When will Africa ask the tough questions, face the hard truths, and avoid the safe cop-out options…?
There are a series of frequently used views - I call them cop-outs - which tend to result in an avoidance of the ugly nitty gritty detail of what is happening in Zimbabwe. I wrote this out of total despair at a posting I read earlier today.
Black Looks posted a blog referring to Mugabe’s Operation Drive Out Trash here and the comments section drew a response that touched on a series of points I so often hear from my South African friends, but so seldom hear in my own country (unless its from a ZANU PF mouthpiece). All of the points ultimately do Zimbabweans a terrible disservice, and they join up into one big excuse to do nothing at all about what is happening in my country.
1/ That the Zimbabwean issue is exaggerated by the west
Quote: These inhuman action embarked by Mugabe government is a shame.There is no reason to justify such illegality. But,the truth of the matter remains that the western press have over-emphasised the whole issue.
Correct, the actions by Mugabe are illegal and inhumane. However, I’d say that describing them as a ’shame’, is a gross understatement of what Zimbabweans know is a grotesque cruel violation of their basic human rights.
But you are very wrong to say that the Western press has over emphasised the Zimbabwean issue at all. If anything, the full truth of what is happening in Zimbabwe hasn’t even begun to be heard. The reason why the people writing for this blog hide behind anonymous identities is because we’d be persecuted if the government knew who we were. We’d be beaten and imprisoned because of our writing. That’s our reality . Truth is not something that is valued by the Zimbabwean government.
Nevertheless, people in Zimbabwe risk their lives every single day to try and get images out to external audiences - African and Western - to prove to you all, to say ‘look, this is the truth, pictures don’t lie’. People struggle every single day to make external audiences take our story seriously, and occasionally, at big moments like elections and massive operations like Murambatsvina, the slumbering western media wakes up and reports. Ordinary Zimbabweans, without the might of a free media, cannot begin to scratch the surface of the truth. Even we, in our own country, struggle to know the full truth of what is happening in the rural areas. There is no way it has been exaggerated at all.
Maybe you can imagine the difficulty of achieving any attention from the west at all, but what you can’t begin to imagine is the deep and utter despair we feel when African audiences respond by saying ‘it isn’t that bad’.
It isn’t the self-interested powerful west that blocks freedom in our country. It’s an African continent too deeply locked into a historical discourse with the west to see past the rhetoric and face the unpalatable hard bitter truth. And that truth is that Zimbabweans have a liberation hero who is a very very bad person, who can no longer be described as a hero, who is truly evil, who is torturing and oppressing his people.
But worse than that for Zimbabweans, is that Africa - a continent which has experienced the worst excesses of oppression - is allowing him to do all his terrible deeds to innocent decent people, with impunity. These words written here do not come from the western press, they come from a despairing Zimbabwean, an African, whose faith and respect for the leaders in the African continent is at rock bottom.
2/ That the west is not even handed in its engagement with Africa
Quote: And i ask; What is the difference between what President Obasanjo is doing in Nigeria and what Mugabe is doing in Zimbabwe?
This point was picked up by the BBC a few days ago - see the full piece here - who offered this as the reason why Africa refused to do anything about Zimbabwe.
Yet many of those other African governments have overseen similar brutal evictions in their own countries, and yet have suffered very little outside criticism.
The sad truth is that what is going on in Zimbabwe at the moment is not at all unusual.
From one end of Africa to the other, governments have set about slum clearance schemes without any consideration for the people who live there, or any sense of responsibility for what happens to them afterwards.
I don’t understand, as a
Zimbabwean, why a lack of action in one country where human rights are violated becomes a reasonable argument for inaction in another country..?
Sure, lets talk about the fact that other people in other countries have been treated appallingly by their governments, and let’s put pressure on those governments as well as the Zimbabwean government. I don’t believe that action should only take place in Zimbabwe. I want it for the whole continent. I don’t ever want another African person to experience what we experience under a leader like Mugabe.
Why don’t we instead, as a continent say, I am sick and tired of African people being treated like ‘filth’ (to use the Mugabe government’ own description of its people) by African leaders. Instead, we weakly say, ‘Well, we did nothing when this country did it so how can we do something over here….?.
3/ That the entire Zimbabwean issue is about land
Quote: Mugabe’s sin is that he returned Lands to their original and lawful owners
The African public love this cop-out option. I’m sorry, but it really isn’t about land. If you believe this then the Mugabe regime has done a fantastic propaganda job on you.
The reality is this: every single person in Zimbabwe knows several people who have died of AIDS, we all know people who are struggling to feed and clothe their children - never mind educate them, most of us do not have jobs, we cannot afford to pay for treatment when we are sick, most of us are struggling to feed our families, every single one of us are battling with hyper-inflation.
The truth is we don’t want Mugabe in power anymore. Like any country that believes in the ideal of ‘one person one vote’, we want to get rid of the ZANU PF government so we can have the sort of choices and freedoms that other countries enjoy. We NEED a government that can feed us and provide healthcare in the face of looming famine and some of the worst HIV and AIDS statistics in the world. The other things, jobs, education, land - that would be nice too. But right now we’re fighting for basic survival here. Mugabe’s government has failed us badly. If we can’t find a solution (and Operation Drive Out Trash is NOT a solution, it makes things much worse) then we face many many deaths.
This is not about land - it is about life and death, basic survival.
Mugabe’s sins, if you want to know the truth, are many and varied. He murdered us in our thousands in Matabeleland during the 1980s - nothing to do with land. Where was Africa while we were dying?
Mugabe’s greatest sin is that there is nothing - absolutely nothing - that he won’t do to stay in power.
To give you a flavour of his sins - sins Zimbabweans (but apparently not other Africans) are deeply familiar with - I quote from the Breaking the Silence report:
Most of the dead were shot in public executions, often after being forced to dig their own graves in front of family and fellow villagers. The largest number of dead in a single killing involved the deliberate shooting of 62 young men and women on the banks of the Cewale River, Lupane, on 5 March 1983. Seven survived with gunshot wounds, the other 55 died. Another way 5 Brigade killed large groups of people was to burn them alive in huts. This was done in Tsholotsho and also in Lupane.
Read more here. Please note that this happened in the early 1980s, long before land was ever taken from white people.
If Africa is serious about African solidarity for African people (not solidarity for African leaders), then it’s long past time for Africa to realise the truth about Mugabe and his government, and to deal with it. To avoid it by hiding behi
nd familiar cop-outs, is to do African people a terrible and cruel disservice.
