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(HERALD) MANHERU:- WeakiLeaks: Granting America a second bite at the cherry Saturday, 10

MANHERU:- WeakiLeaks: Granting America a second bite at the cherry Saturday, 10 September 2011 02:00

Tripoli has fallen, even though Gaddafi will not fall as wished by occupying Britain, France and America. He continues to be the proverbial hot lip that will not go to sleep.

On the ground, new developments are unfolding. The three leading invading Western countries - France especially - have now embedded their people with the TNC, all to ensure post-Gaddafi Libya is a fine neo-colony. In the case of France, another 1 500-strong French "legion" is now attached to the TNC, the same way Sarkozy attached a similar legion in Ivory Coast soon after the fall of Gbagbo, over and above a whole French General who is "advising" Ouattarra, whatever that means in French neo-colonial praxis.

When denial is acceptance

As Sarkozy happily hosted a summit dubbed "friends of Libya" in Paris last week, a French paper ironically titled "Liberation", disclosed that France had already secured 35 percent access to Libyan oil.

Embarrassed by this sudden, narrow turn to a campaign oversold to the world as driven by high-minded ideals, Alain Juppe, the French foreign minister, answered in perfect Gallic dis-confirmatory confirmation: "I am not aware of this letter (NTC letter pledging the 35 percent oil access). What I know is the NTC said very officially that concerning the reconstruction of Libya it would turn in
[FRENCH premier Nicholas Sarkozy: A French paper ironically titled ]

FRENCH premier Nicholas Sarkozy: A French paper ironically titled
preference to those who helped it. That seems fair and logical to me. I am not aware of a formal deal. You know this operation in Libya costs a lot. It's also an investment in the future because a democratic Libya is a country that will develop, offering stability, security and development in the region."

I hear you say: "Oh Good Lord, not so soon, not so soon!" Well, it is that soon.

Ill-mannered Manheru!

But my piece last week on the same matter raised quite some vigorous responses, as should all matters so close to the African bone.
Spurts of anger and lots of bile landed on my poor person, scalding me in the process.

But they were also lots of praises, praises in equal measure enough to play balm to acerbic jibes known to come with the territory.

As always, the reader is the king. It is the price any columnists must and should pay with humility if not equanimity.

Some of the comments were quite indulgently humourous, like one in which the writer threatened to sjambok me very hard for playing truancy in previous weeks, a sin he declared got aggravated by my not even apologising for it.

Guilty as charged! I behaved as if I shot out of my mother's womb when all the old women of the village - themselves guardians of manners and morality - had gone kundhari (to the beer party)! Such rogues deserve whipping, like insolent fools in an Elizabethan court.

When a jackal is better than hyena
But I also had one reaction which I thought raised a very serious, persuasive, and yet fatally flawed judgment in my view. The respectable reader wrote: "Many impartial observers have rightly blamed this new age of African occupation (by imperialism) on our repressive leaders themselves who give the West a legitimate excuse to re-colonise our wealth. Human rights abuse; oppressive legislation; cooked-up election results, refusal to adhere to rule of law, refusal to respect election outcomes, dictatorships for life (in fact the list is endless). Need I tell you that despite ‘the good work' Gaddafi did for his Libya his was an illegitimate government for over 40 years! If NATO decides they want your resources who can you blame then if they then come under the auspices of the UN to facilitate ‘democratic governance'? Your so-called pan-Africanism sells talk does not wash with me because it is tantamount to a jackal telling me it is kinder to me than the hyena!"

Retributive in-justice
By any measure, this is a serious argument permitting potentially far-reaching conclusions. More significantly, I can confirm that it is held by some in executive echelons of many African countries, including those who proceeded to vote with Europe and America for Resolution 1973, against Africa.

To simply summarise the reader's argument, the panacea or expiation to African mis-governance is foreign invasion, occupation and pillage. All this, so the argument implies, sets African things right, indeed repairs African injury from years of dictatorships. At face value this sounds like a sound argument if only it was not anchored on retributive in-justice! Yes, retributive in-justice!

Reliving history

You, the African so oppressed and so abused for more than 40 years under Gaddafi's excesses, get repaid by an European invasion, war and occupation, followed by systematic pillaging of your resources by the West! Your bad leaders have made you deserve it, goes the logic. Through foreign invasion, foreign war, foreign occupation, through the resulting foreign-directed or blest mis-governance and exploitation, you, the African oppressed must feel expiated, must feel sweetly avenged! Uu-uuh! Except you have moved from internal oppression to external invasion, defeat, occupation and exploitation.

You are no better, in fact are comparatively worse. As the Ivorians, Tunisians, Egyptians, and quite very soon the Libyans have seen and will see respectively, the solution to internal or local oppression cannot be external invasion or occupation. You will still need to fight another war, to wage another revolution, as the Shonas were soon to find out after obeying the same flawed logic in 1893 when the Ndebeles took up arms in resistance to colonial intrusion.

The tri-lemma

As I write, the Egyptians are back in Tahrir Square, agitating against an outcome from a "revolution" so painfully aborted. They have since realised that after the local jackal came a Western lion, very hungry for Egyptian flesh!

I quite liked a cartoon in one of the French papers. It showed a Gaddafi seating in high chair of Libyan State. Behind him was a portrait of himself. Juxtaposed to this relational cartoon was another cartoon of the leader of the NTC - some Jibril or something - also in high chair of the Libyan State. Behind him were portraits of Cameron and Sarkozy! Not a dilemma at all. It is called a "tri-lemma" of the devil, the hard rock and the blue sea!

The naked leak which won't go away
WikiLeaks came a long time ago. We all thought it had been seen enough and had gone. We were wrong. It is very much around, and against it, so many fresh wounds, all weeping. Those named in the deadly leak have to face the world, faces burning with utter shame. The sense of betrayal - of country, of principle, of principal, of comrade, of cause - is profound and overbearing.

The only thing closest to this kind of shame is Willowgate, back in the late eighties. The names are big, the names are many and hey, who blames the media for the feeding frenzy?
I quite understand. For once, the quality dailies have overtaken H- and B-Metro, in commanding reader interest and imagination. In both, shame is the commodity packaged as news. Suddenly the human propensity for the lewd, for levity and for gossip (as in the Metros), has given way to interest in serious drama so full of patrician actors drawn from high society. It is a drama of royalty, a drama hewn out of those who govern us, right across the political divide. And hey, we all see them standing, in puris naturalibus! And in politics as in creation, nakedness is good copy. Ask H-Metro!

So fine a story . . .
Yet herein lies the tragedy. The media focus has been on who said what to whom, when, where and how. You have all the four Ws, plus the H. What a perfect story!
With our Internet services reaching us at the speed of a drunken tortoise; with Assange telling us there are more leaks where the ones we already have came from, you have acute suspends, itself arguably the most potent element in moving all narratives forward.
So all the elements are there, elements for a long story, one told endlessly to ever mounting audience interest, from one market day to another until a full moon returns again.

WikiLeaks the leveller
And as Assange would have it, the serve is generous and inexorable. It is even too, as if to engage and preoccupy the whole political divide. If you are Zanu-PF, there is enough to make you angry at your own, enough to prove MDC "treachery".

If you are in either of the MDCs, you have enough to stoke your anger against your own, enough Zanu-PF "excesses" to validate your intense indignation at that party. If you belong to either of the MDC formations, you have enough with which to pelt the other side, and your side, too.

And if you are like me - a watcher - you ask yourself this one simple question: Which of you politicians is Zanu-PF; which of you is MDC-T/N? You feel the real identity of men and women who dabble in national affairs resides in their being politicians, never in their false party totems or slogans. For before the mighty Americans, they proved one and the same.
Oh WikiLeaks the leveller! Never in human history has so much grief and so much joy, been so copiously doled out, so evenly served or distributed, all to equally evenly felt agony.

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Too bad, or too near
I spoke of danger. Lots of it for our small, great country so full of so big, small people. (It is very easy to become a second Jonathan Swift, so easy to become misanthropic). So fascinated have we become with names of offenders, names of devils, that we have forgotten - utterly forgotten - that WikiLeaks is the Devil's narrative. WikiLeaks is judgment of and by the Devil himself. WikiLeaks is about Zimbabwe and Zimbabweans as seen, met, read and reported by America and her diplomats in active foreign service.
Please!!! Take care. Take great, great care, my people.

To say this is not to redeem anyone cited in those reports. I have utter contempt for all those so named, to the person. None, repeat, none of these despicable bipeds, should ever attempt any defence, should tender any explanation on the whys and wherefores. No one will be interested in such tall tales. These persons had no business dealing with Americans outside set procedures, outside commitment to the interest of this country, as is required of them.

All that assumes they met the Americans and said all that is attributed to them. If they didn't, too bad! They got too near the Devil to be misread as among its acolytes. That cannot be my problem. If there was no Assange, these informants of perfidious America, would have been crowned by the West for their treachery.
Is that not the story of Libya's TNC men and women? Few were looked for by American officials; still fewer were visited in their own offices or homes. Many accosted the Americans to deposit their thoughts with America. Many, many more delivered themselves. In many cases, there was clear intent. So I weep for none, will defend not a single one of them.

Feeding on human frailties

But my bursting indignation against such senior and important officials and politicians from whom so much was expected by way of leadership, does not blind me to the basic fact that America was and will always pursue its interests in Zimbabwe, both fairly and foully.

Part of that included gathering mischief from amongst us, kneading all that mischief into greater policy mischief, which today guides her hostile actions and activities against our Republic. It is so clear that in WikiLeaks we vividly see how America goes about prising open national systems, all to divide and therefore to weaken them. America takes advantage of real weaknesses in us - compelling propensities in us - principally that deadly wish to ingratiate ourselves with the white man and his mighty white power.

America played on the human urge to be close to bigger power, the urge to be understood by and useful to the interests of a bigger power. In some cases it went beyond that. It became an urge to be saved by that bigger power, in case of American-led hostile action. So people thought the best way to save their skins was to testify against their cause, country and even personal interests.

Bare ambition, criminal actions

Of course ambition - another destructive urge in us all - played its part in equal measure. It is interesting that across parties, the leadership is besieged, a stance implying potential leadership vacuums.
The tragedy of it all is that all the reports bring no real substantive argument on ideology, vision or programme. The attack on leadership is not founded on an alternative vision for our society. It is founded on claimed fallibilities and alleged infirmities.

But I tend to differ stiffly with anyone who criminalises ambition, however vaulting. It is a natural urge in us all as humans, a seeming natural right in all politicians who always think and dream higher than their present stations. I thought words attributed to Makoni in WikiLeaks put it across so well: the leaders above us are one crust keeping us under and down.

This is a true and abiding human condition from that fateful day that man became organised in hierarchy.

That means ever since men learnt to live their lives in pecking order, man also learnt to challenge that order by way of ambition. My real point of departure is when ambition conspires, when it enlists a foreign power to realise itself. Immediately it becomes indictable. All those in WikiLeaks who acted cleanly in pursuit of their ambition, in my view, have nothing to answer for.

The American century in Zimbabwe

Is it not a tragedy that if the American narrative as rendered through WikiLeaks is to be believed, most of our politicians, in some cases our leaders - right across the political divide - were caught up in a pell-mell rush for prized audiences with American officials, however lowly? Tails whipping the air like flywhisks, hind orifices even releasing bursts of sharp farts, all were caught up in a headlong stampede to deposit their pennyworth thoughts with the Americans. What a shame! That way America was crowned a God above this mighty nation. We all went worshipping, perfect supplicants. And America set the agenda of local politics, even defining for us what amounted to our real problem as a people, as a country, as a government.

Meeting minions

The American century had finally come to Zimbabwe and hey, what we dealt with was not Bush or Obama. Not even Hilary Clinton. We got overawed by America's little ambassadors and diplomats deployed here, all of whom reported to junior officers like Susan Rice or Jendayi Fraser. Small in their own great country, here these diplomats became enormous, severe gods reigning above us, with us, the little ones, groveling before this mighty Deity, accosting it with our plaintive pleas, prayers and problems. And like real gods, the Americans knew all our frailties, always guided by a basic reckoning that vanity is the source of all vulnerabilities. Those with unmet delusions of grandeur, America met with satisfying fumes of greatness. Those feeling forsakened, America embraced falsely.

Yes, those feeling trammeled and encumbered, America promised without having to deliver. From that day on, we ceased to be genuine scions of the First Chimurenga, true sons and daughters of the Second and Third Chimurenga. Today, for all my revulsion of America and her wicked ways, I embrace her as an heroic foe. Wikileaks speak of efficient, effective diplomacy; speak of a global power well served and well deployed. Give it to them.

Still standing

Yet in spite of all this prowess, in spite of this formidable gathering power, America still failed here. We kept a world giant busy for a good ten years. We still keep it busy today. And beneath the seeming triumph, in Wikileaks is real agony of a mighty bully helplessly irritated by a midget, a bully unclear of what to do with a small, persistent irritant. Between 2000 and 2010, you see a superpower grappling with an appropriate response, with sanctions emerging as the only viable blunt weapon at its disposal. You see a wish to engage, persuade, cajole, threaten, subvert, isolate, all in vain.

Hurray, we are still standing, all the time buffeting this mighty monster, while still keeping our own. We cannot be afraid now from reading those reports. For goodness' sake they are in the past tense; a real narrative of a history already lived. And for us they become a narrative of a danger already survived and outlived, although not yet overcome. A danger against which we must arm ourselves. I am making my second and third points about Wikileaks: the reports relate to a past, not the present, even though much about them continues to influence the present and possibly endanger a future we must both shape and secure. Our future. This is where the challenge begins, and we need to be very thoughtful so we correctly size the enemy without being overawed by him

Our people as the key

I have already said the first message is that Zimbabwe still stands. We are all surprised at how we managed this feat. To all intense and purposes there was no party; they were no parties. Only politicians so badly divided by America and other western powers. Just how did we survive? We did survive because America is both weak and unable, in spite of all its awesome power, to reach and snap that tendon or sinew which keeps us going. Interestingly, all those opposed to Mugabe went to the American Embassy; none went to the people to organize against Mugabe. The Americans divided the leadership, but they never alienated the people from their cause. Americans never equipped the dissident element with politics that could appeal to, and persuade the people. Dispirit them yes, but not politics that could get them to abdicate and defect from their cause and interest. This is why apathy, not desertion, became Zanu (PF)'s Achilles. America could not have bribed the people of Zimbabwe. Imperialism has no resources for that. Herein lies the key.

Bleak American future

Today Wikileaks are America's weakest link. Such a mighty power, yet so vulnerable to small hackers! Such a mighty power unable to keep its secrets and thus unable to protect its informants! I can only surmise that intelligence organizations across the world a busy studying Wikileaks to build a glossary of local people enlisted by America, local people therefore to watch. That cripples America both in the present and in the future. No one will ever want to be seen or to work, with a country which cannot look after its secrets. This is why for me America's awesome gathering powers may have seen their heyday. The future is going to be bleak and challenging for her ambassadors abroad.

The Devil as witness?

I want to keep to Zimbabwe. America has taught and enabled us to read it. Our profit is that we now know its ways, thinking and fears. That is more than half winning fuselage in a war. Rather than fascinating ourselves with who has told what to Americans, should we not all recede into very dark rooms, dilate our eyes to near-blindness, all to understand how American imperialism operates abroad? Operates within our environment so we fight better when its wars come? Are we not a lucky generation which loving gods have favoured with hindsight of a future still contested? Frankly I have no appetite for an argument that demands retribution against all those who have "sold out" to Americans.
After all it is a demand the requires you to trust the Devil's testimony, indeed to subpoena the Devil as witness! How righteous is your case and cause a day after the Devil has stood in the witness box for you? I doubt that these leaks are admissible evidence in any court.

America, the greatest teacher

There are even greater questions. How many of those leaks come from history, how many from contemporary American mischief, aided and abetted by Assange himself whose loyalty is not to Africa, let alone to Zimbabwe? True, those in executive saddles may use these leaks as aides in marking the future, indeed in making decisions. But that is administrative. What would be unconscionable is a witch-hunt on the basis of such American monologues by American minions seeking fact, excuse and self-glory all at once. They have hurt us from 2000. We now risk making them hurt us again simply by making narratives of their espionage work here assume dire implications on the current situation. That would be wrong, a complete defeat of ourselves. Let us study from these Wikileaks how America subverts. Tongogara put it well: Ian Smith is our greatest teacher; each time he bombs us, we go back to look at ourselves and our defences to tighten up.

Breathing life into history

And I thought the Zimbabwe Independent, itself part of the American project here (thanks to Wikileaks for outing that one!), yesterday did much to show the mischief in the offing. Its headline read, "Mugabe paralysed", to suggest a wish to have this American narrative on our situation here bear directly on current affairs, contemporary actions and prospects. It is an attempt to use an "out-ted" history monologue to destabilize the present in order to reshape it after American interests. It is an attempt to stab Mugabe using the dagger from an opinionated history. Far worse than re-living an unknown history is getting divided by a known one. There is a concerted attempt to infuse currency to this whole narrative so America can divide us yet again. It is called a second bite at the cherry. We should never allow it. Icho!

Labels: LIBYA, NEOCOLONIALISM, WIKILEAKS

posted by MrK @ 2:26 PM