Harare — Zimbabwe will not benefit from the "patronising" and "ignorant" meddling of foreigners who know nothing about the real situation in the country, Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara has said.
Speaking in South Africa on Thursday, DPM Mutambara said Zimbabwe was better guided by Sadc and the African Union, and that Zimbabweans have the last say on the way forward politically.
Internet news sites also quoted him as saying although the inclusive Government had a two-year lifespan -- from September 2008 to September 2010 -- there was room to keep the arrangement in place if conditions on the ground so required.
"There are two major reasons why there is scepticism (about the inclusive Government by Western countries), one of them is sheer ignorance and arrogance on the part of the West.
"I went to Oxford -- I taught at MIT, I'm a Rhodes scholar. I think it's fair to say that I know better than (US President Barack) Obama what is good for Zimbabwe, that I know better than Mrs Hillary Clinton what is good for Zimbabwe.
"So it is very arrogant and patronising for Hillary or Obama to prescribe what is best for Zimbabwe without talking to me first.
"In my opinion, the starting point is to remove ignorance and to remove arrogance on the part of the West vis-à-vis what's good for Africa," he said.
"So we, for example in this inclusive Government, we are guided by Sadc member countries, they said 'do it in your country's national interest'.
"Once they advise us to do that, we cannot succeed if we go up against them.
"So the greatest influence over the future of Zimbabwean politics lies not with the intervention of Western governments, but rather lies with Africa and the will of the African people," he said.
DPM Mutambara said Zimbabweans were best placed to know their needs, adding that the inclusive Government was the best alternative at the moment for the governance of the country.
He also said the problems Zimbabwe was facing were not insurmountable.
"Our people are experiencing a new reality. Yes, there are problems, yes there are challenges, but they are not insurmountable."
On elections, he said while the GPA said they should be held within two years of the signing of the agreement, what was more important was the creation of conditions so that the poll outcome would not be disputed.
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Everything Obama says is scripted, his only skill is his ability to memorize and repeat a speech -- he knows very little about what he speaks. If it was anything otherwise, he wouldn't have changed nearly all of his positions and mirrored the Bush administration. He more suited for Hollywood than a political office.
So d_ bokk, are we then to assume from what you have said about your president, that you American people are daft for voting for Obama? I noted that in one of your posts you regarded Mr Obama as a "half white man," and I thought that was uncalled for. There are many people who are bi-racial and we do not refer to them as "half white women or "half white men." They are simply black people or coloured people.
It was a lose-lose situation, the Democrats and Republicans pick a few clowns and then they have us vote for which one sucks the least. It's their fallacy of voting for the "lesser evil" -- I don't see the point in voting for evil in the first place, even if one devil is less devilish than the other. It'd be nice if my country could have an election between two men who aren't mirror images of each other, in that aspect of democracy, Zimbabwe has us beat.
You can go by the "one-drop" rule all you want, but those laws were put into place to justify white men enslaving their own kin. What kind of man would impregnate a woman and then force her and //their// child to remain in slavery?
No d-bokk, it is not a matter of my adopting the one drop rule but one of addressing people in an acceptable manner and I have nothing to do with your men who raped slaves. As an American it is YOUR disgrace. Regarding the "clowns" that they would have you vote for, if that was the case then America would be another Zimbabwe and where would you be? As a private citizen you would taste hardship and know there is no light at the end of the tunnel because you knew that your government would do nothing to improve conditions that would help you overcome those hardships. As far as I know, no one is forced to vote for any candidate in America. You could always abstain from voting and if you choose to vote for "a clown" then don't complain.
It's acceptable to call him black but not the truth? Kjrs, your political correct sophistry isn't going to work on me.
By the way, the plantation owners were largely wealthy Englishmen. I do not share their blood or their shame, it does however seem to be a common motif for the swine's blood that runs through your veins as your ancestors exported this inhumanity all over the globe. When my ancestors had slaves, they took the militarily weaker Anglo-Saxons and French to do their unskilled labor... and I don't feel any disgrace about that, thrall.
Let me explain to you what democracy is, kjrs. Democracy is electing the person who most represents the voters, not electing someone from a group of guys hand-picked by the two ruling parties. Only a foolish federalist would think that this type of system is required. Sure, you get stability, but a monarchy is stable too. And I don't vote because there's very little difference between these cookie-cutter politicians. The problem is that we only have these clowns to choose from -- that's not democracy.
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