Harare — THIS is the first of a two-part series in which DR TAFATAONA MAHOSO interrogates Western destabilisation of the progressive world through sponsoring reactionary groups under the guise of democratisation to unseat governments and leaders who do not kowtow to Western interests.

ZIMBABWEANS have accepted or tolerated the inclusive Government primarily because they refuse to fight one another physically when the real battle should be about the best ideas for securing Zimbabwe's independence, sovereignty and economic indigenisation.

Unfortunately some of the parties in the inclusive Government seem to realise that their so-called new ideas have proven to be disastrous. It is clear, for instance, that MDC-T in particular is now afraid of an honest contest of ideas. The party is seeking to denounce the honest questioning of its ideas and programmes as "hate language."

For instance, on September 13 and 14, 2009 on Aljazeera TV, in the wake of the visit to Zimbabwe by yet another clueless "troika" from the EU, MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai denounced Zimbabweans as destructive land invaders again while at the same time accusing Zanu-PF of employing hate speech against MDC-T.

Yet in terms of our history, there can be no worse language than that which denounces as mindless land invaders a dispossessed people who are reclaiming their stolen land from 100 years of settlerism.

The question that has dogged Zimbabwe since the launch of the MDC on September 11, 1999 is: Whose democracy are these MDC formations fighting for, if in terms of that democracy Africans dispossessed of their land for 100 years must continue to be denounced as primitive and mindless land invaders?

In the African Focus column, September 13, 2009 in The Sunday Mail, we suggested that Prime Minister Tsvangirai's "Paygate" is only the tip of a long and tangled thread, part of a foreign woven web of sanctions, sleaze and sabotage aimed at smothering Zimbabwe and reversing the Third Chimurenga.

Tsvangirai's Paygate refers to the recently uncovered scandal in which the Prime Minister and Finance Minister Tendai Biti were urging the nation to return to the hunter-gatherer age and to "eat only what you kill;" telling civil servants "you can't squeeze water out of a stone;" telling grossly underpaid teachers "you cannot squeeze blood out of a stone;" and so on - - while, at the very same time the World Bank and other donors were secretly paying the Prime Minister's staff and high-ranking MDC-T officials retainer fees ranging from US$3 000 to US$15 000 per month on top of the government "salaries!"

The last two leaders we remember receiving monthly retainer fees from foreign agents in this region were Jonas Savimbi and Alfonso Dhlakama.

The Paygate revelations sound so bizarre that people forget that the entire foreign-sponsored "democracy project" in the form of the MDC formations has always been a strange imposition from the start.

It is not only the illegal and racist sanctions imposed on the people at the invitation of the MDC formations which feels like such an affront.

The model of "democracy" envisaged is an alien affront when examined closely in terms of our own history.

In 2004 the then foreign affairs minister Dr Stan Mudenge presented a research paper to a conference of liberation movements of Southern Africa in which he uncovered the alien politics of the British and European "socialists" behind the MDC "democracy project."

The model which was to be imported to Malawi, Zambia, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe in order to overthrow and replace our Chimurenga model is called "social democracy."

It went quite far in Zambia before it was abandoned. There it succeeded in burying the United Independence Party of founder president Dr Kenneth David Kaunda, but in order to live longer the supplanting Movement for Multiparty Democracy had to abandon social democracy and embrace nationalism and Pan-Africanism once in power.

In Namibia and Malawi, the model never got off the ground. In South Africa the model was smuggled into the national constitution but the people are questioning it precisely because it is causing many unexpected conflicts.

Examples of these include the recent strike by unionised armed forces; the abrupt and jarring removal from office of former president Thabo Mbeki; the unsettled and overwhelming demands for land by the dispossessed African majority; and the question of cultural identity symbolised by the debate over constitutionally entrenched gay rights and gay marriages.

The last issue raises questions about national priorities: Why should the constitution of an African country just freed from 300 years of apartheid entrench gay rights ahead of the right of the indigenous majority to reclaim its stolen land?

Indeed in January 1995, Phyllis P Jordan published an article called "Whither South Africa?" in which she identified for South Africa the very same problem of white socialists and social democracy which Minister Mudenge presented nine years later in the case of Zimbabwe.

According to Jordan:

"It is currently fashionable in government, business, labour and academic circles to say that South Africa is moving from a racial state to a social democratic one; social democracy being regarded as the most rational choice for South Africa."

Jordan then pointed out that the social democracy model presupposed four basic conditions which did not apply to South Africa at the time of its freedom from 300 years of apartheid.

These were:

Availability of investment capital for rapid economic expansion and growth;

The prevalence of a highly unionised workforce whose leadership and secretariats are strong enough to face representatives of corporate employers and extract contractual deals satisfactory to the workers;

A very high rate of employment and low unemployment, so that the majority of workers do not labour under constant threat of replacement or job losses; and

A very broad tax base affording the state generous revenue inflows to be used for social security and social services.

The social democracy model is said to originate from Sweden of the 1920s and West Germany after the Second World War and in the wake of the Marshall Plan.

What makes the democracy project sponsored through the MDC formations so tragic for Zimbabwe is not just the fact that none of the four conditions apply here but also that this neo-liberal model has collapsed even in the west itself.

It has ended in the current global financial tsunami, the so-called global recession, which recently compelled the G20 to violate Euro-American sanctions and grant Zimbabwe US $510 million loan.

The western version of what the MDC formations have been trying to impose on Zimbabwe has created vertical polarisation. According to Jonathan Friedman:

"Downward mobility (of the majority) and de-industrialisation has been accompanied by an upward mobility in the upper echelons of society.

"It is reported in reports of enormous incomes among the capitalist elite as well as increasing incomes among other political and cultural elites.

"The spate of scandals concerning credit cards, double salaries, long vacation-like trips, and nightclub visits by politicians has led to a generalised crisis of confidence in the political elites. This crisis of accountability expresses an increasing rift between elites and the people."

The MDC formations have imported the same crisis to Zimbabwe.

What Friedman exposes in the very same countries behind the MDC formations is the fact that "democracy," like the so-called "international community," is a new form of metropolitan apartheid.

The western elites who enjoy this new apartheid also seek to create dependent elites in the countries of the South.

The dependent elites sought after are the so-called "Third World reformers" whose mission is to overthrow liberation movements in government.

One feature of this democracy project is intense hostility not only to the legacy of the liberation movement but also to indigenous or national culture.

"The same logic of this social distancing generates an embodiment of democracy as an inherent attribute of the new elites . . . One Norwegian social democratic politician exclaimed that it was time to find a new population for the government since Norwegians were no longer democratic...

"Alas, only the elites really understand what is best for everyone. Only they, by definition, are true democrats.

"Sweden has today got a Minister of Democracy, an entirely new position..."

In other words, democracy is not about the power of the people, by the people and for meeting the needs and aspirations of the people.

Democracy is whatever is done by a self-appointed elite calling itself democrats. In the case of Zimbabwe, democracy is whatever is thought or done by those who have been chosen and sponsored by western elites seeking to impose a social democracy model around the globe.

If the western socialists had their way, African democrats in our region would be an artificial colony of globe-trotting puppets, a new airbone Bantustan based on donated air-tickets, sponsored workshops, sponsored web-sites, sponsored pirate radio stations and retainer fees.

The so-called African democrats share three characteristics with their European sponsors:

A very low opinion of natives and nationalists. We all remember being told "Munongomera pese-pese kunge hwowa!" or "Muri kuti muri kushaya chikafu?" "Eya!" "Muchanyatsa kushaisisa chaizvo-izvo."

The idea that we must eat only what we kill while the nabobs of sleaze feast on retainer fees from USAID fits the same mentality and pattern.

A nasty hostility to national and regional history which is reflected in the names of the political parties. The externally sponsored regime change in Ukraine was called the Orange Revolution. Prime Minister Raila Odinga's equivalent in Kenya is called the Orange Democratic Movement.

In Zambia the attempt at social democracy is called Movement for Multiparty Democracy; while in Zimbabwe it is the Movement for Democratic Change; and in South Africa the Democratic Alliance.

An inherent tendency toward narcissistic thinking, which makes no distinction between self-righteous intentions and great achievements.

As Jonathan Friedman observes, this substitution of good intentions for democratic credentials has become so entrenched that some Norwegian social democrats have been suggesting getting rid of the national or native population and inventing or importing a new population, because the natives just cannot seem to understand the new form of elitist and racist "democracy."

When we stop to think about it, there is some truth in Friedman's observation. The democracy imposed by NATO through bombing the population of Serbia using 1 000 jets from 19 states for 78 days without stop; the democracy exported to Iraq by the US and UK; the democracy inflicted on Zimbabwe since 1999 by pushing for total economic implosion; has never been meant for the natives here and now.

It is definitely not meant for our war veterans, our liberation war collaborators, our ex-detainees and ex-restrictees of the Second Chimurenga. It is meant to starve all these "Mugabe cronies" and replace them with a new breed of Anglophiles.

We are the wrong people; just as the current Palestinians, Iraqis, Cubans and Afghans are the wrong people whom Europe's new democrats seek to replace in order to make the world safe for "democratisation!" In short, there is no point preaching about national healing and national reconciliation as long as half the preachers believe that the generation which liberated this country and redeemed the land are the wrong people who must be replaced and whose ideas must not be passed on to future generations. Yet that is precisely the thrust of the Anglo-Saxon "democracy project" here.