by the rowdy opposition MPs and Kirsty Coventry. This consistent mission, dating back to the founding of the MDC, also suggests that the opposition may not improve its behaviour even if it signs an agreement with Zanu-PF. A piece of paper may not change the mission or the history of the MDC documented here.
Labels: LAND REFORM, MDC, THE HERALD
posted by MrK @ 8:31 PM
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