The anti-Zimbabwe cookie crumbles
by Basil Mutoti
POLITICS is very unpredictable. An hour in politics is a long time. Fortunes can change overnight. Who would have thought Zimbabwe would be off BBC or CNN and the anti-Zimbabwe lobby would look so discredited and so confused? Talk of extending Zimbabwe sanctions now sounds more like pub talk; and those who advocate sanctions look more confused as each day passes.
British prime minister Gordon Brown cannot handle this hot potato called Zimbabwe.
Former avowed critics of President Mugabe like Lord Malloch-Brown and others left in the British government have gone completely silent, or are secretly reciting the Lord's Prayer wishing for a miracle to happen. Infact Malloch-Brown stood to lose his credibility as a leader, because of Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwean story is too tight to mention. People simply need their land and wealth back and they need to self-determine; no more, no less.
Just like thousands of British people who throng the City in their Saville Row suits "to run things in Britain", Zimbabweans need to do the same, in their own country, and they don't need lectures from the west. The west is discredited. It should start by lecturing itself on economics, human rights and public diplomacy. They are printing money (masking it as quantitative easing) at a faster rate than Reserve bank Governor, Dr Gideon Gono. Their Attorney Generals are more discredited as they fail to prosecute warmongers who killed and maimed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
PM Brown is so discredited he had to bring in a warmonger, Tony Blair, to help turn around his fortunes. Blair was red-faced recently at the Chilcot Inquiry. One has to be really desperate to call in such a man. John Prescott was on telly trying to convince people that Blair was still relevant. Like President Mugabe, British voters simply don't like Blair.
Dr Rev John Sentamu! Oh boy. We don't know whether he's decided to wear his collar now that President Mugabe looks like he's going to run for office again. The collarless Rev has to rethink his strategy. Grandstanding will not work. Ideas work. You cannot win against a man who's trying to uplift his people.
Now even Nick Griffin is expressing support for Dr Sentamu. What a tragedy! It's all political correctness gone mad. The British National Party frontman, ironically, was on Revelation TV and said: “I’m an Anglican. By blood, by decent, by the way I was brought up, by my schooling and so on. I’m an Anglican, and really therefore I find myself without a church."
The Archbishop Desmond Tutu has retreated to his hole. Zimbabwe is no playfield. Last we heard of him he was on US's CBS. The programme was dubbed: "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson: An Evening with Archbishop Desmond Tutu". Infact it was a replay. That episode won the George Foster Peabody award and had Archbishop Desmond Tutu as the sole guest. Whenever we hear the name Bishop Desmond Tutu, there's an award of some kind. Interesting!
The question asked by President Mugabe on Bishop Tutu was never answered. Talking to CNN's Christianne Amanpour, the president asked: "Do you know what that man amounts to in the ANC?"
Raila Odinga. Where art thou brother? 1,300 Kenyans died in election violence and 300,000 uprooted during weeks of bloodletting in early 2008. Remember that statistic? The aftermath should keep you busy at home. Where is the new constitution promised by elder Annan? Son of the Soil, where are the legal, political, social and economic reforms to promote stability, equity and peace in Kenya? Ruling is not a joke. Look at the log in your eye first Sir, before you call our president an 'embarassment to Africa'.
Obama is your relative you claimed, but he acts more American than Kenyan. Has he deserted you brother? What was the National Holiday all about? Are you still friends with our PM and our Finance Minister?
To our friends and relatives in Botswana, we are ever so grateful. African solutions to African problems, that was what the meeting in Vic Falls was all about. No grandstanding in the media. We come from the same place, and we love each other.
As the anti-Mugabe lobby remains discredited, journalists have taken over the sacred role. But their task is no walk-in-the-park. As Commissions are appointed, ambassadors appointed and violence subsides, they are left with little bad news to report. Concocting stories has become the new way of gathering news. Not for long though. They can't keep bringing documentaries like BBC's "Zimbabwe's Forgotten Children", shot in 2006 as a stop-gap measure or Hopewell Chin'ono's "A Violent Response" to lie about the present. If recycling old violence had any impact, the British would not have had a day in Zimbabwe. People move on and forgive each other, and learn from each other. The EU is made up of former warring parties. Those who silently wish for the worst in ZImbabwe in order to feed their dubious careers always get left by the wayside as the tide turns.
The axiom that "politics is local" rings true for our country. Know the local politics first before you grandstand. Unfortunately few people heed the call, and they get embarassed and discredited in the process. Zimbabwe is simply on the mend, but definitley not for sale.
____________
*Basil Mutoti is a new columnist for The Zimbabwe Guardian.
Labels: PROPAGANDA, SANCTIONS, SHOCKUMENTARY, UK
Read more...
BBC film unAfrican and abuses Zimbabwean children
Mdelelwa Mdelelwa - BBC film unAfrican and abuses Zimbabwean children
Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:07:00 +0000
I HAVE just watched a so-called documentary on BBC4 by one South African Xoliswa Sithole. The well-fed presenter, attempting to speak English with some kind of American accent, tells the viewers that although she grew up in Zimbabwe, she is actually South African and says that during Apartheid years, her mother brought her to Zimbabwe for a better life and education.
She is seen in the film talking to President Mugabe saying she is making a documentary about her childhood in Zimbabwe.
But it is soon clear that Xoliswa’s documentary is actually a repeat of those tired and old conspiracies about the land reform programme and "Operation Drive Out Rubbish".
How someone who benefited so much out of Zimbabwe come out with such nonsense escapes me.
I want to say to Xoliswa, filming some desperately poor people and trying to make a name for oneself by misusing their plight is unAfrican and very selfish.
Xoliswa claims to be a niece of the late veteran Edison Sithole in the clip. Indeed sometimes apples are found fallen far away from the apple trees. If it was Sithole making the documentary, I am sure he would have pointed to the real cause of all that suffering - the illegal and ruinous economic sanctions that have killed millions.
Xoliswa failed to mention the word sanctions even once in her film. What a pity!
I know we all want to make a name for ourselves, but using one’s country and pandering to foreign fantasies and turning out to be a propaganda tool for some Western entities is not the cleverest piece of journalism.
If people want to pick a quarrel with President Mugabe, they should at least use acceptable standards of journalism to advance their arguments and shy away from the kind propaganda that I saw in that film.
It is a shame it’s only Africans who seem to have no qualms in exploiting children to make films and win this or that award.
Frankly, most of the clips in that so-called documentary are indecent and should not have been shown.
Showing a child who is about to become a teenager, relieving herself in public was disgusting.
Why are journalistic standards allowed to dip when it is Africa that is reported on? The rights of a child must be supported whether they are in Africa or elsewhere in the world.
As for Xoliswa, where was her humanity when she and her cameramen were trailing their lenses on a clearly hungry child with little strength to speak.
Is that how they repay Zimbabwe for allowing them the decency of a good life and a good education?
The tragedy is that whilst Xolisa and her kith and kin benefited from the generosity of the Frontline States, today they burn up our brothers in their streets in Johannesburg and sneak into Zimbabwe to make offensive films.
Labels: BBC, PROPAGANDA, SHOCKUMENTARY, ZIMBABWE
Read more...
BBC film exploits minors, the vulnerable
Comment
Tue, 02 Mar 2010 04:05:00 +0000
THE 'shockumentary' Zimbabwe's Forgotten Children which aired on BBC4, brought to the fore, issues of child abuse and lack of protection for our society's vulnerable.
In the documentary Xoliswa Sithole on the BBC's commission, sought to highlight the fate of "Esta, Grace and Obert (who) are just four of many hundreds of thousands of children struggling to survive in Zimbabwe."
Sithole
fails to explain how these children came to be where they are today; having grown up in Zimbabwe herself, under the same government of President Robert Mugabe.
The obvious bias of this documentary is not what we intend to highlight; but issues surrounding child abuse and lack of protection for minors.
Many organizations like Child AbuseWatch regard the use of children in reality TV shows as exploitation at best and abuse at worst. Xoliswa's documentary negates our role in society as watchdogs for the exploitation of our children.
A clutch of children's-rights advocates in the world, argue that any filmmaker who puts a minor on a TV program, documentary or otherwise, should be, by definition, a child abuser.
There is no doubt that the programme raised serious child-protection issues. Whilst it appears that parental consent was obtained for filming in one instance, such consent if it was obtained was, in our view ill-advised and naive, as the parent was dying of AIDS or was also a vulnerable other.
The BBC and presenter Xoliswa watched as a woman died of AIDS, and no attempt was made to show that they tried to help her.
It is hard, therefore, to believe Xoliswa's crocodile tears at the end of the documentary.
She failed to highlight that the issues she was addressing in Zimbabwe were pervasive, and not unique to Zimbabwe.
These issues (HIV, AIDS, lack of healthcare, poverty, lack of schooling) are world issues; found in South Africa (Xoliswa's home country) and the rest of the Sub-Saharan region. Is she being selective of her victims, or she is vying for a certain kind of response from a gullible viewership?
The children in the 'shockumentary' were greatly distressed and this in my view is abusive. This distress has now been publicly broadcast and is therefore likely to have long-term consequences for some of them.
In addition, given the current international concerns in relation to the safeguarding of children, it is in my view highly irresponsible for the BBC to broadcast a programme which demeans and to some extent demonizes children and thus reinforces negative public perceptions of children and their vulnerability.
Xoliswa's documentary has breached laws requiring local authority approval for any child performance. It is clear that no licence was sought from the authorities. Given that any such application would have resulted in detailed inquiries from the authority about the nature of the programme and the safeguarding issues involved, one can only surmise that this was a deliberate and sickening omission.
Given that this was not a commissioned screening, it is unlikely the children and parents had access to expert advice at all stages, or whether there had been constant security and trained chaperones intervened when appropriate.
that the victims are seen as worse off at the end, one wonders whether the children had been paid anything at all and whether their lives improved as a result of the documentary.
Shocking and twisted ethics!
Labels: BBC, PROPAGANDA, SHOCKUMENTARY
Read more...
