Published by the government of Zimbabwe
Tendayi Musungate
6 October 2008
opinion
Harare — FOR eight long years I have watched in silence, but with great pain the imperialist onslaught on our sovereign nation Zimbabwe.
This has been facilitated through the West's propaganda machines the CNN, BBC and others like them.
But no matter how much these people harp on and on about what Zimbabwe needs to do, the fact is that this is something that requires Zimbabwean people's solutions.
There have been numerous claims about a serious breakdown of the rule of law, gross violations of human rights, a compromised judiciary, intimidation and Government-sponsored violence and farm invasions.
This is nothing more than an extravagant misuse of words.
The same lies are perpetually given new leases of life whenever the West feels there is a need to increase the onslaught and to do this they employ a raft of lackeys right here in Zimbabwe to work with their BBCs and CNNs.
It is a great wonder that these people who claim to love human rights so much cannot see the natural justice behind the land reforms and President Mugabe's
wider drive to empower the indigenous people of this country.
But none of them dares ever mention the inherent evils that were there in Cecil Rhodes' colonial system that lived on in Zimbabwe until the land reforms started.
None of these voices ever dares tell us about the human rights abuses perpetrated by the Rhodesians and that up to today they still benefit from the violations they committed years ago.
Suddenly it is as if the Selous Scouts never existed and the people who today are trying to reverse the damage these evil people inflicted on the majority are now the human rights abusers.
What is lacking in the discourse on Zimbabwe
is a proper contextualisation of the issue in historical terms.
What is particularly disturbing, especially for people like me who live in rural areas like Mutawatawa, is that those who are supposed to be the intelligentsia guiding the revolution are the first ones to sell out and act in complicity with the country's enemies.
They strive to ally themselves with these diabolic forces who are the very authors of our misfortunes.
The educated seem to fail to grasp the simple fact that we must own the means of production before we can speak of any meaningful development.
For any right-thinking Zimbabwean, of paramount importance is the principle of national self-actualisation.
In Europe after the First and Second World Wars, Germany and German companies were forced to pay reparations after accepting responsibility for causing the mayhem.
But in Africa all we got after independence was a colonial economic system that continued to subjugate the majority and keep them underdeveloped.
Nothing has been said about the atrocities of the Rhodesian Front, which is responsible for the murder of tens of thousands of black Zimbabweans.
And all those people who perished died for the land.
Ian Smith died while still owning a farm right here in Zimbabwe a whole 27 years after independence.
The truth is that from time immemorial the West has never been good to non-white people and will probably never be.
There are a lot of questions that have to be asked but the black intelligentsia is not asking them.
Instead they swallow everything that they are fed by the West because -- like colonised people -- they still believe that the white man is always right.
Why is it that no one ever asks why no African nation has ever gone to Europe to enslave and colonise the way the West has done.
Surely, it says something about the values that inform our social and political systems.
The history and the presence of the black man in the West is a constant reminder of the brutality of the economic systems that inform these people.
No one is asking why there are so many blacks living so far away from Africa.
Are we telling our children how they ended up there?
Because the fact is nothing much has changed since the days when our forebears were forcibly shipped to slave so far away to today when subtler forms of slavery are in place.
Zimbabwe is so vilified in the West because it has dared to upset the status quo in a major way and this cannot be tolerated.
It is therefore a disgrace that some Zimbabweans are working hand-in-glove with the evil forces in the international community.
It must be appreciated by all and sundry, and no apology should be made about this, that we are the rightful occupants of this land and we reserve the right to exploit it and its resources in a manner that principally benefits us.
Zimbabwe is a sovereign nation and we are a sovereign collectivity within the confines of our borders.
All the mineral blessings, the wildlife, the natural tourist attractions and everything else between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers are ours.
In the same way that we own these resources we also reserve the right to determine what route we shall take into the future.
When President Mugabe sets himself to correct these colonial injustices, his reward is a sanctions package designed to squeeze the people very hard in the hope that they will rise and topple their Government outside of elections.
Everywhere across the world, the West has responded to any threat to their privileged economic status
by carrying out despicable propaganda campaigns. imposing sanctions and bombing and killing innocent people.
North Korea and Cuba have suffered for choosing to follow Communist-informed Government policies in
opposition to America's preferred crude capitalist systems.
North Korea has been under American and Western sanctions for 55 years now since 1954 after the Korean War of 1950-1953.
Unfortunately for America and its allies, little Korea has remained resolute and focused in defence of national pride.
In Cuba, 48 years of US economic blockade have failed dismally to dismantle the unity of the Cuban people.
Despite the sanctions, Cuba is the only country that sent troops to fight alongside African liberation movements during the colonial era.
Relations between Tripoli and Washington have been sour since the early 1970s when young Colonel Gaddafi sent the Italians packing for trying to perpetuate colonialism in that country in the hope of forever exploiting the vast oil resources there.
Despite threats, assassination attempts and sanctions, the people of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya have stayed true to the revolution.
The Islamic Republic of Iran was placed under sanctions in 1980 after the Shah was deposed and a people-centred government took over.
Iran has defied these sanctions to become one of the leading countries in the development of agricultural and energy technologies.
Right now the US is trying to get Iran condemned for daring to develop nuclear energy so as to improve the livelihoods of ordinary people in that country.
The people of Zimbabwe can learn a lot from this resilience.
In none of these countries have the people attacked their leadership and started collaborating with the enemy in the manner that some Zimbabweans do.
They recognise that theirs is a just war and that they will eventually prevail over the forces of evil.
They are not easily swayed by promises of money and miasmic power but instead remain true to the ideals of the revolution.
After eight years of sanctions many of our brothers have wavered.
Some are now assisting the CNN and the BBC to lie about Zimbabwe and to delude the world into thinking that Zimbabweans cannot solve their own problems without help from the West.
Why have we not stood firm and defended the revolution that promises to empower the people in a manner that the West can never do for us?
Why have we not supported President Mugabe and left him to fight a lone battle and yet we are the ones who stand to benefit when the revolution fully succeeds?
Let us work together and work hard to make this revolution a success for us and for the future generations. This means fully using the land that has been returned to us.
It means not giving any room to detractors to muddy the waters and lie to the world about the true Zimbabwe story.
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