Maravi

(HERALD) Bane of the ‘bad’ African, hating what is so good

Bane of the ‘bad’ African, hating what is so good
Monday, 22 August 2011 02:00
Farirai Chubvu

After September 11, 2001, former US president George W Bush wondered and loudly asked, "Why do they hate us, when we are so good." This is a plaintive question meant to portray the West as victims of a barbarous grouping of rogues bent on nothing but primitive sadism.

This is a plaintive question meant to portray unreasonable haters of good and for that label one gets all manner of warnings like the coming hellfire at The Hague or even threats of "we will do a Saddam on you and Mugabe when the time comes."
If those people that are fighting against imperialism can be classified as groups that hate the West then it is important to find out why these people "hate something so good."

After all we are all reminded of how wonderful the Obama win was, how magnificent the election process was - that compared to the primitive jokes we see across the world, Kenya and Zimbabwe counting emphatically on the list.

After September 11, The Wall Street Journal began investigating opinion in the Middle East region. Earlier before the attack the journal had provided some answers based on their survey on what they called "moneyed Muslims", meaning the middle class - the bankers, lawyers, and managers of Western transnational companies.

These are the people who can be considered part of the inside of the US-led Western system and such people naturally despise all anti-imperialists, if only because they happen to be the target of the anti-imperialist campaign.

They are the ones whose jobs and luxury the anti-imperialist campaign is after and they naturally do not like that.

However, the study by the Wall Street Journal established that despite the hatred for Osama bin Laden and for all anti-imperialist rhetoric the "moneyed Muslims" were very much antagonistic to US foreign policy, much as they favoured and supported US international economic policies of which they were a part.

In fact, I am convinced that the only reason there is no banner or big sign reading "Proudly Sponsored by Washington and London" at Harvest House; is the plain fact that like the Middle East's "moneyed Muslims" the average Zimbabwean is intrinsically antagonistic to Western foreign policy.

They know it is sabre rattling and offensive to their dignity, they know it is something they cannot proudly stand up and support, let alone identify with.
The Journal established that the "moneyed Muslims" objected to the fact that the United States had a record of consistently propping and supporting corrupt and brutal puppet regimes as well as opposing popular democratic independent development.

The other established position was that this middle class was absolutely opposed to the US' unilateral support for the Israeli military occupation of Palestine and surrounding states, which to them was harsh and brutal - just as it is viewed by many across the world today.

They were also strongly opposed to the US-led sanctions against Iraq, whose real context they understood perfectly well, just like many Africans today stand absolutely opposed to the US-led Western sanctions against Zimbabwe, whose real purpose and context they understand perfectly well. They understand perfectly that the sanctions are hurting innocent people and that the rhetoric about them being targeted at less than 200 people is absolute nonsense. Sadc, Comesa and the AU all know this very well and they have variously expressed their dismay over the sanctions regime on Zimbabwe.

The surveyed Middle East group also remembered something that the West chose to forget: that the United States and Britain groomed and supported Saddam right through his worst atrocities, continued to help him develop weapons of mass destruction and did not stop him from gassing the Kurds.

For similar reasons, many Africans today stand antagonistic to Western domination and Western foreign policy, despite the fact that many of them are beneficiaries of Western aid and that many actually work for Western corporations.

These Africans remember how Britain sponsored Idi Amin to topple Milton Obote in Uganda, they remember how the Belgians assassinated Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, they remember how the West brought down Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, they remember how Western sponsored forces assassinated Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso, they remember how apartheid South Africa teamed up with US agents and assassinated Samora Machel of Mozambique and they know how the West is sponsoring rebellion in the DRC today - all to win their greedy aspiration for access to DRC mineral wealth ahead of the Chinese.

They know all these things and these are the sort of reasons one will never find in Western intellectual reports and in journals, let alone in the Western Press.
There one finds sophisticated answers about how Asians and Africans have "bad cultures", how they "lack democracy", how they are left out by globalisation or how they cannot stand Western freedoms and magnificence.

The reasons established by the Wall Street Journal over the Middle East issue are the same for the rest of the developing world, the so-called Third World. There is nothing new about them to an average African and most certainly to every expert in international affairs.

In the 1940s Iran was the first country to nationalise its oil resources and Washington and London responded by co-sponsoring a military coup that overthrew the government.

In 1958, Iraq managed to break out of the Anglo-American condominium over the world's energy resources and there was a massive flurry of activity and a whole lot of military threats that almost resulted in the use of nuclear weapons.

There was a similar reaction the same year when Pathos Lao's country, Laos; was bombed into submission by the US for engaging in a rather low level agrarian reform programme.

Zimbabwe now knows too well what happens when you repossess your land from Westerners and their kith and kin. You get sanctioned into submission.

When Iraq broke out of imperial Anglo-American control, president Eisenhower observed to his staff that there "is a campaign against us" in the Arab world, "not by the governments but by the people".

The US National Security Council analysed these utterances through some research work and they concluded that there was perception in the Arab world that the US supported harsh, brutal and corrupt regimes, and that it blocked popular democratisation and development, and was doing so because of its interest in controlling the oil resource in the region.

The Council advised Eisenhower that it was very difficult to refute or counter this perception because it was "accurate".

This was not only accurate for the Arab world but for Africa and Latin America as well.
It was true then and it is true today. The principle is always the same, while the victims and players keep changing from time to time.

Generally, the average citizen in the developing world resents imperial domination because they do not see any particular reason why the wealth of their countries should flow to the West and to the moneyed middle class, who cooperate with the West, and not to them, the real owners of that wealth.

This is the thinking behind the instability in the Niger Delta of Nigeria.
The people there do not see why BP Shell should siphon their oil to their own benefit and that of the middle class Nigerians working for and benefiting from these Western corporate.

In the West, this kind of thinking reflects a kind of backward culture on the part of the protesting masses. This is why the landless peasants that occupied Zimbabwe's formerly white occupied land were labelled "goons", "rogue" or simply "Mugabe cronies".

This is the commentary one gets in the Western media. It is commentary that portrays a Third World that struggles with comprehending civilisation and modernity. For this reason we in the developing world must never rest for the war has to be waged at the information level.

posted by MrK @ 2:44 PM