The Weekly Observer (Kampala)
Mulindwa Muwonge
24 April 2008
opinion
Kampala — In Things Fall Apart, celebrated Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe writes about a famous man Okonkwo, who was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond.
Okonkwo is the hero of the book. But this hero's life ends in a tragedy which is best explained by one of the characters in the book; Obierika. Obierika says of his friend Okonkwo: "That man has been one of the greatest men of the society; the white man has driven him to die like a rat, he is going to be buried like a dog."
Today we are witnessing another Okwonko whom the 'white man' is trying to force to commit suicide.
This is Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe. Mugabe has been judged as a person who has messed up Zimbabwe's political and economic affairs.
Okonkwo committed suicide after killing the 'white man's' messenger. He felt betrayed when his kinsmen could not put up a fight to defend their fatherland from the 'white man'. In fact, some of the people asked, "why has he done it?"
Today's political chaos in Africa can be fairly blamed on the infiltration of neo-colonialists. Any African leader who falls out of favour with the West is undermined and his people are influenced to turn against him. Some of the opposition politicians are also agents of Western powers.
And some African governments are stooges; they blindly implement neo-colonialist policies in order to appease the West so that they retain their presidency.
Have you ever wondered why a certain president fights aggressively to implement a federation of five countries under the pretext of 'unity is strength' and yet opposes the unification of the whole of Africa? The answer is very simple. His sponsors, the West, are against the unification.
Kenya was once portrayed in the Western media as the stable East African country until December 2007. When it comes to Zimbabwe, it is a different story. After fighting him by crippling the economy, they are now influencing his people to turn against him.
The neo-colonialists have been organising a coup d'etat through the flawed elections! Unfortunately, Mugabe's advisers were not sharp enough to detect these tricks. Mugabe is accused of grabbing land from white farmers and re-distributing it to blacks.
Western media have made several attempts to portray Mugabe as the loser in the recent elections in which the winner is yet to be known.
As Mugabe demanded a re-count, Morgan Tsvirangai, the opposition leaders who is backed by the West, was appealing to Western powers, mainly Britain and the United States, to mount pressure.
In 1992, Algeria held general elections after 30 years of independence. The Islamic Salvation Front won a landslide victory. The army- backed government remote-controlled by Western powers canceled the results and installed their hand-picked president. As a result, 60,000 people lost their lives in the post-election violence.
I always get confused when Western media reports say that 200,000 people have been killed in Darfur, a figure they have reported since 2003. This defeats my understanding; so for five years the killings in Darfur have not stopped, yet the figure of the dead is not increasing?
In 1991, these same powers supported coup plotters against the then President of Somalia, Siad Barre. Approximately two million people have lost their lives and there is still no hope of a stable Somalia.
Like Obierika says, the 'white man' has put a sharp knife on the strings which held us together and we have fallen apart. If many African leaders are not careful, they may end up hanging themselves like Okonkwo did.
The author is a radio presenter on Super FM.
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Give Me Hope Zimbabwe (sung to the tune of "Gimme Hope Johanna" by Eddie Grant)
Well Mugabe he runs a country, from Beitbrug to Victoria Falls, He makes a few of his cronies happy, But he don't care about the rest at all.
From a city once called Salisbury, Uncle Bob he rules this destruction, He doesn't care that the starving mothers, have no Sadza to feed their sons.
Chorus: Gimme hope, Zimbabwe; Hope Zimbabwe; Gimme Hope Zimbabwe 'fore the morning comes; Gimme Hope Zimbabwe; Hope Zimbabwe; Gimme hope before the morning comes.
Stealing all of the country's riches, to… [Read Full Text]
Hey Orlando, if inflation is 160 000% and unemployment is 85% and there's the so called 'starvation' what are Zimbabwean's eating? With these figures at least 80% of the population would be dead..... dont you think? Life in Zimbabwe has been tough for seven years now and the fact is that Zimbabwean's are feeding themselves. All black Zimbabwean's plant fruit and veg in their backyards and many keep chickens for eggs too. Unlike the western world ALL black Zimbabweans know how to plant so the land you are refering to will become productive by ordinary people. Zimbabwean government NEVER said… [Read Full Text]
Thats just great isn't it? Zimbabweans are planting food and keeping chickens so they can feed themselves. What a great leap backwards to an agrarian society from a prosperous export driven economy. Cash crops do just that, they make cash, hard currency. When people are employed growing cash crops they earn money which is taxable. They pay into the economy so the economy has real money and not virtual money which is now valueless. Western people do not by nature go out and plant their own crops or keep chickens because they are able to go out and buy food… [Read Full Text]
OrlandoNative,well said.Many have cob webs or Mugabe has spun that wool over their eyes so tight that they cannot see further than their noses.
Any chance of getting His Excellency Robert Mugabe to read the book. He might just see the light.
My goodness! I cannot believe that there are people out there in the world who think that he is the one who is being persecuted.....
Please tell us what you feel about this man terrorising his own (black) people, burning them alive in their own homes, beating them, raping them, all because they did not vote for him.
Or do you think that is a Western Plot also?
Amazing that you can think that because he is black, he can do whatever he likes...
The writer must be living in a world of his own. Any way why should a Nigerian pretend to know the situation in Zimbabwe?. Here from me my dear, Iam a black Zimabwean born and bred in Zimbabwe. The situation in Zimbabwe is of Mugabe's own making brought by gready and corruption. Have you ever asked yourself why an 84 year old would cling to power and not even allow any of his own party to voice any concerns about leadership? Its because he and those close to him have just accumulated wealth for themselves at the expense of the… [Read Full Text]
See all comments (18).
I sometimes wonder just why every time a 'dictator' decides to treat his own people badly there's always someone who goes and tries to make it someone else's fault.
The fault here is purely Mugabe's.
It's not an external fault that made a country that was once a food exporter into a nation that can't even feed itself any longer.
No, it was Mugabe's policy of confiscating viable farmland; and, instead of placing it into the hands of actual FARMERS (who could probably have at least come *close* to previous bounty; gave it instead into the hands of cronies who… [Read Full Text]