Tsvangirai knighted by France
Honoured ... Morgan Tsvangirai with French ambassador Francois Ponge on Tuesday
21/08/2012 00:00:00
by AFP
FRANCE on Tuesday gave Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai a prestigious award for his efforts in fighting for democracy.
"On behalf of the President of the Republic (of France), we knight you, Commander of the Legion of Honour," Francois Ponge, French ambassador to Zimbabwe said at the occasion to honour Tsvangirai at the French envoy's residence in the capital Harare.
"The Legion of Honour is the highest French decoration."
Ponge chronicled Tsvangirai's rise from a trade union leader to his founding of the Movement for Democratic Change which has challenged President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party from 2000.
Tsvangirai went on to form a coalition government with the 88-year-old veteran leader after violence-marred 2008 elections.
"At the forefront of many struggles you have been imprisoned and you also organised the first mass 'stay away' in this country," Ponge said.
"We all remember the photo that raised worldwide emotion where you were shown badly swollen leaving cells where you had been assaulted."
"Those who assaulted you thought they would dissuade you from politics, sway you, bring you down, they forgot that by beating an iron you can forge a sword," he added.
Police beat up Tsvangirai in 2007 for organising a pro-democracy prayer rally.
Tsvangirai dedicated the award to the people of Zimbabwe.
"This honour is not mine. I would like to dedicate this honour on those people, Zimbabweans who have struggled with us for true democracy for the objective of having freedom in this country," he said.
Congratulations in order ... Tsvangirai with members of his family
Under scrutiny ... Information Technology Minister Nelson Chamisa checks PM's medal
Happy for you ... Tsvangirai is congratulated by his deputy Thokozani Khuphe
The premier said Zimbabwe though independent from colonial rule in 1980, is still to enjoy full democracy.
"I give testimony to the subjection of this country to state sponsored violence, unnecessarily we have shed blood in this country. I am glad President Mugabe has stated quite openly that (there should be) no more shedding of blood," he said.
"I believe that statement represent a very positive step of this transition."
"I can assure you that as we move towards elections, let it be the end of acrimony, of hate speech, of reconciliation for the country."
Ponge noted that Tsvangirai has joined individuals like Myanmar's democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi who was decorated with France's Legion of Honour award in recent months.
Zimbabwe is planning to hold a referendum after a draft constitution was written to allow fresh elections after deadly polls in 2008 left more than 200 MDC supporters dead due to political violence.
Labels: KNIGHTHOOD, MORGAN TSVANGIRAI
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‘Knighthood withdrawal on President a blessing’
Herald Reporter
QUEEN Elizabeth’s decision to withdraw an honorary knighthood bestowed on President Mugabe in 1994 is actually a blessing in disguise as it removes one of the last vestiges of colonial titles on an outstanding African statesman and revolutionary, analysts said yesterday.
While the rabid western media ranted and raved about the event because of their warped value system, progressive Zimbabweans saw it as signifying the further decolonisation of Africa.
A social commentator said Zimbabwe was independent and has its own value systems that protect African humanism, integrity and empowerment.
"The decolonisation process was a rejection of British value systems and so as Zimbabweans we simply see this as the removal of one of the last vestiges of colonialism. No one has ever referred to our President as ‘Sir’ Robert Mugabe. He is known as ‘Comrade’ Robert Mugabe and that says it all," he said.
The analyst said the move should be seen as further proof of the British Empire’s brazen interference in Zimbabwe’s internal affairs, as if the country is still their colony.
Observers said it was shameful that the Queen still thinks the knighthood has more meaning to Zimbabweans than the 100 percent black empowerment programme that President Mugabe has embarked on.
The Deputy Minister of Information and Publicity, Cde Bright Matonga yesterday laughed off the development, saying the continued existence of the knighthood had given the British the mistaken impression that they still held some form of sway over the country.
"My President never used that knighthood. It meant nothing to him and it means nothing to us as Zimbabweans and this is why it was never talked about here.
"Zimbabwe is not a part of the British Empire and their titles and honoraria mean nothing to us unless they promote the values and virtues of our existence in the form on protection of our land rights and our right to exploit our resources.
"My President has nothing to benefit from being considered a subject of the British Queen. It is something we rejected and that is why Britain today is trying to meddle in our affairs. The same goes for the honorary degrees that various Western institutions gave him.
"Cde Mugabe is a very educated man with seven degrees of his own that he earned through his own sweat. You will not hear him talking about his honorary degrees and in fact, they can take them away along with the knighthood," Cde Matonga said.
The withdrawal of the knighthood comes at a time when Britain, America and their allies have upped pressure to divide Sadc by clandestinely engaging individual regional leaders to isolate Zimbabwe and effect regime change.
The Americans, which fully understand that the impasse between Harare and London is strictly from the failure by London to honour Lancaster House agreements over the land reform, has joined in the fight disguised as a democracy lecturer yet it is looking for soil to establish its military base for Africom in the region.
"The whole American story is that of trying to establish military base in Africa and President Mugabe is a threat because he would certainly reject such a move. The British story is a bilateral problem emanating from the historical colonial land issue.
"This knighthood is meaningless to land hungry black Zimbabweans. It should also assume the same meaningless form in the rest of Africa because Africans do not survive on knighthood but on their resources, such as land.
"Knighthood did not bring independence to Zimbabwe and to Africa. It was the war waged by comrades that brought independence to Zimbabwe and it is the land revolution that makes sense to President Mugabe’s supporters not knighthood.
"I am sure that given a choice between knighthood on one side and his country’s independence, sovereignty and 100 percent empowerment any reasonable Zimbabwean would never go for knighthood,’’ said a social commentator.
Social leader Bishop Trevor Manhanga, the chairman of the Heads of Christian Denominations in Zimbabwe, added to this saying the knighthood had no value whatsoever to President Mugabe and to Zimbabwe.
"It is totally of no significance. Of what value is a British knighthood to a Zimbabwean? I don’t think the majority of Zimbabweans even know or care what criteria is used to bestow these things," he laughed.
Interestingly, on the same day that Queen Elizabeth’s decision was made public, the British monarch was knighting Mr Salman Rushdie, an Indian-born writer who for 10 years was wanted in his homeland for blasphemy after authoring the novel, The Satanic Verses.
In 1989, the Supreme Leader of Islam Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini passed a death sentence on Mr Rushdie for desecrating the Moslem faith and the writer has since lived in the UK under the protection of British special agents.
Labels: KNIGHTHOOD, MUGABE
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