Maravi

(HERALD) Africa must reawaken

Africa must reawaken
Wednesday, 13 April 2011 22:10

THE axis of evil is now on African soil. And, Africa, welcome to the real world where masters of the universe are dictating your fate, under their terms.

If this were a column in my mother tongue, Shona, I'd have aptly headlined it, "Kubatwa negarwe wapeta zvirauro" (To be attacked by a crocodile just after you've packed and/ or put away your fishing rods. That is, after you're confident that you have accomplished your mission).

This idiomatic expression, pregnant with mea-ning says a lot about the state of Africa, months after some pioneers in the struggle to dislodge settler colonialism led by the likes of Ghana's Kwame Nkru-mah, celebrated their gol-den jubilees in 2010.
Despite the challenges, the past half century was supposed to be a memorable journey - an African success story that would have seen the continent regaining lost ground and bequeathing the legacy of the continent to future generations.
However, if events of the past few months are anything to go by, it means that although the fishing expedition seems successful; the fishing rods were probably hastily and carelessly put away, and, as a result, the alligators in the body of water where we have been fishing from are mercilessly and brutally attac-king us. As fishermen, we just trusted in getting a good catch, in what we thought were safe waters.
These events also show that the fisherman was eit-her ignorant of the environment in which he was fishing, or if he did, he was not at all worried about his security.
Environmental scanning was not part of ensuring a sustainable future. All that the fisherman wanted was the fish to go and feed his family, for that day. The future would take care of itself!
But failure to understand one's environment can lead to serious trouble since danger can strike any time. This was the caution that a commuter omnibus driver, waiting for one last passenger while loading at illegal loading zones, popularly known as Pamushika-mushika or Pahasha was given by one passenger on Monday: "It's better to leave now, because ‘unobatwa negarwe wapeta zvirauro,' and lose all the money you have made. You can always get the last passenger on the way."
But knowing kombi drivers, they enjoy a good fight with law enforcement agents, while at the same time losing business to oth-er competitors. The statement has made an indelible mark. This is where Africa is right now - at the crossroads, because of its laissez faire attitude to geo-political issues.
We fought! We struggled since slavery days, but we have not learnt the painful lessons of those struggles. We have not yet arrived at a point where we can look former colonisers, eyeball-to-ball, and tell them, mat-ter-of-factly that Africa is for Africans.
The few that have done that have paid dearly. It makes it worse when some among us do not have the gumption to stand their ground and understand this principle - Africa is for Africans. There is also a certain amount of naivety in the way some of us appr-oach regional and inter-national politics.
It is a VERY frightening feeling, and one which makes this writer wonder why Africa continues to be stalled in the same position, waiting for the Anglo-Saxon world to make it move, and when told to jump, asking, "How high, master?"
And, this is happening fifty years after most countries got their independence! Zimbabwe also celebrates its 31st Independence anniversary on April 18, and it is shocking that a nation that now has the highest literacy rate on the continent is still looking for benefactors from Europe, the Americas and the East to get it out of the quagmire of economic hardships. We interrogate it, better in most cases, using their funds and their agendas.
The political landscape, which was one of Africa's success stories has once gain been soiled, giving the former colonial master an opportunity to interfere.
So, what is with the African story? Who are the major protagonists, and why? Is this something Africa can extricate itself from without being adve-rsely affected as the MENE, MENE, TEKEL, PARSIN, writing is already on the wall?
As Africans, do we know ourselves; believe in ourselves; respect ourselves; and, understand the environment in which we ope-rate and can proudly stand on our own? Aren't we facing the danger that befalls the fisherman I talked of in the metaphor?
North Africa, West Africa and Southern Afri-can: there is a common thr-ead that runs across them. In fact, it is like there are nodes everywhere, which make the linkages very easy, but nodes that we did not create ourselves.
Because we are Africans, or it is because we have failed to read our environment, and when we think that we have arrived, we suddenly are under attack!
When Africa thought that the Anglo-Saxon world could go hang, since we could now business with other regions, the West hit back in a dramatic fashion.
If it were the Cold War era, it would have been easy to see whom we could be aligned to, but as it were, those regions' position has not been as dramatically clear as expected.
Looking at this scenario reminded me of George W Bush and his "axis of evil" statement referring to Iran, North Korea and Iraq, although Zimbabwe was always included one way or the other.
Now we see these same nations that labelled others the "axis of evil", being exactly that on the African continent. If they are promoting rebels, and if their intelligence operatives are operating willy-nilly on the continent, working out illegal regime changes, what are they - ie the US, Britain and the EU?
So, what really is happening to Africa as it grapples with the realities it is facing in the midst of what now looks like an onslaught to recolonise the continent, under the guise of setting up democratic systems that align themselves with the so-called international community?
I reiterate: do we know who we are, where we are coming from and where we are going? I will also not pretend that I know what hit Africa, but the sooner we gang up and talk abut this as Africans, the better. For the children's sake! Here is why I ask. On March 17 when I wrote the piece "Media madness on Libya", someone whose identity I cannot disclose, e-mailed me on March 18: "I read your article and typical of all you Zanunoids; you are refusing one reality. You have been fed so much of this anti-Western rhetoric that you no longer accept or see reality. In short, the guilty are very afraid.
"The uprisings in North Africa were never instigated by the West; they were started by citizens who are fed up with dictatorship and corruption. If the West wanted oil in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya; why wait for uprisings? What if the uprisings had not taken place?
"As the late Zvobgo put it, ‘Dictators hide behind the finger of sovereignty and blame of the West.' The Arab world has given its support on resolution 1973 on Libya and do you think that therefore they have agreed to have their oil looted? No; it's because they knew the dictatorship of their friend in Libya. The AU (including South Africa) has now recognised Ouattara as winner of elections in Ivory Coast. What do you say? For your information, UN resolution 1973 on Libya is being debated to extend to any nation that kills and suppresses the aspirations of its people. BE VERY AFRAID."
Dear reader, welcome to scribes' covert and overt occupational hazards, but, we get used to the backlash - a backlash coming from people who want zero tolerance on issues they don't even understand. What it boils down to for such people is "free speech for me, not for thee", for while they seek to gag journalists from expressing themselves, they feel threatened, and all they can do is resort to attacks.
Nato had not yet struck Libya, and when they did that weekend, the brother wrote me on Monday afternoon (March 21) with a new subject heading, ‘You are right, it's oil'.
Caesar Zvayi would have said the brother had a Damascan experience. He wrote: "Tendai - On second thoughts, I agree with you on the Western intentions in Libya. Listening to David Cameron's speech at the weekend, I saw all the hypocrisy painted all over his face."
He said, ‘We want to protect the people of Libya'. Really? I thought of the 1994 massacres in Rwanda; the wars in DRC against women and children. Surely if these guys love us Africans so much; where were/are they when these atrocities were/are being committed. I saw the word OIL on Cameron and Obama's faces." The reader's about turn made me understand Africa's tragedy: seeing, but not believing; hearing, but not understanding. It is a tragedy that is beyond measure; where someone said, we need divine intervention to wake up from our deep slumber.
Why would Africa's three representatives to the UN Security Council also vote with Africa's "enemies" on resolutions about the Libyan uprising, thereby endorsing their foreign policy template on the continent?
Five-decades ago, this diplomatic gaffe would have been understandable, but after the wars that we have witnessed, not only in Africa, but elsewhere at the instigation of these Western nations, why was this done? Why does Africa believe that dependency and not equal partnerships has posterity?
As Professor Jonathan Moyo wrote in this week's Sunday Mail, it was unbelievable that an AU fact-finding mission has to be given the nod to enter Libya - an African state - by Nato forces, so that they undo the damage they caused at the UN. That is unforgivable!
This generation has also stood on high moral ground and accused our ancestors for being bought off with small things like sugar and/or whisky, but when the gains of Africa's liberation are facing real danger of being reversed by men and women with "superior" Western book education, whom shall we blame?
None but ourselves - for always wanting to play second-fiddle, and acting poverty stricken both physically and materially on a continent that will soon have its billionth citizen, and that is the richest in terms of natural resources.
Watch the different TV satellite channels; read the stories and comments on some Internet websites; follow discussions on social networks and blogs, and you feel that deep-seated anger that Libya is stalling the next phase of the imperialistic agenda, whose next port of call after North Africa and Cote d'Ivoire should "automatically" be Zimbabwe. It's a desperation that we witnessed at the Livingstone Sadc Troika Summit last month. Now, the poisoned atmosphere engulfs us as the region awaits the May 20 Sadc Extraordinary Summit.
Why Zimbabwe seems a likely candidate for these uprisings, which can happen in any part of the world, rich or poor was summed up by a colleague last Friday when she asked me to check out Flora Flaunders - International Action Centre, New York and she said, "She's got some story on Libya and Western bullies. Quite interesting!"
And I did. What is amazing is that we have also decided to ignore voices telling the West to back off Africa. The US, a one-time British colony, is leading the reoccupation of Africa through a triangular axis of evil that is unparalleled since the days of slavery. Those voices could be meaningful if enough effort to reclaim Africa's position on the international arena is matched by an equally louder African voice. Instead, we see other bits of Africa so elated that the illegal regime changes template is a step in the right direction.
This triangular monster which can best be represented diagrammatically links the nodes (the regional blocs - Arab League in North Africa; Ecowas in West Africa and Sadc in Southern Africa).
Maybe Paul Craig Roberts' piece on Libya and the North African issue titled, "What does the world think now?" might reawaken Africa from its deep sleep and make them fight the axis of evil on the continent. Wrote Roberts: "The obscene wars of aggression, the obscene profits of the off-shoring corporations, and the obscene bailouts of the rich financial gangsters have left the American public with annual budget deficits of approximately US$1,5 trillion.
These deficits are being covered by printing money. Sooner or later, the printing presses will cause the US dollar to collapse and domestic inflation to explode.
Social security benefits will be wiped out by inflation rising more rapidly than the cost-of-living adjustments. If America survives, no one will be left but the mega-rich.
Unless there is a violent revolution." On the eve of the celebration of our 31st Independence anniversary, and before the much-awaited Sadc Extraordinary Summit, Zimbabweans and the peoples of this region expect that regional leaders restore the people's confidence in the regional body.
Fighting bitter liberation struggles where thousands were brutally killed, others maimed and displaced, was not a passport for some to reverse those gains.

tendai.manzvanzvike@zimpapers.co.zw

Labels: AFRICOM, NEOCOLONIALISM, PANAFRICANISM

posted by MrK @ 2:50 PM