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(HERALD) Manheru: Anti-Sanctions Campaign: The day the lion knew how to draw

Manheru: Anti-Sanctions Campaign: The day the lion knew how to draw
Friday, 04 March 2011 20:39

Was it Caesar Zvayi who once accused Zanu-PF and Government of not doing enough to roll back sanctions? I furtively agreed with him, arguing quietly that Zanu-PF risked cutting heroism for the most flowery description of how hurtful sanctions have been, are, to Zimbabweans, indeed that Zanu-PF risked winning a trophy for the sharpest squeak of pain, whether felt or vicarious, from sanctions.

Until now, Zanu-PF has been a whining party. Today, we can now say the lion has wrestled pen and paper from the hunter and, what a drawing!

Only Marx was the only Marxist!

Yet by definition, sanctions are meant to transfer hurt and damage to their targets.
They would not be sanctions if they didn't.

Ask the Rhodesians. Similarly, a basic rule of physics tells you that to every action there is and should be equal and opposite reaction. Maybe that is where Karl Marx developed the theory of dialectics.

I am not sure though about the "equal" dimension to this great rule of physics.
The reaction is sure to be opposite. That I do not doubt. But need it be equal?
That cannot be a part of the rule, surely? Reactions can be quite hefty and overwhelming than actions that provoke them.

Or they can be far less, far too feeble and mediocre, when measured against the original action. Both dimensions to the rule of action and reaction are borne out by history, including our very own.

I hope I am not about to join the group of bogus Marxists of yore, so bitterly accused of vulgarising Marxism. I could be charged with vulgarising the notion of historical materialism, itself Marx's way of applying the theory of dialectics to human history.

But such is how human knowledge grows and multiplies, that is, through thoughtful disputations.

In my defence, I will just quote the President.
Fed up with the question from the Western media on whether or not he was following the tenets of Karl Marx in running Independent Zimbabwe, he retorted: "After all, Karl Marx was the only Marxist!"

Colonial Action and Reaction

I am driving at a very simple point.

The Rhodesians eyed this country, invading it subsequently. That was in 1890.
We all became subjects of the British Queen, willy-nilly or by conquest.
This generation was born into that situation, which is what made servitude appear like a rule of birth - a birthright to most Africans.

Conquest had taken place well before our time, and we were born into servitude which we mistook for a way of African life in a racially structured and fractured settler society.

But across generations and cumulatively, we reacted, maybe not so heroically for a start, but the issue is we reacted to settler conquest action.
Arguably, even time recognised the action/reaction dialectical logic, which is why 1980 is 1890 dialectically tilted. 1980 thus marked the crescendo of that reaction, our reaction to colonialism as an occupied African people.
Unequal reaction to colonial action
That 1980 was opposite to 1890 seems to have little doubt politically.
That it was equal or matching to what had happened to us between 1890 and 1979, I can't say at all.
If it was, the Third Chimurenga would have been superfluous, would it not be?
If it was, indigenisation and empowerment we talk about to date would have been needless.
The reaction created a deficit, when measured against the offending action, which is why we are still in struggle, why we are still trying to muster a reaction that shall be equal to the damage we suffered by way of colonial white actions here and elsewhere on this our once colonised continent of Africa.
This deficit creates the paradox of Africa, namely of a liberated continent ever in chain.
This deficit is what makes our Independence micky-mouse, as Lucky Dube would say, makes it taste and smell more sour and acrid than stale milk.
Reaction to a reaction
Something else has happened.
Beyond colonial action, colonial forces have followed though with many other actions - or are they reactions to our comparatively mediocre reactions? - to recover lost ground of original pre-eminence.
Today, we have the MDC formations as part of that follow-up action, do we not?
It is a settler colonial project, is it not?
An attempt at reconstructing our Independence reaction, by moulding something we call neo-colonialism. Let me not stretch polemics, cease forthwith this abstract schema.
We have real history, real issues to deal with, which is why the real dead cobra must measured, never estimated by a rope as if it can ever roar back to menacing life.
Undying settler anger over land
The British acted to take our land.
They acted to disinherit us. The subsequent land acquisition programme was our reaction to that action. It hurt whites, itself a second hurt after the liberation struggle which handed down defeat to the settlers.
Judging by the copious writings by displaced white farmers, you get the sense that this lost tribe of Britain has writhed more from its land losses than from pain it ever endured in the war, even when their two Viscounts were brought down.
One affected settler - a well-known tobacco magnate and leading sanctions buster of Rhodesian - wrote a mournful book simply titled "All for Nothing?"

The book carries the outpourings of a soul in deep agony, poses questions besieging a befuddled white who cannot believe that his investments on Zimbabwean land are all gone.

The searing pain is understandable, including its comparative magnitude.

In both Viscounts, Rhodesia lost lives; through the Land Reform Programme, Rhodesia lost its only livelihood, the only one possible in this world.

The Rhodesians have tried to go to Mozambique, Zambia, Angola and even as far afield as Kwara State in Nigeria, still they tell you it's never the same. They are a bitter lot, very bitter. They would kill if they could.

One angry Charlotte Reid-Rowland

Let us sample a bit of that bitterness, arguably the latest. You can get it from the collating website called "Zimbabwe Situation", itself a globalised electronic expression of landed settler white grief, as it had sobbed and scattered since 2000.
That site published a letter dated 2nd March, 2011.

That means the letter expressed a fresh impulse, a fresh hurt only three or so days old from this article. It is a white impulse, a white emotion captured in burning agony and bitterness.

The letter is signed "Faithfully, Charlotte Reid-Rowland," itself the name of a 25-year old Rhodesian lady who immigrated to the UK only eight years ago.
It is addressed to Mr Cameron, the British Prime Minister.

That makes the letter an open petition by a young settler Rhodesian woman to the British Prime Minister.

Why not bomb Mugabe?

It begins quite simply and straightforwardly thus: "I am a 25-year-old former Zimbabwean citizen living in England, and have been for almost eight years now.
"It has long been a source of frustration that the British government has done so little to help ease the situation in Zimbabwe, but this frustration has increased a thousand fold of late."

At 25, Charlotte would have been born about four or five years after Independence.

By time, she must be a new woman, a new human, away and above fractured Rhodesia and its warped and polarised racial (in)sensibility.

Let us test this expectation.

Her letter conveys admiration for the courageous citizenry of Egypt and Tunisia in its fight for freedom and human rights, with "very little support...offered by the British government."

These two situations she contrasts with that of Libya where the British government now appears roused from its democracy stupor.

The lady pins down David Cameron by quoting verbatim the British Prime Minister's outrage at what is happening in Libya.

In particular, she quotes that crucial point in Cameron's speech where he says: "In that context I have asked the Ministry of Defence and the Chief of the Defence Staff to work with our allies on plans for a military no-fly zone."

Mr Cameron, please?

Wasting no time, she cuts in: "This is a commendable statement, and one which I fully
support.

"It is completely unacceptable for any government to use force of any kind to oppress the people's rights to protest that which they feel is unjust, particularly where these protests are peaceful and undisruptive.

"The burning question in my mind, is why then has nothing been done about Mugabe's regime?

"Mugabe has used military force on the people of Zimbabwe since the early 80's, when he ordered the Gukurahundi massacres, not long after the British government facilitated his rise to presidency.

"He has also sanctioned the forceful removal of hundreds of farmers from their own lands, which resulted in several farmers dying horrible deaths at the hands of so called ‘war veterans', many of whom were no older than I, and not even born during the war."

Are Zimbabweans less human?

She buttresses her point by a reference to Marange diamonds fields where she says helicopter gun-ships were used against the people.

She continues: "Meanwhile, these diamonds are being sold onto the open market, making Mugabe and his cronies wealthier by the day while the majority of his people cannot even afford to feed themselves."

Turning to Britain, she sorely adds: "Over the last few years, there has been a lot of talk that the Iraq invasion only took place because of the oil reserves there.
"I was reluctant to believe that, and hoped that the British government at least, was better than that, and cared more about human lives than about natural resources.

"Now, faced with dictatorial leaders falling left and right, the only situation that has sparked any interest from the British government is that in Libya, the richest of them all in terms of oil.

"So the question I wish for you to answer is why, if not for oil, has Britain condemned Gaddafi's actions, but quite happily ignoring the exact same behaviours in many other countries, including Zimbabwe?

"Why is military action against the Libyan people unacceptable, yet against Zimbabweans it is ignored and brushed under the carpet?

"Are the people of Zimbabwe any less human?"

And she closes with a mighty threat: "I have circulated copies of this letter to a number of newspapers including the BBC, a number of independent Zimbabwean news sources and human rights activists in South Africa, and I know we are all eager to hear your response."

Beautiful ones will never be born

Gentle reader, I don't know what you make of this short letter from the young lady. I will tell you my reading of it. It marks settler anger renewed across gender and generations.

Institutionalised anger which proves quite clearly that on this one matter, the beautiful ones may never be born.

On both sides, I can assure you.

Placed in similar circumstances, an African girl would just be as bitter, of course without the privilege of writing a British Prime Minister.

He would most probably find her own kith and kin.

Land is a core asset and identity of a people. It does not quite matter whether it is rightfully yours or wrongfully acquired.

It seeps into your very blood and psyche, making you part of it.
This is where the discourse gets a bit unfriendly.

Taking back the land was a very bold decision by us, a very painful decision for those on the receiving end of it.

The bitterness of the latter would be as sharp as our collective happiness as the former, something akin to the action and reaction nexus.

Why did we ever think Britain, Europe and America would react through polite sanctions?
Why?

Unprepared Zanu-PF

It boggles the mind why we took so long to inventory the reaction from the white world.

It ruptures thought why beyond acquisition, we took so long to plan for a comprehensive countervailing strategy.

They almost got us, in 2008 - almost - but fluffed a chance which, like death, only visits once.

We almost jeopardised the Republic, indeed could have squandered freedom so dearly purchased.

From 2001 - in the case of America - and from 2002, in the case of Europe, the fangs of sanctions sank deep, deeper, into the entrails of our hapless people.

Out of desperation, in 2007/8, they almost acted against themselves, against their own interests.

It was as if we never read Cabral who teaches that a people pushed to desperation, can act against their own best interests, fling their best men and women overboard, to the sharks.

The revolution, counseled Cabral, should always defend the people, augment their survival options, so their commitment and loyalty to the struggle is not over-taxed.
The threshold of their welfare must remain assured.
We forgot all that.

Instead of leading the people in generating solutions to challenges of sanctions, we joined them in bemoaning the ravages of these sanctions.

Until your people pelt you ...

After all Robin Cook, late British Foreign Secretary, had plainly told Stan Mudenge, then our Foreign Minister, in Egypt that through sanctions, Britain, Europe and America would drive Zimbabweans against their leaders, squeeze them until insurrection.

Stan, clinched Cook, by keeping Mugabe in power and proceeding to take land from white farmers, your economy shall scream and your people shall pelt you in the streets.

It was more than a chilling message; it was a timely warning we should have taken to heart.

After all, the Americans had served Chile's Allende with more or less the same dessert, and worse things happened to him and his people, for well over two decades.
Why were we complacent?

Focusing the nation

But better late than never.

Zanu-PF has acted at last and hey, what an impact! The anti-sanctions petition launch has rattled the whole white empire.

The MDC formations, the empire's Trojan Horses, are at a loss on how to react.
First the content.

Firstly, the event marked the beginning of a drive to gather two million signatures against sanctions.

This is a prodigious goal, but one whose political value is just as immense.
Correctly stretched over time and space, skillfully choreographed over communities and classes, this could very easily build on the gains Zanu-PF has already notched through the constitution-making exercise.

The campaign keeps the nation engaged, keeps it focused on a potential election agenda item, indeed keeps the nation thinking within a Zanu-PF framework.

Who is with the people?

You ask yourself, does Tsvangirai have advisors?

Does he have intelligence? Why would anyone in their rightful mind counsel against his participation?

After Wikileaks, after the constitutional process, ahead of the referendum, ahead of elections?

MDC-T may have lost an opportunity for attempting to puncture Zanu-PF's campaign balloon.

Tsvangirai's posture would only have made sense if the turnout was going to be low.
As fate would have it, the turnout was massive.

Stupid arguments that Zanu-PF bused people are just that, stupid.
Why would it not?

The event was dubbed national. Anyway, is not the issue that Zanu-PF has people to bus?

The same bused people will still vote.

Is the issue not that MDC-T's attempts at intimidating people away from attending, attempts most visible in Chitungwiza, failed?

Is the issue not that by coming in such staggering numbers, the people have proved the credence of Zanu-PF messages on sanctions, indeed disproved and disapproved MDC formations' claims that there are no sanctions, let alone hurtful ones?

Can the MDC formations comfortably claim to be able read the public mood anymore?

Cricket or millipede?

Welshman, Oh Welshman!

Much like the proverbial cricket, he continues to kick off his hind legs, forgetting he is not a millipede endowed with a million legs.

He forgets he still has to cross the vlei, to reach the next village.
Obviously, he is an angry customer to Zanu-PF.

The President should have dropped Mutambara as a principal, should have brought him in as a new principal, Ncube bitterly opines.

His actions and those of his traditionally suave and mature Priscilla, smack of bitter self-hurt.

Far more than all, Welshman was most strident against sanctions in the negotiations that gave rise to the GPA, that yielded its fraught anti-sanctions clause.

Far more than all, Priscilla raised needling questions to Europe and America, each time the Cabinet Committee engaged delegations of those power blocs.

Both stances gave MDC some stature, national in scope in my view.

Against both developments, the MDC boycott of the Wednesday petition sticks out as out of character.
It smacked of a perverse hope to revenge on the President and Zanu-PF on the non-inclusion of Welshman as a principal.
But they should have thought through their actions, should have picked on a better moment.
Sanctions do define the politics of this country, for now and for the foreseeable future.

Soko Mufakwose!

I thought Mutambara played it quite skillfully.

He did not attend the launch. No one begrudged him, if you ask me.


But before long, in fact a day later, he pronounced himself unequivocally in support of the removal of sanctions, well away from a function cast as having partisan trappings.

Had he gone to the launch, he would have given Ncube easy victory.
"Ahaa," Welshman would have said, "you see your Zanu-PF man!"
He didn't, which is why vaNcube vakaita mufakwose!

Much worse, at the late Lesabe's funeral, Ncube gave away enough indications of where he is headed politically.

Why would any party worry to court a political minor who is about to be swallowed by another?
It is clear Dabengwa is the man to talk to.
Before long, Welshman will wiggle in Dabengwa's belly, like the biblical Jonah who chose a different city to one preferred by the Almighty.
Farai Mutsaka and Peter Wonacott quote Ncube as not sure what to tell investors when they ask him if President Mugabe plans to seize their companies.
"I can't give them any firm assurances."
I hope he is not about to fail too as a Minister of Government.
Surely if these are investors from those countries in the West which have imposed sanctions, the answer is straightforward: he cannot assure them, naturally, the same way he himself cannot be assured by as to when sanctions will be lifted.

The men who authored Zidera

Welshman has two problems on this one matter.

Alongside Biti and Coltart, he was part of the team that authored sanctions. As contradictions sharpen, he finds himself in a bind, a worse one for him since at some point, he appeared to have renounced those same sanctions.

Secondly, he believes, alongside many in the MDC formations, that investors only come from the West.

It is a belief against reason, experience and world trends.

Surely the two years he has been sitting in that grand office have shown him the colour of the investor who is bringing in money, or the obverse, the colour of the investor who will not come to Zimbabwe, who is taking away money from us?
His latest deal on Zisco is with Indians.

That suggests that the question that nags him is coming from the West, itself his party's source market for political capital, literally.

But Welshman will not like this one: asked whether Welshman or Arthur has approached him for advice, Tsvangirai responded by a devastating analogy.

Noting that Arthur would come; that Welshman would never come, he added in respect of the latter: "Nyakudya zvitorobho nhasi wadzipwa neganda remhuru!"

Roughly translated it means the tough one who brags of chewing tough hide, today lies sprawled and gasping, choked by mere veal.

Tsvangirai things the haughty man has met his comeuppance and asks the world as to who divided the MDC in 2004/5.

And MDC's drift towards Zapu simply consolidates Tsvangirai and Dell's view of Welshman.

Divided advice

I said Tsvangirai has no advisors.

More correctly put, he has, only poor and disagreeing ones.

On boycotting the event, Biti took the lead, including selling the idea of a Press conference after the launch, at which Tsvangirai was made to mumble incoherences.
Senior media advisors were opposed to the approach which made the MDC-T leader look more foolish, more treacherous.

But the dilemma for Tsvangirai was real.

Coming would have meant fitting within a campaign frame of Zanu-PF.

Not coming, as he did, means he is not just the source of sanctions, but the reason for their continuation in the present and future.

He validated WikiLeaks and worse things we have always heard attributed to him.
Indeed, by not attending, he has pitted himself and his party against the millions who came and could have come, the two millions who shall sign the petition.

For a Europe which is now half-hearted about sanctions; for an America whose men here are busy searching for an honourable way out, he took a gamble against common sense.
He also lost an opportunity to de-escalate interest in the petition campaign, as was sure to happen if MDC-T had laid claim to the whole thing by attending.

Now that he did not - and I am very happy - that means the issue becomes more alive, well into the next elections.

I cannot wait.
It was far easier to deal with charges that he fitted into a Zanu-PF programme that charges that he acted treacherously.

After all, the GPA concerns itself with sanctions, a good defence to any such charges.

Assuaging British discomfort
For me, reaction from the West is what I just found both riveting and hilariously absurd.

First, the British, themselves the real culprits on sanctions.

On the same day of the anti-sanctions launch, Mark Canning, the UK Ambassador here, waxed lyrical about a statement from his International Development Minister, one Andrew Mitchell, promising a 15 percent increase in British government "bilateral aid programme" in Zimbabwe.


How little monies to non-State actors become bilateral, only the British can say.
Millions of pounds were quoted and a high purpose ornately affixed to them.

"This is great news for ordinary Zimbabweans.... Amidst so much political propaganda around the issue of so-called sanctions, this demonstrates yet again that the United Kingdom is firmly committed to supporting Zimbabwe and improving the lives of the most disadvantaged," cooed Mr Cunning!

But he was not cunning enough to tighten his back.

The UK's DFID is floating some dubious tender worth 3,5 million pounds on what it terms strengthening government accountability and civic action in Zimbabwe.
What's that, Mr Cu(a)nning?

Stepping up covert funding in the year of elections, uu-uh?

And you unleash devastating sanctions against a people, a country all along with its own means, all to create a new situation of desperate need so you can parade your generous pity, if pity it is?

Who gets the money you speak about?

Crown Agents?

Let us be serious, Mr Ambassador. The point to underline is that the effort so put in deflecting the anti-sanctions launch, however duplicitous, was emphatic feedback we all need to take to heart.

How about the Europeans? Well, strange things do happen.

The European Union bought two full pages, hopefully to match the Zanu-PF advertisement, all to prove to suffering Zimbabweans that illegal sanctions do not exist, do not hurt, and, what is more, that the European Union is a superlative good!
The first advertorial which was all an entombing grey, gave a bit of skewed historical background to the sanctions before admitting that indeed, the sanctions were broader than measures against individuals.

They included "suspension of government-to-government co-operation", itself a massive admission that indeed the people of Zimbabwe are under sanctions.

Expectedly, the second page waxes figures of European Union benevolence between 2009 and 2010, set against sanctions that started in 2002!

The thing smacked of a hurried response by the unsuspecting, the unprepared.
In all that grey, no one at the EU pauses to answer a very simple question: why has this so-called aid become necessary in a country that had dashing trends on all human indices before 2002, the year Europe imposed its sanctions?
Do you show kind-heartedness by feting the child of a man you killed?
What kind of compassion is that?
And of course the EU narrative makes no reference to an EU study that clearly admitted the EU was in too much of a British hurry to get to Article 96 before allowing for dialogue as required by the Cotonou Agreement.

Of course the narrative conveniently overlooks the fact that the EU has too many conscientious objector states to present a decisional monolith on this one matter.
But that is to miss the main point.

The quiet victim has stirred and the villain has noticed.

Brother man America!

Brother-man America? Oh mai, oh mai!

The American ambassador was hard at work up to yesterday, both at home and away.
At home, his response came by way of an angry letter to The Herald.

He made issue with the fact that a Zanu-PF advertisement ran by The Herald had a Government court of arms.

What a point to make Mr American Ambassador!

Does this man know what an advertisement is in the publishing business?
Can a publisher alter it without bringing risks upon himself?

I thought America is where the science of paid communication achieved excellence?
Or is the man being willfully ignorant?

Or suggesting The Herald must depart with publishing conventions to please him?
More fundamentally, why is he threatened by two logos which are laid out coextensively?
How does that pose "a continuing unusual and extraordinary threat to the interests of the United States of America"?
I mean the short man stretches his bottled length to make such a puny, uninformed point?
What has that to do with representing America in Zimbabwe?
Supposing Zanu-PF sponsors a Government or GPA position to ventilate it, what is wrong with that?
Why is this man threatened by greater knowledge of the Zimbabwean public?
"This is a political messaging campaign pure and simple," bellows the ambassador.
Yes it is, Mr Ambassador. Where is the problem?

Sham points from a tall man
The ambassador tries to make three points all of which scream lame.
Surely if indebtedness was the basis for being made ineligible for fresh loans, America would be in serious trouble presently, with its anaemic economy?
If all that stopped Zimbabwe from getting loans was its default, so why have Zidera, let alone write into it that US representatives on international financial institutions must oppose the granting of fresh loans to Zimbabwe or the rescheduling of her debts?
Why, Mr Ambassador?
How many states in Europe are getting loans after defaulting?
How many countries - including dictatorships - have benefited from American generosity against defaults and poor human rights record, since 2001?
Why make duplicitous arguments, Sir?
And then his groaning point on why Zimbabwe should not retaliate through western companies here.
No, Zimbabwe should not because these companies "are responsible to their shareholders", says the ambassadors.
By which he implies those companies which the US Government blacklisted had no shareholders?
Did his Government consult the shareholders?
Why would a black man who does not have a single company to his name rehearse such a stupid argument for the edification of a white man, a white government?
I hope above his servile outlook vis-à-vis white interests, he still recalls we are a sovereign state which enjoys the same rights as the American one, to take measures in defending our interests.
Unless he thinks we do not have such comparable rights?
In which case we will impolitely ask him who he is to us at all.

The big lessons from Wednesday
The upshot?
Well, to stress that the launch has shown the immense potential of the campaign to cause mayhem in the sanctions camp.
The US Ambassador went as far as blaming the EU for delaying the decision on sanctions.
That was in Mutare.
Clearly, he finds arguments for the defence of sanctions wearing thin and threadbare.
So also does the morality of the whole matter.
Secondly, we are beginning to reach real pressure points which are set to yield the desired results.
European and American enterprises must begin to be affected, both by present operations and by prospects.
Western countries will do nothing about it, I can assure you.
It is like an owner of a twist of mbanje (marijuana).
When he loses it to a fellow consumer, he cannot raise the matter with the police, can he?
Third, the agenda for 2011 elections is now well set.
With this massive show of support for the campaign, only a fool can continue telling mhomho yeZimbabwe that there are no sanctions and therefore that the Zimbabwean people are not being hurt.
You buy space in local papers, secure space in letter pages to tell people made so distraught by sanctions that sanctions do not exist? It is madness, pure and simple.

America loses information war, again
One last word for Ambassador Ray.
With this level of duplicitous communication, Mr Ambassador, it hardly comes as a surprise that your State Department boss has now admitted that America is losing the information war.

No one believes America's yarns anymore.

You can get billions and billions more by way of funding but small, insistent truths will always find interstices past your dragnet of lies, only to bubble up.
It could be by way of RT, CCTV, Press TV or ZBC.

In the final analysis, the truth will out. I promise you and my readers a more considered response to this whole issue of information and American hegemony in my next installment.

Icho!

Labels: CHARLES RAY, RHODESIANS, SANCTIONS, ZDERA

posted by MrK @ 11:28 PM