African National Congress (Johannesburg)
Z Pallo Jordan
18 May 2008
(Page 2 of 2)
If that has familiar ring, it is because the Bush administration has employed it repeatedly in support of its aggressive actions against all and sundry. To quote them: "You are either with us, or against us!"
It cannot possibly be right that, while we in South Africa expect our democratic institutions to protect us from arbitrary power, we expect the people of Zimbabwe to be content with less.
If ZANU (PF) has lost the confidence of a substantial number of the citizens of that country, such that the only means by which it can win elections is either by intimidating the people or otherwise rigging them, it has only itself to blame. Nobody doubts the anti-imperialist credentials of ZANU (PF), but that cannot be sufficient reason to support it if it is misgoverning Zimbabwe and brutalising the people.
Let all recall that the people of Zimbabwe endured a 15-year war of national liberation, during which the colonialist regime employed every device from beatings, to torture, to executions and massacres to repress them. They did not waver. Yet it is being suggested that today, for no apparent reason, they have fallen under the sway of the helpers and agents of that colonial power. I think that betrays a worrying contempt for the ordinary Zimbabwean. A contempt reminiscent of the colonialists' contention that the people rose against them because they had been incited by "outside agitators"! By the Russians! By the Chinese!
I do not support the MDC and my track record in the struggle against imperialism speaks for itself, but I differ most fundamentally with Maloka and Magubane. It is precisely my commitment to the anti-imperialist agenda that persuades me that our two comrades are wrong.
We will not assist ZANU (PF) by encouraging that movement to proceed along the disastrous course it has embarked on. Offering it uncritical support because it is anti-imperialist will not help ZANU (PF) to uncover the reasons for the steep decline in the legitimacy it once enjoyed. That party would do well to return to its original vision of a democratic Zimbabwe, free of colonial domination and the instruments of that domination - such as arbitrary arrests, police repression of opposition, intimidation of political critics, etc.
Given the outcome of the recent elections, ZANU(PF) should surrender power to the party that has won. Another anti-imperialist movement, the Sandinistas of Nicaragua, lost an election in 1991. Today they are back in office having won an election that even the US was unable to subvert. In order to win the Sandinistas had slowly to win back the confidence of the people, who then voted them back into power. Any attempt by ZANU (PF) to cling to power through overt or covert violence will only compound its problems by stripping it even further of the legitimacy it won by leading the Zimbabwean people in their struggle for independence, freedom and democracy!
Commenting on the dilemma faced by the Bolsheviks after their victory in October 1917, that great internationalist and Communist, Rosa Luxemburg, wrote:
"Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party - however numerous they may be - is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of 'justice' but because all that is instructive, wholesome and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when 'freedom' becomes a special privilege."
Maloka and Magubane would do well to weigh her remarks seriously. Perhaps, had the Bolsheviks been a bit more attentive to such constructive criticism from an unimpeachable revolutionary, we might not be complaining of the demise of the Soviet Union, but could possibly be celebrating its triumphs.
Z. Pallo Jordan is a member of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of South Africa's ruling African National Congress. This article is written in his personal capacity.
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"colonisers who seek to regain lost battles"? You really are deluded. It has been 43 years since Zimbabwe was a British colony. Those politicians who were in power back then are dead.
We don't buy your propaganda!
I have come to understand that we love our freedom differently, most importantly as our mental faculties are directly influenced by the type of education we received in growing up. There is an ideological conflict in freedom fighters who spent their better life getting drunk immersed in western ideologies and those front line liberators from countries that advocated for social justice right from the mode and means of production. The primarity of freedom, liberty and justice is anchored in redressing the control of resources. It is common knowledge that justice delayed is justice denied. If we focus on repossession of land and its management then we must know that there must not be any delay from or hindrance from enemy quarters. Nicaragua is poorer and more disorganized than it was during the first Sandinista government. If democracy does not allow proxy party sponsored by Bin Laden in Europe and America then why should we find it contestable to have a proxy party from our erstwhile colonisers who seek to regain lost battles? Jordan appreciates the loss of human life for our independence why do you keep on quoting American presidents and Europeans, here in Zimbabwe we have voices from Nehanda underground who does not sanction disposition of the natives any longer.