Financial Gazette (Harare)
Mavis Makuni
16 May 2008
column
My colleague, Mohau Pheko, who writes a regular column in the South African newspaper, the Sunday Times, appears to have swallowed the Zimbabwean government's propaganda, hook, line and sinker.
In her column in the May 11 issue of the Sunday Times, Pheko regurgitates the ennui-inducing government propaganda themes that Zimbabweans find so insulting and patronising so slavishly that with one's eyes closed, one would be excused for mistaking her for a regular government and ZANU-PF apologist. If Pheko lived in Zimbabwe and was obliged to endure watching state television, listen to state radio and read state-controlled newspapers, she would know that the propagandists whose spin she so wholeheartedly regards as gospel truth have no regard for the truth or realities on the ground.
They aim to befuddle the nation and the world at large all for one self-serving purpose: to keep ZANU-PF in power at any cost so as to safeguard the ill-gotten wealth and interests of the politically powerful and influential at the expense of the rest of the people. Pheko believes that Western countries have been hypocritical in singling out President Mugabe for demonisation.
"Mugabe, we are made to believe, unilaterally brought Zimbabwe's economy to its knees, bringing about widespread poverty, a reign of terror and despotism" she writes using a malapropism that is ironic not only for deliberately conveying the wrong picture but also because of the unfortunate timing of the expression of these anti-people-of- Zimbabwe views. Can Pheko think of another African country that has attracted so much negative attention to itself by waging a decade-long propaganda campaign and war of words against perceived enemies in the West? Such a country is not being singled out, its problems are self-inflicted.
The people of Zimbabwe have just gone to the polls to express their will about how they want to be governed but they are determinedly being thwarted by ZANU-PF, which has refused to accept the verdict pronounced by voters on March 29. I grant Pheko her right to slam Western countries for their hypocrisy where she perceives it but she cannot expect Zimbabweans to be thrilled with their wretched lot simply because other African countries have not been condemned for their abuses
Unspeakable horrors in other African countries do not make those in Zimbabwe right. Pheko's railing against the opposition in Zimbabwe for being in collusion with the British and Americans is an insult to the people of Zimbabwe, the majority of whom voted for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in the disputed March 29 polls. Is she saying Zimbabweans are morons who do not know what is good for them?
The role of the media as the watchdog for the public interest in Africa should be to campaign for justice, observance of human rights , democratic and humane governance and accountability and transparency on the part of leaders. The press should not fall into the trap of condoning or defending manifest injustices and violations of human rights on the pretext that worse atrocities have been perpetrated in other countries as Pheko has sought to do.
Pheko's gripes about the MDC being responsible for the imposition of sanctions against authorities in Harare are naïve, to say the least. She would not have said the things she said if she knew how the United States Congress, the European Parliament and the United Nations vote for such measures. Sanctions are a non-violent and diplomatic tool imposed to press a particular government to change. The course this dispensation takes depends on whether the targeted government chooses to be reasonable and pragmatic or hard-nosed and suicidal by looking at the vested interests of individuals rather than national aspirations.
Pheko must not forget that international sanctions are generally credited for helping to end apartheid in South Africa more than a decade ago. "South Africa's political and economic isolation combined with the insurgency , the un-governablity, definitely stretched the apartheid regime to the point where their calculation was that trying to hang on to the apartheid system would bring diminishing returns and that it was best to begin to settle and go into negotiations", Francis Kornegy of the Johannesburg Centre for Political Studies has said.
As the targeted measures imposed on individuals in President Mugabe's administration cannot cause rampant poverty, 80 percent unemployment, an inflation rate of 165 000 percent and the collapse of agriculture and public institutions, it should be obvious that other factors are at play. The people of Zimbabwe attribute the political and economic chaos in their country to corruption, mismanagement, abuse of power, the plundering of national resources and the pursuit of populist policies that do not take national interests and aspirations into account.
The way the people of Zimbabwe voted on March 29 shows they believe the solution is a change of government, which is a perfectly normal, legal and routine dispensation in a democracy. But like the mother in the Biblical story of King Solomon's wise judgment who wanted a baby to be cut in half rather than focus on its survival, authorities in Zimbabwe are ready to destroy the country for egotistic reasons..
The act of changing a government has only been given taboo dimensions in Zimbabwe because of the government's paranoid belief that external plots are afoot to effect "regime change" which Pheko has embraced unquestioningly. But what does she have to say in defense of authorities in Harare now that they are also denying the people of Zimbabwe their sovereign right to elect a new government after almost 30 years of un-interrupted one-party rule.? How are Western countries to blame for the sovereign will of the people?
Pheko can afford to portray Zimbabweans as dimwits who do not think for themselves until they are "influenced " by the West because she lives in a country that has, since the end of apartheid in 1994 already witnessed a change of leadership and is due to see another passing of the baton next year when Thabo Mbeki's second term as President of South Africa ends.
The columnist made a valiant, patriotic attempt to defend Mbeki's role as mediator in Zimbabwe, which he has claimed is dogged by interference by Western countries. Mbeki has not said exactly how these countries are interfering and if he is a mediator worth his salt, why he has allowed himself to be derailed.. I can tell Pheko that Zimbabweans find images of Western diplomats based in Harare showing compassion towards fellow human beings by visiting victims of state violence in hospitals more empathetic and appropriate than a picture of a spellbound Mbeki arm in arm with President Mugabe on his last visit to Zimbabwe at the weekend. That odd image appears to represent the full extent of Mbeki's ability to find a so-called African solution to a crisis that has escalated steadily under his watch for the last decade.
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How can anyone blame 355,000% inflation and 80% unemployment on foreign governments that have little or no trade w/ Zimbabwe to begin with? How much trade did the U.S. have w/ Ian Smith's Rhodesia? How much trade is there now? The U.S. cares nothing about the value of trade w/ Zimbabwe because they have never had significant trade with Zimbabwe or Rhodesia to begin with! It more a matter of people being freely able to choose their government that reflects their collective will as a nation, ZANU-PF may have been good at fighting against Ian Smith, but have been an utter failure at providing for the well-being of all Zimbabweans.
The "sanctions" all the ZANU-PF parrots like to complain about are targeted against specific individuals in the Mugabe government! How can these "sanctions" against a few political animals cripple an entire nations economy? If sanctions against a select few individuals can create this kind of economic turmoil, then what does that say about the distribution of wealth and economic opportunity while under the rule of ZANU-PF despite the "redistribution" of white-owned farms in 2000? Hasn't ZANU-PF/Mugabe had a QUARTER OF A CENTURY to correct the unequal distribution of wealth?
Great Britain and the U.S. have had negligible economic relations w/ Zimbabwe since 1980! How is it that southern Africa's most vibrant economy at that time has since crumbled to nothing? Do not blame the West, for they were never economic engines for Zimbabwe in the first place. Blaming the West for the ineffective policies of indigenous African governments is a tired and worn out excuse for national liberation movements that took over power and p***ed away their opportunities.
After 28 years in power, you would think ZANU-PF/Mugabe would have something positive to show for it. Instead, they have driven the best educated, most capitalistic people in Africa to poverty, self-imposed exile and desperation.
Why is it that some people are unable to understand that, given the chance, the people of Zimbabwe would choose to try a different path not under the "guidance"/exploitation of the ZANU-PF/Mugabe machine? Once one wins the opportunity to govern, national liberation movements need to understand they have to provide tangible benefits to the people they govern. Violence, coercion and intimidation will eventually turn the people that supported national liberation against it - even the Russians and Chinese have learned this!
I do not think that Mohau Pheko realizes that if her version of facts have become distorted so severely, to the point where the opposite of what she believes, is really the truth, then one must ask what iniquity dwells in her heart to bend the truth into reversal ! It seems that her hidden disdain and hatred for people of cultures foreign to her own seems to be the cause. Hatred is invariably always the reason why a person becomes so deluded. I wonder if she also realizes that this is defined as naked racism ! She has got to change her mind to see that people of other race groups are not always ill-intentioned. Eventually this can lead to full on paranoia and madness if left unchecked.