January 31, 2010
Jupiter Punungwe
RECENTLY Kate Hoey, a British Labour Party MP, wrote an opinion in which she intimated that she didn’t understand why regional leaders such as Jacob Zuma would not just tell President Robert Mugabe to go.Jupiter Punungwe
Kate Hoey
There are a number of factors that she completely overlooks in her analysis of the Zimbabwe situation.
Hoey should not forget that people did massively support Mugabe for his role in getting rid of racist colonial rule. Many Europeans like to fool themselves that colonial rule was not hated that much. Yet even the likes of MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai were card-carrying members of Zanu-PF. Musicians who are now self-exiled like Thomas Mapfumo were busy singing songs in praise of Mugabe.
The truth is that Mugabe, despite all his warts and moles, is still considered to be more beautiful than colonial rule. That is why there has been no violent uprising against him. Do not forget that the very same people who are accused of being docile, now fiercely fought against colonialism twice.
The First Chimurenga was a military conflict that lasted almost two years despite the massive technological mismatch. Not even the Zulu lasted that long in their battles against colonial invasion.
The Second Chimurenga was again a very fierce conflict. By some accounts it was the fiercest fight for independence in Africa, eclipsing by far the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya and the Algerian liberation war. It is simple logic to deduce that such fierce wars are not fought by docile people. We Zimbabweans are definitely not docile.
As I write this my brother was expelled from a Zimbabwe university for student activism. He is now on an MDC arranged scholarship in the Netherlands. Yet my father is an open supporter of Mugabe’s land policies. A cousin was at one time proposed as an MDC candidate in parliamentary elections. Yet my aunt was an elected Zanu-PF councillor at the time.
If Zimbabweans were to abandon the so called docility, whom would they fight? Would anyone of them ever be able to lay a hand on Robert Mugabe or even his son, Chatunga Bellamyne? Would the fight not be about son facing father, mother facing daughter and brother facing brother? What would be the result of such a fratricidal conflagration?
The run-up to the June 27 election was very violent. While controlling all the levers of power, Zanu-PF unleashed unprecedented violence on the community. The MDC tried to retaliate, but they were simply strategically outmatched in terms of controlling the instruments of violence.
What many outside observers may not know is that the parties did not manage to set people living in the same area upon each other. It may have happened here and there but most of the violence involved transporting truckloads of youths, plied with liberal amounts of beer and cash to areas they did not live in. Even the soldiers used in the violence were never deployed to their home areas. In cases where violence involved people living in close proximity one can almost always trace it to long standing feuds.
In the 1970s people left school and gainful employment to join the liberation struggle with absolutely no promise of any kind of reward, except liberating the country. That today’s ‘activists’ have to be plied with money and beer is a clear indication that they are opportunistic and not passionate about their cause.
The second fact is that most Africans, including many black Zimbabweans in opposition circles, are not quite as incensed by the plight of white farmers as the Europeans are.
That Zimbabwean society doesn’t seem to care much about the fate of white farmers, is a product of colonial segregationist policies. Segregation bred a ‘them and us’ mentality. Privilege was reserved for whites during colonial times. As a result, many black Zimbabweans simply don’t think whites can ever come to a point of needing succour from the community. They are perceived as always being wealthy. There is also a perception that they can always fly off to England while the blacks largely have nowhere else to go and live comfortably.
Hence the strong feelings about ‘our’ land, ‘their’ land being in England.
True the situation is dire for white farmers. Many are losing lifetimes of hard work and dedication. However, what is not true is that their workers are now much worse off than they were before. The wages they earned amounted to nothing and the opportunities they had to improve themselves amounted to nothing. So if the white farmer goes his departure is not such a big impact for the worker.
They just join their peasant cousins. The lifestyles of their cousins were actually better off. So in a way one can say farm workers are finally going to be better off by being forced to become peasants. I am not being cynical, that is how bad the conditions of farm workers were.
Apparently Hoey believes that it us up to outsiders, namely President Zuma, to tell Zimbabweans what to do. The problem we have in Zimbabwe right now is that the Zimbabwean population cannot agree among themselves and this is reflected in how leadership has evolved in the country.
A substantial number of people support Robert Mugabe and a substantial number support Morgan Tsvangirai. More precisely a substantial number oppose Robert Mugabe and Tsvangirai seems to be the only viable alternative at the moment. The ideal solution to Zimbabwe’s problems is to get these two sides to work together without violence. To think that outsiders can simply tell one of them to simply disappear is not only impractical, but reeks of an ill-informed colonial mentality.
Both sides in the Zimbabwe situation spew propaganda. The trouble with the likes of Hoey is that they swallow hook line and sinker the propaganda of only one side. One of my A-level science teachers taught me a very important lesson. When conducting experiments never ignore your directly observed results if they don’t conform to conventional theories. Least of all never try and force your results to conform to conventional theories.
Rather seek the explanation of why they differ.
Despite conventional thinking, Zuma cannot tell Mugabe to disappear. Even if Mugabe were to openly declare a coup, Zuma has absolutely no power to intervene. Any adventures he might try would definitely disrupt the entire region. The results will not be a quick and clean disappearance of Mugabe, but a regional conflagration with no predictable outcome.
Zimbabwe might have sprung from Rhodesia but Zimbabwe is not Rhodesia. The people who claim that Zuma can do to Mugabe what John Vorster did to Ian Smith are simply not using their logic. Ian Smith was hemmed in on all sides by hostile neighbours. Mozambique was hosting Mugabe’s ZANLA forces. Zambia was hosting Joshua Nkomo’s ZIPRA forces. Incidentally ZIPRA and the ANC’s Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) were sharing the same camps, both being sponsored by the Soviets. Botswana was an important transit point for MK as well as ZIPRA.
Rhodesia was also under United Nations sanctions sponsored by the British. Only South Africa was friendly with Rhodesia to the extent of sending soldiers to fight with the Rhodesians. In short Rhodesia was mortally dependent on South Africa. The Harold MacMillan winds of change had become hurricanes of change buffeting Rhodesia from all directions except South Africa.
Ian Smith had no other friends in the region except John Vorster.
People like Hoey who think Zuma can snap his fingers and Mugabe will then just fall, like a bug off the woodwork, are simply too ignorant to be taken seriously.
Firstly, Mugabe is not hemmed in on all borders. In fact, governments like those of Frelimo in Mozambique and Kabila in the DRC owe Mugabe a debt of gratitude for saving them from demise. Mugabe’s army fought off the apartheid South Africa sponsored RENAMO to stop them from overrunning Mozambique. Frelimo is ruling today because of that critical Mugabe intervention.
Mugabe’s army again drove away Rwanda and Uganda sponsored rebels from the outskirts of Kinshasa to save Laurent Kabila from overthrow. Today his son, Joseph, is still ruling. Only a preposterous fool will believe such bonds tied in blood can easily be broken because someone in London says they should be broken. Only a fool can believe that Zuma can completely ignore such regional bonds, and even ignore the history of his own ANC and their close ties with Zanu-PF.
When Zuma has tea with the Queen, I am sure he will make every effort to make the right noises for the Queen’s and her subjects’ ears. However, I also know that it will never go beyond noises.
Not only do leaders like Hoey hopelessly misread the situation, but they allow themselves to be led up a creek by people who claim to be fiercely opposed to Mugabe but are merely opportunists after making money from Western sponsorship. Zimbabweans have shown in the past that they can fight for their freedom. Yet parties like the MDC seem totally incapable of organizing a real fight. People like Hoey should understand the reasons pretty well.
In 1965 the British would not fight the Rhodesians militarily because they were kith and kin. Today the MDC have no stomach to fight Mugabe militarily because of the kith and kin factor as well. While Tsvangirai himself has made so much money from opposition politics that he no longer needs a piece of land to grow his own food, I do not think his peasant relatives in Buhera are in the same position. I know they will eventually persuade him to get some land for them. It might take years but it will come.
The solution to Zimbabwe’s problems does not lie in merely giving Mugabe the red card. The biggest threat to Zimbabwe right now is corruption. Zanu-PF are masters of the game, having been in there for some time. The accusations flying around in the MDC over corrupt ministers, councilors and branch leaders suggest that the MDC have quickly seized the ropes of corruption as well. Giving one fox a red card to make room for others will not make your chickens safe.
Mugabe’s red card will never be handed to him.
