(NEWZIMBABE FORUMS) Africa: Problematic link between good governance and development

Africa: Problematic link between good governance and development
Posted By Jonathan Moyo on 23 Aug, 2009 at 10:51 am

AS the embattled coalition Government looks back at its mixed first six months in office ahead of the first anniversary of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) signed by Zanu PF and the two MDC formations on September 15, 2008, and given the dismal failure of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s much-touted but unfunded 100-day action plan, the MDC-T is once again seeking to resurrect the dead and racist issue of governance as the one question in Zimbabwe that must be settled first without any funding.

The dead and racist issue of governance as the number one priority, not just in Zimbabwe but throughout the African continent, has come back into life following a high-profile whistle-stop visit to Ghana last month by United States President Barrack Obama, who declared in Accra that good governance was the key to development in Africa and singled out Zimbabwe as one of the cases in point.

Obama’s self-indulgent declaration about the primacy of governance in Africa as the pivot of development was then made the focus of United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s seven-nation Africa tour earlier this month, which included South Africa from where she pointed dirty governance fingers at Zimbabwe with patronising pleas on President Jacob Zuma to pressure Zanu PF to fulfil alleged outstanding GPA commitments to facilitate political, constitutional and media reforms.

What is instructive about this is that American, European and indeed MDC-T calls for political reform in Zimbabwe are nothing but shorthand for the ouster of President Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF from office.

In the same vein, calls from the same quarters for constitutional reform are a code for the reversal of the legal and constitutional bedrock of the historic land reform with nothing to do with governance. In fact, this is also the reason why there is now an NGO colony out there in our country that is vigorously campaigning against the Kariba Draft constitution simply and only because it maintains and even entrenches the gains of the historic land reform programme.

It is also not hard to see that the hysterical calls for media reform are a mere pretext for foreign control, ownership and domination of the media in the country.

Two weeks ago the group projects editor of the Zimbabwe Independent, Iden Wetherell, wrote a rather personal Editor’s Memo (Zimbabwe Independent, August 14-20) not only falsely pontificating that democratic reforms in Zimbabwe must hinge on an outspoken Press but also shamelessly revealing that he had used the mantra of media reforms to seek guarantees from the Minister of Media, Information and Publicity for the return into the country of his personal friends - Mercedes Sayagues, Joseph Winter and Andrew Meldrum - who once worked here as foreign correspondents.

Wetherell claimed that his friends were “declared prohibited immigrants on spurious security grounds over the past decade or had their temporary employment permits abruptly terminated”. What is worrying and totally unacceptable about this claim, besides the fact that it is a personal matter of an individual using his position as an editor to make a case for his personal friends, is that Wetherell arrogantly puts himself above those responsible for the security of the country by charging that the security breaches which his friends were accused of were “spurious”.

There are some worrying questions here. How does Wetherell know what he is claiming about his friends Sayagues, Winter and Meldrum beyond just making an assertion for propaganda purposes which also smack of racism?

Could it be because Wetherell has worked closely with British intelligence operatives in Zimbabwe who are known to routinely liaise with foreign correspondents such as his friends, or it is because he has access to the intelligence information that Zimbabwean authorities had about his foreign correspondent friends to be able to judge its veracity?

But the crux of the matter is that Wetherell is dead wrong in claiming that democratic or political reforms in Zimbabwe must hinge on an outspoken Press without any qualification. Outspoken against whom and for whom?

While we can respect Wetherell’s assertion as his opinion, we cannot accept it as a fact. What in any case is an outspoken Press? The one that regurgitates British and American propaganda in Zimbabwe, while belittling the legacy and gains of the liberation struggle? The one that is opposed to the historic land reform programme and seeks its reversal under the false claim of good governance through constitutional reform? Or is it the one that caricatures Africans as dictators for the amusement of Western audiences whose enduring image of Africa is based on Tarzan?

The Press that Zimbabwe needs is the kind that is found in Britain and in America in terms of its nationalism. While certain politicians may indeed from time to time find themselves on the receiving end of the British Press as happens even here in Zimbabwe, the British Press is British and is never outspoken against the legacy and ethos of British history.

In the United States, the Press is as American as apple pie. When America goes to war, the American Press goes with the army in the American interest. If there are questions, they come later when some individual politicians, not the American establishment itself, are taken to task without rocking the boat.

One thing for sure is that governance is never raised in America or even in Britain to enable foreign correspondents to roam about and do as they wish in the name of media freedom. The ongoing catastrophic global economic crisis that started in America and Europe has not been blamed on bad governance in those countries while the economic meltdown in Zimbabwe is readily claimed to be a sign of bad governance in the name of media freedom by the likes of Iden Wetherell and his global media masters.

Perhaps the reason why Wetherell wants his friends like Sayagues, Winter and Meldrum to come back to Zimbabwe is because he knows only too well that they are wallowing in irrelevance and squalor where they are and they surely must be eager to return to the sunshine of this country, especially now that forex is supposed to be like milk and honey in the multi-currency economy.

But that is no reason for Wetherell to seek guarantees from the Minister of Media, Information and Publicity to get the BBC to send back Joseph Winter to Zimbabwe. Maybe the BBC would rather send a Jerry Summer instead of Joseph Winter? But all that is irrelevant because the BBC already has Brian Hungwe in Zimbabwe and the question is whether Wetherell has problems with Hungwe in the name of media reforms or for the sake of governance?

We will watch the space to see how Wetherell racks the muck of media reforms as he dutifully does on a weekly basis. Meanwhile, it is very clear that there is a strategic link between the current cacophonic calls for political, constitutional and media reforms in Zimbabwe in that they have a common agenda hidden under the dead and racist issue of governance which is being used as a neo-colonial albatross on the neck of the inclusive Government against Zanu PF.

It is a pity that when President Obama loquaciously declared in Accra in July that governance is the key to development in Africa, he and his advisors thought or pretended that he was making a new and fundamental statement when, in fact, he was not only flogging a dead and now stinky horse but he was also raising an issue that many in Africa see as terribly racist.

Obama and his advisors should be in a position to know better not to claim in 2009 of all times that governance is the key to development because American scholars such as the celebrated Harvard social scientist and author of the international bestseller entitled “The Clash of Civilisations” - Samuel P. Huntington - who died a few months ago, put paid to that false and ridiculous argument in a highly acclaimed and widely used edited book, “Understanding Political Development”, first published in 1987.

Along with governance, there are other equally important goals of development which include economic growth, equality or social justice, political stability and national autonomy or sovereignty.

Social science literature on this matter is very clear and decided. It is therefore cheap, uninformed and unacceptable propaganda that in this day and age in the 21st century we have merchants of global confusion and their local mouthpieces in the MDC-T and among dubious NGOs who go around claiming that governance is the most critical issue facing Zimbabwe today.

That is simply not true because along with good governance, Zimbabweans need peace, unity and stability, economic growth, equality in the access and ownership of the country’s resources and self-determination or sovereignty in the making of their national and foreign policies.

But the assertion being peddled by the Obama administration with uncritical regurgitation by the MDC-T and its supporting Western-created NGOs that governance is the primacy of development in Zimbabwe or Africa is not only false and dead, but it is also racist and neo-colonial insofar as Obama has applied it only to Africans in general and to Zimbabweans in particular.

Notice how since coming into office in January Obama has sought to treat various key regions around the world except Africa with refreshing deference. When he went to Turkey, he pledged to the Moslem world that the United States was now willing to dialogue with other civilisations and religions on the basis of mutual recognition and respect.

In this connection, Obama has preferred to drop the term “terrorist” in favour of “extremist”, arguing that all cultures or civilisations and religions have their extremists.

Even Obama’s dealings with Iran and North Korea have shown a willingness to engage out of the pursuit of mutual interest even though the old-fashioned Yankee mentality of wanting it all rears its ugly head now and again.

In its approach to Russia, the Obama administration has said it wants to reset bilateral relations in order to start afresh on an equal footing. Obama has extended the same spirit and understanding to China which holds the bulk of US Treasury Bills.

In Western Europe, Obama’s diplomats have told anyone willing to listen that the new approach is to be consultative on all matters and that George W. Bush’s Animal Farm doctrine that “you are either with us or against us” has gone with the wind.

What this shows is that the Obama administration has shown a readiness and willingness to respect everyone else but Africans, thus inviting a charge of racism. This is why there is a strong feeling among discerning Africans that because Obama is an articulate African-American with a Kenyan father, the racist core of the American and European establishments have found him a convenient tool to use to advance its same old neo-colonial interests in Africa under the cover that Obama is an African and would thus sound more credible.

But to Africans, including many here in Zimbabwe, who accept Obama as one of their own heritage and who respect his personal achievement, Obama is not in any way historically different from the many African chiefs and kings who facilitated slavery as agents of imperialism. Yes they had African blood, but they were also sell-outs.

In the end, the way Obama has defined governance as a uniquely African problem, and the way the MDC-T is uncritically translating that definition in connection with alleged outstanding GPA issues, is similar to how successive colonial and neo-colonial regimes and their local puppets invoked racist definitions of civilisation, Christianity, modernisation and leadership to disempower, subjugate and colonise Africans.

Professor Jonathan Moyo is MP for Tsholotsho North