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(NEWZIMBABWE) WikiLeaks: One shame more, one gain less

WikiLeaks: One shame more, one gain less
by Nathaniel Manheru
04/12/2010 00:00:00

WIKILEAKS! WikiLeaks! Oh WikiLeaks! Yesterday morning we woke up to a front page story headlined, "I’m not bothered — Tsvangirai." With obvious relish, I quickly reached for a copy of the Ncube tabloid, curious to see how the big man from Buhera, so vaunted by the West for wielding superlative skills, handles this one, handles the invidious in general.

Here was mighty America — Tsvangirai’s sworn ally, and author of ZDERA — unhelpfully telling Robert Mugabe — Tsvangirai’s bete noire, and ZDERA’s victim — that, yes, you are right Bob, right after all; Tsvangirai is woefully inadequate: whether to play personality foil to you, or to succeed you as leader and president of this land of Great Stone.

Regarding the latter, mighty America says Tsvangirai — her proxy — has "little executive experience and will require massive hand holding and assistance." America goes further. The man will require massive assistance "should they [opposition] ever come to power." And in the unlikely event that they "should ever come to power", please watch out, warns our Prime Minister’s all-powerful master!

Zimbabwe’s Walesa

The man is "a flawed figure, not readily open to advice, indecisive and with questionable judgment in selecting those around him." And America declares that this composite flaw definitively circumscribes prospects both for the man’s career and for the opposition: "He is the indispensable element for opposition success, but possibly an albatross around their necks once in power." It helps to remember America did this character assessment before the Inclusive Government. Traversing the continent of Africa, all to reach Poland in mainland Europe, America declares Tsvangirai is alter ego to Lech Walesa, himself a precursor trade unionist-turned-president, thanks to Uncle Sam and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The analogy and conclusion is stark: "Zimbabwe needs him [Tsvangirai], but should not rely on his executive abilities to lead the country’s recovery." In his place, mighty America finds no alternatives, which is why it turns its eyes to those living in the Diaspora.

Timba the little…

Now, with this kind of characterization from a whole all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful, planetary superpower called America, who would not be too keen on the reaction? Who? Eagerly, I go for the "intro". It reads: "Jameson Timba, the Minister of State in Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Office, says…blah, blah, blah." A-ah, so it is not the man himself saying "I am not bothered"? It is another? And who be it? Jameson Timba!

Timba the little bird! Timba the little! The whole story is devoted to the diminutive Minister "in the Prime Minister’s Office". It is, in other words, a story driven by someone coming from the very Office which is the subject matter of WikiLeaks. Let us see with what amount of competence. I read on. The horror, the horror! The Minister has "risen" to tell us all that the Prime Minister, Right Honourable Morgan Richard Tsvangirai, is not bothered by America’s view of him! Simply, not bothered at all. Palaver Finish!

Illustrating America’s verdict

Let me confirm that I had absolutely no interest in this story until this little man Timba rose tall and taller, all to tell us his boss is not bothered. But his boss is bothered enough to send him to tell us he is not bothered?

Not bothered at all! And when the messenger comes from his Office, when the messenger is his officer, we are immediately furnished with material with which to test mighty America’s character assessment of the man. Is someone thinking in that office?

The subject of America’s dismissive view of Tsvangirai centres on his sense of judgment, specifically his "judgment in selecting those around him." Such as Timba? How do you stretch yourself larger and taller to declare un-existing nonchalance? You convey non-bother by taking a bother with a media enquiry on the matter? With men like this, who needs to doubt the Americans?

R.S.V.P.

Now that the minister has invited us into the story, let us deal with it, candidly too. If not simply on grounds of his clumsy and disastrous handling of this public relations challenge on his boss, certainly on grounds of concern at the MDC-T leader’s claimed lack of concern at his handler’s view of him.

Let me dispense with matters of protocol first. America’s piece does not relate to Morgan Tsvangirai as Prime Minister of this country. It could not have, given that at the time of this American judgment, the man was nowhere near Munhumutapa building, less in dreams, far, far less so in reality. Secondly, America is addressing him as a leader of an opposition it made and expected so much from. ZDERA, reinforced by successive executive orders makes this paternal connection and filial expectation so obvious as to be trite.

So I need not comment within strictures, fearing I am accused of disrespecting the Office of the Prime Minister of this country. But equally, I am not constrained from gauging whether or not the man has evolved, ever since the passing of this verdict, now leaked to the world.

Aesthetics of longer apartheid

I am Zanu (PF) and the temptation to go for Tsvangirai beckons compellingly. Yet that would be to miss a crucial point with a direct bearing on this country and its African (black) people, the true indigenes of this land. I am not the type that gets finicky about whose land Zimbabwe is. I am very clear, the same way I am very clear that when a victim of oppression agonizes to ingratiate himself or herself with the oppressor, he/she is showing appalling weakness, in fact showing a despicable complex.

He is not showing strength of character, less still magnanimity. It is a weakness that only invites greater derision from the oppressor, not a higher regard for superior humanity. You cannot mortgage the entitlements of your people in the name of one-sided reconciliation. Much sooner than much later, South Africa will learn there is no black colour on the rainbow, itself a vaunted symbol of post-apartheid reconciliation and its famed amity.

If South Africa treats "rainbow" as a symbol of permanence, as a timeless and unconditional ideal, then the rainbow will turn out to be such a bad, execrable metaphor that misled a generation. If South Africa treats the rainbow as a social model for tackling racially entrenched disparities, then the rainbow will turn out much worse, indeed acquiescence so unfit and so demeaning to a liberation movement.

One shame less, one gain more

No amount of aesthetizing the apartheid that lingers well into Uhuru will alter the above facts. We saw it here. We called "longer Rhodesia" the "private sector" or "commercial farming". We deodorized it up to 2000, until our embittered people told us there was dung in the room.

We only began moving forward as a people the day Robert Mugabe decided that the reconciliation which had given us some peace respite from a bitter war, could never deliver social justice to the downtrodden. And it has been so throughout histories of the oppressed.

It was Mexico’s armed revolutionary leader, one Zapata, who said: "We fight for the land and not for illusions that give us nothing to eat…. With or without elections, the people are chewing the cud of bitterness." Real progress begins to register when as a people and a race find each day comes to mean one shame less, and one material gain more.

Hard on the ward

I want to go back to WikiLeaks. Zanu (PF) welcomes this as propaganda manna. It should and it must wring out of this hefty disclosure every ounce of propaganda value. Well before the Zimbabwean masses have judged this man called Tsvangirai, his own benefactors have dropped a hint to guide all of us when the time of judgment comes.

They do not think highly of him, something this column has repeatedly pointed out. Surely benefactors are always charitable, even reluctantly so. When they eventually say hard things about their ward, when they cannot hold back on negativity, and say so loud enough for the ward’s enemies to hear, surely they have seen something too sinister to be ignored, too dangerous to benefit from doubt. This seems to be where we are.

America’s KRA

But there is a more fundamental point: that to do with imperial America’s relationship with small, rich states, relationship with small, dark people minding their own little, coveted corner in the world. Throughout the leaked assessment of Tsvangirai, the concern of America is apparently not Zimbabwe and its futures.

The fixation is with one Mugabe, chiefly his delayed political end. America’s "grit, determination and focus" is in getting Mugabe out of the way and the fact that this was the subject focus of Dell, clearly suggests that was the raison d’etre of his deployment here. Maybe the all-time reason for the deployment of American Ambassadors to Harare. Mugabe’s downfall is a key result area of American foreign policy, it seems.

Caveat Emptor

And America pursues this with singleness of purpose. Its whole concern is invested in this one outcome. Here we call it regime change, a sinister goal the American embassy here stoutly denies as sullying its otherwise impeccable foreign policy. And when Mugabe falls? America, apparently, is not concerned.

About that, it makes a measly contribution: simply by way of a costless warning to all of us on who should not lead us. And the man who should not lead us is Morgan Tsvangirai, America tells us. Read all that against the tall claims of ZDERA and Executive Orders signed by successive US Presidents and tell me what price tag you would put on America’s care of this small, great country, on this small, great black people.

Holding thy hand

Except not caring for post-Mugabe Zimbabwe’s fate would actually have been a favour to all of us as Zimbabweans. And don’t get me wrong: to say America does not seem to care is not to say America has no interest in getting involved. On Zimbabwe, America is not about to cut and run. You cannot miss America’s fervency in the leaked report.

America means to stay. It promises "a massive hand holding and assistance" to a Zimbabwe led by an unable MDC and its equally unable leader. I mean, no-one should be foolish enough to think Dell is wishing for a "massive SADC hand holding"? The massive hand he means is that of imperial America.

That is where Tsvangirai’s character as read by his American benefactors and your fate and my fate, intersect. America will lead Zimbabwe simply by holding the disabled governing hand of the MDC, should it ever become a ruling party! And America is too impatient to hesitate. After all, save for Tsvangirai’s ineptitude, America "could have achieved more already."

Brave for what?

But there are qualities in Tsvangirai America gladly extols. He is brave. He is committed. He is "by and large" a democrat. More fundamentally for America, he is the one player "on the scene right now" with "the ability to rally the masses". Brave in defence of what? Committed to what? Whose democrat? Rallying the masses towards what?

Such questions bring us closer to America’s sense of leadership abroad, little abroad. Answers to all these questions, quite naturally, must relate to helping America "achieve more" in Zimbabwe, which is where one needs to broaden the outlook beyond Dell’s instalment, itself the latest and "lastest", as his tour of duty came to a close. What WikiLeaks gave us were last rites of policy exhortations by an American envoy to America pursuing defined goals, working for definite outcomes, all set well before this leak.

For America, African opposition politicians are there to neutralize African leaders who dare oppose the realization of American interests on their own soil. For that eventuality, they must show bravery and commitment; they must be charismatic enough to "move the masses". African political leadership should be instrumental to the pursuit of American interests on the continent. And the whole MDC campaign woven around marches to State House, around "removing" Mugabe "forcefully", was part of the leadership test for Tsvangirai. They found him brave; they found him committed, but with a serious IQ deficit.

I did not say it; America did. And as "the end gets nigh", quite naturally American imperialism gets anxious. It needs an able hand "to rally the masses" towards endorsing the outcome America desires, towards accepting to live under a neo-colonial outcome perpetually, without challenging American interests. It means reconstructing a new "State" out of the one created in the aftermath of the war of liberation. That State must be ably manned, with competent hands. This is America’s gripe with Tsvangirai and those around him. Through the incompetence of those around him, he cannot build a cleverly run neo-colony for America.

The Maliki option

America’s solution is not Biti or Chamisa, much as it places both above their condemned leader. It is those Zimbabweans in the Diaspora. I call this simple America’s Maliki option, after the experiences of post-Saddam Iraq. Or the Karzai option where Gucci-smelling Moslems are plucked from Diasporic Afghanistan to take over an Afghanistan ruined by a blatant American invasion, and then to rule it after the image and vision of Uncle Sam. America tried the same in Cuba, which is why post-1959, America pursued a policy of Floridising Cubans, including through the Peter Pan project which involved massive abduction of Cuban children for adoption by American families in Florida and other cities.

The idea was to raise a Cuban émigré community in sufficient numbers to be able not just to mount an invasion, but also to cobble an American-reared leadership for Cuba. So when the American envoy talks of a hand-held outcome, we need not conjecture what that means in everyday terms. We have precedence already, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, but also spectacularly inspiring examples in Cuba. To say so is not to indict many Zimbabweans out there eking out a hard living in the Diaspora. We should get away from this fallacy of thinking everyone out there is pro-West and an MDC activist, supporter or sympathizer. True, tall tales have been sold to western immigration officers by many in the Diaspora.

But once settled, Zimbabweans in the main regain their sense of nationalism. I have always told people if you want to radicalize a Zimbabwean, send him abroad. Whatever the dominant disposition of Zimbabweans out there, the issue is imperialism will not stop hoping or drawing scenarios serviceable to it. It is important to know this.

Still standing

I recall Baffour Ankomah of "New African" magazine reminding me after an instalment that America’s penultimate act before ousting Nkrumah was to withdraw its white envoy who had done much of the dirty work, in order to replace him with a black one who would blend well with Ghana. Maybe that is what McGee was all about and this column made the same point. It read McGee together with Johnnie Carson, averring their deployment to or on the Zimbabwean case was not necessarily out of sync with the broader pursuits of imperialism. But a good two years after McGee, Mugabe still stands. It is precisely for the same reason that I find Charles Ray and his latest forays at attempting to rally veterans of Zimbabwe’s war of liberation, quite interesting. Is he the one America has been waiting for to deliver Mugabe’s head? Is he a correction on McGee? Or might he be a turning point after the false end Dell saw and America hoped for?

Shark on sand dune

Ambassador Charles Ray reads like a proverbial shark pushed to a sandy shoreline. It can no longer rely on its size and agility, facing as it does a sea of sand. Much as one wants to like him, one finds him a bit strange in white America’s way. How can he tell us an American Ambassador’s view is not American policy, without nullifying his own role here? That view certainly matters to American policy, and that is the point. And when he says so, is his not another American ambassador’s viewpoint which need not be America’s policy? Which is to say Dell could very well have articulated America’s policy, whatever Ambassador Ray thinks and says?

Anyway, what is America’s policy towards Tsvangirai, if Dell’s views are not it? That he has good judgment and must lead this country? Or that the end for Mugabe is "not nigh"? I do not like denials from Westerners which take us for buffoons. We are a thinking nation, a thoughtful people, and Ambassador Charles Ray must respect his origins which connect him to us regardless of whom he serves today. He must never bring to bear here a white man’s contemptuous view of the Zimbabwean African. We are not cretins and Dell’s backhanded tribute to Robert Mugabe is deserved. It is not an act of generosity by a white American Ambassador.

Wikileaks or Weak Links

We have come a very long way, seen a lot and survived stupendous adversity. We are still standing. We mean to live, to endure, driven by the same appetite for longevity that animates white America. The era of revolutions that produce martyr-leaders is long over. We read Nkrumah not just to know how to move forward, but also to know how not to be extinguished in a dangerous world. The African revolution must defend its leaders. It must not ape Haiti, itself an ambivalent symbol of black prowess and black vulnerabilities. From where I stand, America must budget to deal with Mugabe, a longer Mugabe, which is what makes its view of his fall utterly mistaken.

It is a hard fact Britain is just beginning to digest, albeit interrupted by numerous internal growls in its own stomach. It is a hard fact that Europe, led by its southern soft-belly, is beginning to grapple with, turning over to the page of pragmatism. And Mugabe’s longevity subsists not in claimed "autocracy" or "rigging", which all the westerners do know is fictional, self-serving fabrications. Mugabe’s longevity lies in the fact that he has turned out to be both "the wind of change" which began in the 1960s, and the gale of empowerment which roars in open challenge to neo-colonialism.

He wants the aftermath to be African, truly African. In that respect he leads the pack and has treaded where even angels would dare not go. With a continent still occupied, a people still marginalised, a future still strangled, how can Mugabe ever fall? How can his end ever be nigh? WikiLeaks has shown imperialism’s weak links.

Icho!

Nathaniel Manheru is a columnist for the Saturday Herald newspaper

Labels: CHRISTOPHER DELL, MANATHANIEL MANHERU, NEOCOLONIALISM, WIKILEAKS

posted by MrK @ 3:39 PM