THE debate on how we should respond to Barack Obama's election as US president and his overtures towards Africa in general and Zimbabwe in particular has picked up quite considerably.

I suggested that we engage Obama. The responses are coming from many people, most of them quite passionate. I believe it is such discussions that help us to arrive at considered and informed decisions. Those that disagree with me say I am so overwhelmed by Obama's African descent to the extent of ignoring the essence of his imperialist policies.

That I had taken hook, line and sinker the bait dangled by his strategists in pursuit of America's post-modernism political indulgence. I do not believe engaging Obama is appeasing imperialism as long as we are clear of what needs to be defended: the land.

In that light, I don't see any fundamental differences between what they are saying and what I said; it is the manner we are expressing the same point. There will always be a seeming disagreement between theory and practice because of the distance that separates the two. It is our responsibility to link and balance them.

Let me continue the debate by examining: the history of our relationship with the USA after 1980 the current status of that relationship the causes of the breakdown of the relationship and the possible way forward.

The USA has always been an imperialist country but our relations have not always been as bad they are now. During the liberation war, Dr Henry Kissinger, then US Secretary of State during Jimmy Carter's presidency, played a pivotal role in trying to negotiate the end of the war. He was obviously doing it to protect American interests in Zimbabwe. At Lancaster House in 1979, it was the USA that eventually broke the impasse over the thorny land issue that threatened to scuttle the conference.

Andrew Young, the US chief diplomat at the UN who was America's man at Lancaster House, persuaded the British to provide funds to: buy land from the white farmers and equip the newly resettled black farmers with technical expertise. He promised the USA would assist the British with the funds.

Although the land would be got on a willing seller- willing buyer basis, this would emerge as the most significant outcome of the Lancaster House conference. It recognised and restored land rights back to the blacks. In addition, the British and the Americans pledged to fund and support a land reform programme. There is no doubt the Americans were doing it to protect their interests. This formed the basis of our cordial relationship with the USA in 1980.

Many other things also happened to reflect the strength of the relationship during those early years. For instance, one or two American universities conferred President Mugabe with honorary degrees. To have your head of state being honoured in such a manner by a foreign university, especially when he has not been to that university or any other university in that country for that matter, is a big recognition.

There was also big talk about Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the headquarters of Olivine Industries in the USA. The chairman of the multinational visited and he was accorded VVIP status. It was obvious he had come with lots of money and promises of huge investment. President Mugabe reciprocated the visit and it was also a big event in Pennsylvania, if not America.

Our national broadcaster, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, had an arrangement with Cable News Network, the global American news agency, where they exchanged news, current affairs and human resource training programmes. I was at ZBC then and every year, many of our colleagues went to Atlanta, CNN headquarters, on exchange visits, further training or attachment. I remember viewers complaining that ZTV news bulletins had become mini CNN news broadcasts because of the quantity of stories from CNN that we were using. And they were right too because during some days, our news bulletins were almost entirely filled up with unedited stories from CNN.

During the same period, renowned people and celebrities came, most of whom had the honour to meet President Mugabe. Among them were the late King of Pop, Michael Jackson, renowned country singers Don Williams and the late John Denver.

Such kind of events could only occur in circumstances of excellent bilateral relations between the USA and us. That was how it was between America and us then. And the USA had not for a single day ceased to be an imperialist country with all the associated sinister motives.

I know some people will not take kindly to anyone using the name America to mean the USA. They will rightly argue America is a continent that also includes other countries. But is it not common parlance that people refer to USA as America? Is there any possibility of someone being misunderstood if they said America to mean USA?

My old mother's friend recently returned from visiting her son working in the USA and back at home in the village, her journey burnt like a veld fire through the neighbourhood. "Do you know that Ambuya Magaya recently went to America in an aeroplane? By the way, she has come back," my mother told me condescendingly when I visited her. I was understandably upset. I wanted to tell her if that was what she expected me to do, there was no way I would ever be able to take her to America.

But unfortunately today, our relationship with the USA has hit a bad patch. We all know it is because of the land issue. We also know that although the land issue is technically between our former coloniser, Great Britain, and us, the USA got involved in order to secure British support for its military invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. George W. Bush's utterances that Zimbabwe "presented an extraordinary threat to US foreign policy" were a convenient excuse to hide how much he needed British military support. To elevate the threat that Zimbabwe posed to American global interests to that of perceived nuclear countries like North Korea and Iran and give us the acronym "axis of evil" showed how desperately he needed British support for his military adventures.

That should explain why the USA quickly crafted, with the help of our local opposition, the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Bill (now Act) to cripple us. Looked at differently, the US response to our land reform programme was more ruthless than that of our former colonial master. It was from this response that all our international lines of credit were frozen. It was from the USA's response that severe restrictions were placed on American companies wishing to do business with us. If sanctions were a military operation, it was the USA that brought it to a shooting war. The British took a more subtle response, preferring to hide behind the EU and jargon they called "targeted and smart sanctions". I believe they took that veiled option because they did not have the moral justification for their case and they would have more to lose if they did it as openly as the Americans did.

That is the way I see the USA in the matrix of our difficult circumstances. The brief history of our relations that seemed blissful at first and then took a nosedive occurred in spite of our underlying ideological differences.

The USA is an imperialist power and I have never heard them deny it. When they talk of global strategic interests that is precisely what they will be admitting. In the 1980s and 1990s, we had cordial relations with them. I don't believe the ugly twist that the land issue took at the end of the 1990s came as a complete surprise to them. They could not have forgotten it was the issue that threatened to scuttle the Lancaster House conference until they broke the deadlock. The land issue had always simmered between the British and us.

The problem concerning the land is now more than halfway resolved.

The Global Political Agreement brokered by Thabo Mbeki recognised and confirmed the new boundaries that the land reform programmed had created and set. What only remains is the question of compensation.

Sadc and the AU are spearheading our case to the outside world for the lifting of sanctions and our re-engagement with the West, exactly what the EU did while the British took the backseat. But, of course, that didn't mean they remained silent there. Tony Blair shouted our case to the world and demonised us from back there; Gordon Brown too.

But that is what our inclusive Government is also doing to complement the effort of the AU. Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has been to Europe and America to ask for the lifting of sanctions and to ask for financial assistance.

Many other government delegations have been there too, with some members being denied entry because they are on the sanctions list.

Although it is a humiliating experience to be denied entry into a meeting at the conference hall door or to spend many hours held at an international airport waiting for a clearance from Whitehall or No. 10 Downing Street, it exposes the West's hypocrisy. It is a score in our favour and the West knows it weakens their case for continuing to impose sanctions or withholding financial assistance.

The advent of Barack Obama on the American political scene with his public pronouncements of dialogue certainly blows in some fresh air. Obama was elected on the back of his desire to pull America out of Iraq. If Bush used the land issue as a quid pro quo for British support in Iraq, and Obama wants out of Iraq, then they certainly are driven by opposite motivational factors.

Why shouldn't we exploit Obama's desire to re-engage to our advantage? The direct allusion to re-engage us started with his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, after the inauguration of the inclusive Government when she wrote a letter wishing the inclusive effort success.

In the deafening explosions of the war that Bush started with Zimbabwe, Obama's Secretary of State wrote a letter with such a promising start! And he followed it up in Ghana with his speech to Africa where he emphasised the need for mutual partnerships and co-operation.

He was from the G8 summit in Italy where he had spearheaded a US$20 billion aid package to assist Africa become self-sufficient in food production and agriculture.

We should not forget that at Lancaster House, America pledged financial and technical support to our resettled farmers in a future land reform programme.

Now that we have the land, why should we exclude ourselves from what America pledged to do 30 years ago just because we do not want to engage an imperialist? Our own African heads of states, South Africa's Jacob Zuma, Angola's Eduardo dos Santos, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and others were there in Italy arguing Africa's case for such assistance. Here again, we are dealing with facts, not hearsay.

How then should we respond to the overtures and gestures from such a man? Should we respond by telling our field commanders entrenched in positions along the war front started by Bush to start firing the heavy guns?

Our own President Mugabe, after his disagreement with Obama's Secretary of State for African Affairs at the AU summit in Libya recently, said he hoped Obama did not share the same views. He was prepared to give Obama the benefit of the doubt. I believe many people agree with that. I do.

I frequently think about the simple villagers near the border with Mozambique who I mentioned in a submission to the Press some time ago as a painful reminder.

It will be an enormous task to explain to them that Obama is not our friend when they are using the American dollar that they even call by his name for their everyday transactions and the packages of food aid they receive at the end of each month from donors bear the American flag. And there are thousands other villagers throughout the country like them.

We might think they are behind us but when election time comes, that is when we will discover we lost most of them a long time ago. It is those that say Obama is not our enemy that the villagers will understand easily and believe.

There is a need to balance principle and reality. Most differences can be resolved amicably if we put people first.