Zimbabwean Spirit Against The Gathering Storm

[cdemafa]

The unfolding anti-Zimbabwean initiative of Britain and the United States government is a part of the racist ideology of the West against a free, independent Zimbabwe. As an African American who worked and lived in Zimbabwe immediately after the Second Chimurenga I am appalled at the lack of understanding on the part of those Zimbabweans who support the activities of the Movement for Demoncratic Change, a party underwritten financially from the United States and Britain.

Indeed, Samora Machel used to say that "The struggle for liberation is a university." The only problem is that many people never went to war for their lilberation. Harriet Tubman said that she could have saved a thousand instead of the 300 she led to freedom if she could have convinced them that they were enslaved people.

In fact, what we see in Zimbabwe is the attempt on the part of American conservative groups joined with British groups to introduce a Trojan Horse in the middle of the Zimbabwean nation. This is to be expected. This is the pattern of destabilization and it is a shame that many of our own leaders in the United States have not understood the intention of the sanctions against Zimbabwe.

Morgan Tsvangarai is a creation of the white landed class in Zimbabwe. Through their money, as seen with Tsvangarai's support from the white farmer Roy Bennett, who is the treasurer of the MDC, and other whites the MDC has been able to buy votes, influence the peasant populations in the rural areas, and create chaos.

I trained journalists in Zimbabwe at ZIMCO in the early l980s and was responsible for its first diploma class. I have been angered by the continuing propaganda of the Western media against the liberties and freedoms of Zimbabweans.

While we all condemn the actions of the goons who attack innocent people, we reserve our greatest condemnation for the political goons who are like Uncle Toms begging their former masters for bread. They will sell their mothers and fathers' inheritance for money from the West.

MDC is an instrument of the Western imperialists in the most concrete terms. It receives its money, resources, and support from the most reactionary elements in the Western countries and has shown itself to be against the general interests of the masses of people.

Freedom loving people realize the attempt to paint Zimbabwe as a rogue government, disconnected from the people, by the Western media. There is no reason for the people of Zimbabwe to be despondent because there are many friends of freedom and independence who see the hoopla in the British and American media as a part of a wider orchestration of the imperialist corporate attempt to undermine African agency.

On CNN in the United States, Jesse Jackson said on June 24th that Robert Mugabe was a hero but not anymore. This is a heresy. What has Mugabe done to be demoted as a hero? He gave his youth and adult life fighting in the bush against the white occupiers of his foreparents land. Mugabe will always be a hero to freedom loving African Americans. No, Mugabe's land reform action to return stolen land to the legitimate owners has caused an orchestrated campaign against Mugabe and his government. But the catalogue does not stop there. He captured and put in prison a group of military adventurers who were planning to overthrown an African nation. Many of them had ties to the white community in Britain.

I see Jesse Jackson's position as part of the international effort to pressure the Zimbabwean people to submit to intervention and international pressure. Even Nelson Mandela was in Britain condemning Mugabe for the tragedy of leadership. This is the power of the Western political system.

When Mandela was in jail, Mugabe allowed the use of his own country and his own resources to aid the ANC fighters in trying to overthrow the minority regime in South Africa. Has Mandela forgot this or did someone fail to tell him?

I think that the progressive elements in the African American community must reassure the Zimbabwean people that they have many friends in the West and around the world who truly understand the reason for the suffering in Zimbabwe and know that the MDC is being used to reassert racist and compradorist elements in the country.

Zimbabweans are the only people who can solve their problems; however, the Zimbabwean people must know that their enemies have been working around the clock to undermine the legitimate functioning of the government.

Since the land reform movement the reactionary white and black elements in the United States, Australian, South Africa, and Britain have been seeking an internal Zimbabwean lever to pry loose the strong, committed, and determined will of the Zimbabwean people.

If the MDC pulls out of the election then the election must continue because Tsvangarai's name is already on the ballots. The African Union has observers in the country already but Mugabe has wisely kept out of the nation those individuals who would enter the country to spy, undermine, or to create chaos by trying to find enemies of the government.

The MDC is pulling out of the election because it knows it cannot win. They will try to convince the world that the decisions of the people are forced, but Zimbabweans must stand with their heroic history and refuse to allow outside forces to rob the country of its independence. Long live the heroes of the Chimurenga! Long live the comrades who gave their lives in the mountains and valleys of beautiful Zimbabwe.

The European and American dance toward intervention inside Zimbabwe is a part of the same hypocrisy that Africa has experienced for many years. If Morgan Tsvangarai believes that his attachment to the West and its interests in supporting the minority white landholders in Zimbabwe will bring him to power he is absolutely wrong.

The masses of Zimbabweans understand that when 4000 whites held 75 percent of the arable land in Zimbabwe there was no outrage on the part of the Europeans and Americans. These masses may have to tighten their belts, rein in their materials needs in order to maintain their freedom as Britain and American play out their sanctions.

Should Zimbabwe acquiesce to the interests of the white minority against the masses of its own people it will surely be the worst form of slavery that has appeared in southern Africa. The fact that Mugabe at the head of ZANU was a military leader means that he knows what the situation was in his country before the rise of the MDC-T and its supporters from the American and British right wing.

So long as the people elect the ZANU-PF government it should remain in power as the vanguard of the revolution. When the people, without coercion from the outside, choose another party then ZANU-PF should leave office.

There is no wonder that a survey of young Africans a couple of years ago gave Robert Mugabe higher marks for leadership against the West than any other continental leader in Africa. Long Live Robert Mugabe!

Molefi Kete Asante

President, Association of Nubian Kemetic Heritage

Author, The History of Africa

Molefi Kete Asante