The Arab Spring is becoming a Middle East nightmare. Signs are that things are degenerating into a region-wide sectarian pogrom mainly pitting Shiite against Sunni Muslims.
The West, out of unbelievably stupid short-sightedness, having been cheerleading Sunni states led by Turkey, who have been sponsoring a violent uprising in the majority Sunni but Shia led Syria. If the Shia states of the region start sponsoring violence in Sunni led countries with substantial Shia populations, the Middle East will become a hell on earth.
The seems to be no good reason for the West's petulant disposition towards that main Shiite run states, Iran and Syria. In the case of Iran it seems the USA cannot let the bygone of its embassy's invasion in 1979 be a real bygone. Syria is seems is paying the price for not having signed an agreement with Israel.
American military power is absolutely useless in controlling close fought sectarian wars where outsiders find it impossible to know who belongs to which sect without being expressly told. They would be fooling themselves if they imagine that they can influence happenings in the middle east to a predictable outcome. Right now they are having problems figuring out who is Taliban, and who is not with deadly results for their personnel.
The situation has become like a forest fire. It is easy to start but knowing which way it is gonna blow is impossible. The wind might change direction any time.
The West do not seem to have learnt anything from the Libyan crisis which spilled over as far afield as Mali. Their notion of what the Libyans and other people in the region wanted has proved to be false. Instead of evolving into a stable democracy the whole thing has become a chaotic mess of tribal and clan rivalries.
The best approach would be to de-escalate the situation in the middle east as much as possible. The Western approach of cheerleading violence in some hot spots while hopping others will remain stable is simply playing Russian roulette with an entire subcontinent.
It would be fallacy to believe that the West can achieve a predictable outcome in the region. For one they do not seem to understand the power of culture. They naively believe that every people in the world want to have a Western style democracy.
I personally believe that if freedom is given a chance most systems will evolve to near the Western model of democracy. However that model is not Jack's beanstalk that can be planted and reach sky-high overnight.
Throwing dishonesty into the cauldron, as the West did in Iraq and Libya, only serves to make things much more difficult. It does not yield the quick results that the West seem to have been hoping for.
Also when hyenas become the champions of a goat's freedom you can only suspect that they want it to wander into the forest. It is difficult to imagine the West with their history of colonialism, racism and oppression becoming true champions of freedom.
It also makes the long term situation even more unpredictable. Right now nobody dares foretell whether Iraq or Libya will be stable democracies in ten years time, or will be in a sectarian mess.
I took the United States four centuries to build the democracy they have. I do not know why they persistently believe it will take other countries four months.
Sunday 26 August 2012
Saturday 25 August 2012
Biti does not understand his culture
Recently Minister of Finance was reported to have ranted and raved about 'maZezuru ekwaZvimba'.
This is a subject that I have touched on so often. There is nobody who calls themselves an ethnic Shona in Zimbabwe. Anybody who does that does not know their identity. Moreover anybody who needs to go through socially and culturally significant ceremonies such as marriage or burial, will need to know their identity because that is when the nitygrities of a person's identity will be dissected.
There is also no such thing as an ethnic Zezuru, ethnic Karanga, ethnic Korekore, ethnic Ndau, ethnic Manyika in Zimbabwe. Those are language dialects only. When it comes to ethnicity we the people called Shona today have got our clan identities, that cut across dialects, geographic regions and even tribes.
I often watch with fascination while people go into frothy mouthed polemics about Munangagwa's Karanga faction, Mujuru's Zezuru faction and all the other so called ethnic based factions within Zanu-PF.
As long as the argument does not take into consideration the Mnangagwa is a Madyira and that his culture teaches him to consider all the Madyira and Gumbo people his relatives, then that argument is worthless. Whether they speak Zezuru, Korekore, Manyika, Ndau, Karanga or even Ndebele, Shona culture says Madyira and Gumbo people are all Mnangagwa's relatives.
Even Paul Matavire sang about it in one of his songs where he asks an unfaithful wife, 'Ini muyera Moyo, ndakazoita ukama nevayera Gumbo riini?' In the song Matavire was accusing his 'wife' of singing praise poetry for the Gumbo clan to 'his' child while he is of the Moyo clan, thereby implying the wife had been unfaithful.
I am a muBarwe of the Makombe (Nguruve) totem. In terms of my culture any Ngulube from Bulawayo, is a closer relative to me than James Chikonamombe born and bred a stone's throw away from me in Manyene communal areas near Chivhu.
If I die today any gathering of Shona people will, without any qualms whatsoever walk up to a Ngulube who may not even speak Shona, and ask him 'please can you show us where to bury your relative'. But they will never ever, not even if the sun rises from the west, walk up to Chikonan'ombe (a muyera Mhara) and ask him to show them where to bury me (a muyera Nguruve).
If they can't find a Ngulube they would still dig a grave and bury me, but afterwards they would say 'takangomurasawo nekuti tanga tashaya hama yake' (we just threw him away because we couldn't find his relative). In other words I would never be considered properly buried unless someone of my totem, no matter what language they speak, presided over the proceedings.
Chikonan'ombe mutorwa kwandiri, haana ukama neni (he is not my relative) but a Ngulube/Makombe/Humba from anywhere in the region is considered to share the same ancestors as me, and by Shona custom is a close relative (ihama yangu) come rain or come sunshine.
In terms of classical Shona culture, even before you propose to a woman, you are supposed to ask for their totem. "Nhai asikana mutupo wenyu chii?" (Young lady, what is your totem?) is considered a standard indication of the intention to propose love in Shona culture. The reason being you must eliminate the possibility of the woman being 'your sister' (of the same totem as you) before proposing love.
Conjugal relations with a woman of the same totem as you is considered incest and if it ever unknowingly happens then it should be followed by ceremonies of kuchenura (cleansing) or chekaukama (breaking the relationship).
The subject of Shona totems is not a simple one, because within the totems you can also get sub-clans. The Moyo sibongo can either be Moyo yeVaRozvi (Moyondizvo) or Moyo yeVaNjanja (Sinyoro). You get the same thing for other totem groups such as Mhofu (Museyamwa, Mufakose, Vhuramavi, Masarirambi, etc) or Soko (Murehwa, Vhudzijena, etc). However even those subgroups are considered related, though Shona culture allows them to inter-marry.
Any person who rants and raves about a mere language dialect and geographic region (like Tendai Biti recently did about maZezuru ekwaZvimba) is considered a fool by the typical wise Shona elders. He is the kind of people who would be asked to go and skin the goat at a village court.
Biti's attack is like attacking 'people speaking East Midlands English from Nottingham', something which any normal Briton will treat as hogwash. He can go ask at the British Embassy if he doubts that there are dialects in English similar to Shona dialects.
He doesn't even realise that himself having been born and bred in Harare at the centre of the Zezuru speaking areas, he is definitely a muZezuru wekuHarare. So him going about attacking maZezuru is a clever as cutting off the branch he is sitting on high up in a tree.
I am at a loss as to why people like Biti like to take foreigners' misunderstanding of their culture, and treat that as the gospel truth while ignoring the realities that they live everyday. One of the possible explanations is mental colonization.
Or maybe sleeping with the eyes wide open like a hare.
This is a subject that I have touched on so often. There is nobody who calls themselves an ethnic Shona in Zimbabwe. Anybody who does that does not know their identity. Moreover anybody who needs to go through socially and culturally significant ceremonies such as marriage or burial, will need to know their identity because that is when the nitygrities of a person's identity will be dissected.
There is also no such thing as an ethnic Zezuru, ethnic Karanga, ethnic Korekore, ethnic Ndau, ethnic Manyika in Zimbabwe. Those are language dialects only. When it comes to ethnicity we the people called Shona today have got our clan identities, that cut across dialects, geographic regions and even tribes.
I often watch with fascination while people go into frothy mouthed polemics about Munangagwa's Karanga faction, Mujuru's Zezuru faction and all the other so called ethnic based factions within Zanu-PF.
As long as the argument does not take into consideration the Mnangagwa is a Madyira and that his culture teaches him to consider all the Madyira and Gumbo people his relatives, then that argument is worthless. Whether they speak Zezuru, Korekore, Manyika, Ndau, Karanga or even Ndebele, Shona culture says Madyira and Gumbo people are all Mnangagwa's relatives.
Even Paul Matavire sang about it in one of his songs where he asks an unfaithful wife, 'Ini muyera Moyo, ndakazoita ukama nevayera Gumbo riini?' In the song Matavire was accusing his 'wife' of singing praise poetry for the Gumbo clan to 'his' child while he is of the Moyo clan, thereby implying the wife had been unfaithful.
I am a muBarwe of the Makombe (Nguruve) totem. In terms of my culture any Ngulube from Bulawayo, is a closer relative to me than James Chikonamombe born and bred a stone's throw away from me in Manyene communal areas near Chivhu.
If I die today any gathering of Shona people will, without any qualms whatsoever walk up to a Ngulube who may not even speak Shona, and ask him 'please can you show us where to bury your relative'. But they will never ever, not even if the sun rises from the west, walk up to Chikonan'ombe (a muyera Mhara) and ask him to show them where to bury me (a muyera Nguruve).
If they can't find a Ngulube they would still dig a grave and bury me, but afterwards they would say 'takangomurasawo nekuti tanga tashaya hama yake' (we just threw him away because we couldn't find his relative). In other words I would never be considered properly buried unless someone of my totem, no matter what language they speak, presided over the proceedings.
Chikonan'ombe mutorwa kwandiri, haana ukama neni (he is not my relative) but a Ngulube/Makombe/Humba from anywhere in the region is considered to share the same ancestors as me, and by Shona custom is a close relative (ihama yangu) come rain or come sunshine.
In terms of classical Shona culture, even before you propose to a woman, you are supposed to ask for their totem. "Nhai asikana mutupo wenyu chii?" (Young lady, what is your totem?) is considered a standard indication of the intention to propose love in Shona culture. The reason being you must eliminate the possibility of the woman being 'your sister' (of the same totem as you) before proposing love.
Conjugal relations with a woman of the same totem as you is considered incest and if it ever unknowingly happens then it should be followed by ceremonies of kuchenura (cleansing) or chekaukama (breaking the relationship).
The subject of Shona totems is not a simple one, because within the totems you can also get sub-clans. The Moyo sibongo can either be Moyo yeVaRozvi (Moyondizvo) or Moyo yeVaNjanja (Sinyoro). You get the same thing for other totem groups such as Mhofu (Museyamwa, Mufakose, Vhuramavi, Masarirambi, etc) or Soko (Murehwa, Vhudzijena, etc). However even those subgroups are considered related, though Shona culture allows them to inter-marry.
Any person who rants and raves about a mere language dialect and geographic region (like Tendai Biti recently did about maZezuru ekwaZvimba) is considered a fool by the typical wise Shona elders. He is the kind of people who would be asked to go and skin the goat at a village court.
Biti's attack is like attacking 'people speaking East Midlands English from Nottingham', something which any normal Briton will treat as hogwash. He can go ask at the British Embassy if he doubts that there are dialects in English similar to Shona dialects.
He doesn't even realise that himself having been born and bred in Harare at the centre of the Zezuru speaking areas, he is definitely a muZezuru wekuHarare. So him going about attacking maZezuru is a clever as cutting off the branch he is sitting on high up in a tree.
I am at a loss as to why people like Biti like to take foreigners' misunderstanding of their culture, and treat that as the gospel truth while ignoring the realities that they live everyday. One of the possible explanations is mental colonization.
Or maybe sleeping with the eyes wide open like a hare.
Wednesday 22 August 2012
There will be no new constitution in Zimbabwe
I seriously do not think a new constitution will see the light of day before the next elections in Zimbabwe. The current constitution making process is unhealthily dominated by the politics of survival. The process is being led by political parties each of whom see it as a tool either for their survival or rise to domination.
As such the process can never be said to be people centred. It is politics centred.
It was always going to be a mission to draft a reasonable constitution in an atmosphere of furnace-like political rivalry. It is slowly becoming clear that it is a mission impossible.
A constitution that gives the MDC any perceived advantages will be objected to by Zanu-PF. A constitution that gives Zanu-PF any perceived advantages will be objected to by the MDC. In my personal view the chances of these two parties perfectly agreeing on a constitution are next to zero.
I also think it is not a good idea to try and force constitutional changes in the current atmosphere of fierce political rivalry. Like the Lancaster House constitution which was rammed through primarily to end a war, the result will be deformed and imperfect.
Besides a constitution alone is not sufficient to make Zimbabwe right. The leadership and politicians need to have the right people centred spirit. Our politicians of today, have mostly a money centred approach. They have difficulty seeing anything beyond their pockets. They are in it to make their fortunes.
Great empires like the Munhumutapa Empire and the Roman Empire did not have constitutions yet they lasted for centuries. As long as the leadership approach is people centred, a state can prosper. If the leadership is selfish, oppressive and exploitative, even if you have a constitution written in gold letters on platinum foil it won't mean a thing.
The people at the forefront of the constitution making process today are focused on their political fortunes, not on the people's needs.
As such the process can never be said to be people centred. It is politics centred.
It was always going to be a mission to draft a reasonable constitution in an atmosphere of furnace-like political rivalry. It is slowly becoming clear that it is a mission impossible.
A constitution that gives the MDC any perceived advantages will be objected to by Zanu-PF. A constitution that gives Zanu-PF any perceived advantages will be objected to by the MDC. In my personal view the chances of these two parties perfectly agreeing on a constitution are next to zero.
I also think it is not a good idea to try and force constitutional changes in the current atmosphere of fierce political rivalry. Like the Lancaster House constitution which was rammed through primarily to end a war, the result will be deformed and imperfect.
Besides a constitution alone is not sufficient to make Zimbabwe right. The leadership and politicians need to have the right people centred spirit. Our politicians of today, have mostly a money centred approach. They have difficulty seeing anything beyond their pockets. They are in it to make their fortunes.
Great empires like the Munhumutapa Empire and the Roman Empire did not have constitutions yet they lasted for centuries. As long as the leadership approach is people centred, a state can prosper. If the leadership is selfish, oppressive and exploitative, even if you have a constitution written in gold letters on platinum foil it won't mean a thing.
The people at the forefront of the constitution making process today are focused on their political fortunes, not on the people's needs.
Marikana : The perfect recipe a for disaster
There are a number of ingredients that made the Marikana shooting possible. Viewed in isolation they seem insignificant but put them together, it become clear that South Africa is building, not a tinderbox, but a trainload of dynamite.
1. A culture of violence
South Africa has a reputation of being one of the most violent countries in the world, being superseded only by countries where uncontrollable drug cartels rule the roost such as Mexico. Even the most minor disputes can lead to fights with very dangerous weapons with guns, knives and broken bottles being favourites.
Of late violent protests have become the order of the day. Police often tag along powerless to stop or control the protestors who will be smashing things as they go along.
People are often allowed to carry very dangerous weapons such as spears, pangas and even guns in very volatile situations. Usually this is allowed in the name of tradition. There is nothing wrong with carrying traditional weapons provided there is no threat of them being used to commit crimes.
The protesters often act with impunity with the full knowledge that the police rarely, if at all, follow up on acts of wanton violence during protests.
The right to protest is virtually equated to a right to be violent. Violence be-gets violence and eventually the state will get tough.
2. Uncaring management
The white dominated middle and top management of mines continue to see nothing wrong with black workers having standards of living worse than that of their pet dogs.
Pictures of a majestic mine infrastructure rising out of the earth, but surrounded by squalid shacks clearly suggests there is something seriously wrong with the mentality of the people running the mine. How can one drive through the squalor regularly and fail to notice there is something seriously amiss with the contrast in fortunes.
If anyone thought South Africa's problems were over with the advent of democracy in 1994 they better think again. While the perception of inequality persists, the main problem of apartheid (foisted inequality) remains. In South Africa today inequality is not a perception but a reality.
The people and communities who benefited hugely from past racist policies are in a huge rush to absolve themselves of any responsibility and dump it on the young democratic system. However the genes of apartheid are still very much evident in the inequity that bedevils South Africa. Some honest soul searching and intelligent contribution towards equalising society in South Africa is needed from everyone.
The rising black middle class are so happy at being co-opted into the system that they quickly forget about their poverty stricken colleagues. Most of them don't have a vision beyond extravagant lifestyles of fast cars, flashy clothes and women without a second thought for where they came from.
They do not give back or contribute to the communities that nurtured them.
3. Militant unionism
Militancy often demands impossible results now. It is often devoid of strategy and long term vision. I remember during the hey days of militant student unionism at the University of Zimbabwe everything that was demanded was demanded 'as of yesterday'.
In the end what is achieved by such militancy is for the whole thing to look unreasonable and foolish. In this case a more than 300% increase in salaries was demanded. Made against a backdrop of depressed platinum prices on the world market and some mines even going under and ceasing operations, such a demand is obviously unreasonable.
It exposes a worrying lack of vision and strategic depth in the leadership of the unions. Typically unions with such short-sighted militancy rarely achieve long term improvements in the fortunes of their members.
Unions need to realise that they are no longer fighting the system but are now part of the system. As such militant tactics will get little results. What is needed now is careful in-depth research coupled with articulate presentation of viewpoints. Know your facts, and know how to present them.
4. Semi literate, or illiterate workers
One would not like to blame the educational condition of the workers themselves, but certain things won't make sense unless that is also taken into account. For example the decision to charge heavily armed police with mainly pangas can never be explained by bravery.
It is extremely difficult to apply the word 'clever' to this scenario. If the workers had been better educated and better able to reason logically, I do not think they would have embarked on such a mission of such jaw-dropping dumbness.
5. Poorly trained and hesitant police
One policeman was shooting from behind the front line of standing officers. The officer closest to his line of fire was screaming 'Cease fire! Cease fire!' while doing his best to melt into the side of a squad car against which he was leaning. The shooter loosed a few more bursts of automatic fire, before loudly grunting 'Shoot you!' directed at the miners many of whom were now lifeless heaps on the ground.
It was pure luck that the police did not shoot each other in the back.
Clearly worried about being equated to the apartheid police force, the SAPS were hesitent to take decisive action to diffuse the situation early and when they did they chose the wrong moment and the wrong tactics. It would have been less bloody to raid the hostels at night, arrest the leaders and confiscate weapons room by room.
It seems they are beholden to politicians who are afraid of being seen to treat the people the same way the apartheid oppressors did.
There was also a clear lack of intelligence operations in the whole mining strike saga. With 10 people already killed, intelligence operatives should have taken a lead role in identifying the most militant and making sure they were prevented from escalating the situation - as eventually happened.
6. Opportunistic politicians
Hardly had the dust settled and the blood dried, when a stream of opportunistic politicians started trekking to Marikana. One of them was Julius Malema who just couldn't pass up the opportunity to throw a few barbs at his arch-nemesis, Jacob Zuma.
Rather than examining the facts leading too the disaster it seems there were attempts to outrace even the blade runner Oscar Pistorius in the rush to score political points. Blame was heaped on rival politicians. Yet the miners' own role in stoking up tensions by murdering colleagues, security guards and even police officers was as exposed as the bottom of a baboon, in the whole saga.
Politicians are clearly fretting at the political cost of being seen to side with abelungu (white oppressors). They are having a tough time trying to juggle the pragmatic direction needed to keep the country stable and prosperous, and the populist sentiments that appeal to the majority of the voters.
For a country that is not even a generation away from the heinous oppression of apartheid perpetrated by whites on blacks, the black majority are obviously still smarting from their suffering and the populist approach of blaming past oppression can very easily gain traction - and votes.
That is why politicians have been falling over themselves to be seen to be sympathetic to the workers to the extend of ignoring glaring issues with the miners themselves such as the senseless murder of 10 people. Ever since the 34 miners were shot the 10 people they killed have hardly ever been mentioned. Sometimes not even as an afterthought.
The populist politics kickstarted by Malema culminated with Zuma kneeling before people some of whom may be murderers who should be arrested for killing their colleagues, security guards and police officers. The only thing absent from the political rhetoric is any meaningful condemnation of the murders that took place before the police action.
The sad irony is there no chance that the murders were legal, yet the police action could entirely be justified given the circumstances.
It is difficult to see how the current attention being feted on the miners cannot be seen to be rewarding them for the violence in which they senselessly murdered their colleagues.
7. Season everything with a bit of sangoma mystique
Throughout the week the media had reported that a man (or men) who appeared to be a sangoma (witch doctor) dressed in all white seemed to be performing rituals for the miners. One report claimed that the sangoma performed rituals over a group of stark naked men.
At the moment of the shooting itself, a large group of strikers was tiptoeing towards the police from a behind a sparse scrub of bushes that can scarcely provide cover for one man, let alone such a large group. The story I heard from a friend who comes from close to Marikana is that the sangoma had told the men that they would be invisible to the police!
They, armed with pangas, spears, kerries, a relic shotgun and a couple of pistols stolen from murdered police officers, expected to tiptoe, in broad daylight, up to a squad of police officers armed to the teeth with automatic rifles and overpower them.
Reports that appeared in the press later claimed that a well known n'anga from the Eastern Cape had charged R1000 per person to give them magic portions that would make them invincible. But, as with all sangoma prescriptions, there was a catch - no one was supposed to look back ever.
It is difficult to see how anyone can believe such hogwash from a sangoma. But then such is the power of faith. In some parts of the world people are prepared to blow themselves up in the belief that they will get tens of virgins once they die.
1. A culture of violence
South Africa has a reputation of being one of the most violent countries in the world, being superseded only by countries where uncontrollable drug cartels rule the roost such as Mexico. Even the most minor disputes can lead to fights with very dangerous weapons with guns, knives and broken bottles being favourites.
Of late violent protests have become the order of the day. Police often tag along powerless to stop or control the protestors who will be smashing things as they go along.
People are often allowed to carry very dangerous weapons such as spears, pangas and even guns in very volatile situations. Usually this is allowed in the name of tradition. There is nothing wrong with carrying traditional weapons provided there is no threat of them being used to commit crimes.
The protesters often act with impunity with the full knowledge that the police rarely, if at all, follow up on acts of wanton violence during protests.
The right to protest is virtually equated to a right to be violent. Violence be-gets violence and eventually the state will get tough.
2. Uncaring management
The white dominated middle and top management of mines continue to see nothing wrong with black workers having standards of living worse than that of their pet dogs.
Pictures of a majestic mine infrastructure rising out of the earth, but surrounded by squalid shacks clearly suggests there is something seriously wrong with the mentality of the people running the mine. How can one drive through the squalor regularly and fail to notice there is something seriously amiss with the contrast in fortunes.
If anyone thought South Africa's problems were over with the advent of democracy in 1994 they better think again. While the perception of inequality persists, the main problem of apartheid (foisted inequality) remains. In South Africa today inequality is not a perception but a reality.
The people and communities who benefited hugely from past racist policies are in a huge rush to absolve themselves of any responsibility and dump it on the young democratic system. However the genes of apartheid are still very much evident in the inequity that bedevils South Africa. Some honest soul searching and intelligent contribution towards equalising society in South Africa is needed from everyone.
The rising black middle class are so happy at being co-opted into the system that they quickly forget about their poverty stricken colleagues. Most of them don't have a vision beyond extravagant lifestyles of fast cars, flashy clothes and women without a second thought for where they came from.
They do not give back or contribute to the communities that nurtured them.
3. Militant unionism
Militancy often demands impossible results now. It is often devoid of strategy and long term vision. I remember during the hey days of militant student unionism at the University of Zimbabwe everything that was demanded was demanded 'as of yesterday'.
In the end what is achieved by such militancy is for the whole thing to look unreasonable and foolish. In this case a more than 300% increase in salaries was demanded. Made against a backdrop of depressed platinum prices on the world market and some mines even going under and ceasing operations, such a demand is obviously unreasonable.
It exposes a worrying lack of vision and strategic depth in the leadership of the unions. Typically unions with such short-sighted militancy rarely achieve long term improvements in the fortunes of their members.
Unions need to realise that they are no longer fighting the system but are now part of the system. As such militant tactics will get little results. What is needed now is careful in-depth research coupled with articulate presentation of viewpoints. Know your facts, and know how to present them.
4. Semi literate, or illiterate workers
One would not like to blame the educational condition of the workers themselves, but certain things won't make sense unless that is also taken into account. For example the decision to charge heavily armed police with mainly pangas can never be explained by bravery.
It is extremely difficult to apply the word 'clever' to this scenario. If the workers had been better educated and better able to reason logically, I do not think they would have embarked on such a mission of such jaw-dropping dumbness.
5. Poorly trained and hesitant police
One policeman was shooting from behind the front line of standing officers. The officer closest to his line of fire was screaming 'Cease fire! Cease fire!' while doing his best to melt into the side of a squad car against which he was leaning. The shooter loosed a few more bursts of automatic fire, before loudly grunting 'Shoot you!' directed at the miners many of whom were now lifeless heaps on the ground.
It was pure luck that the police did not shoot each other in the back.
Clearly worried about being equated to the apartheid police force, the SAPS were hesitent to take decisive action to diffuse the situation early and when they did they chose the wrong moment and the wrong tactics. It would have been less bloody to raid the hostels at night, arrest the leaders and confiscate weapons room by room.
It seems they are beholden to politicians who are afraid of being seen to treat the people the same way the apartheid oppressors did.
There was also a clear lack of intelligence operations in the whole mining strike saga. With 10 people already killed, intelligence operatives should have taken a lead role in identifying the most militant and making sure they were prevented from escalating the situation - as eventually happened.
6. Opportunistic politicians
Hardly had the dust settled and the blood dried, when a stream of opportunistic politicians started trekking to Marikana. One of them was Julius Malema who just couldn't pass up the opportunity to throw a few barbs at his arch-nemesis, Jacob Zuma.
Rather than examining the facts leading too the disaster it seems there were attempts to outrace even the blade runner Oscar Pistorius in the rush to score political points. Blame was heaped on rival politicians. Yet the miners' own role in stoking up tensions by murdering colleagues, security guards and even police officers was as exposed as the bottom of a baboon, in the whole saga.
Politicians are clearly fretting at the political cost of being seen to side with abelungu (white oppressors). They are having a tough time trying to juggle the pragmatic direction needed to keep the country stable and prosperous, and the populist sentiments that appeal to the majority of the voters.
For a country that is not even a generation away from the heinous oppression of apartheid perpetrated by whites on blacks, the black majority are obviously still smarting from their suffering and the populist approach of blaming past oppression can very easily gain traction - and votes.
That is why politicians have been falling over themselves to be seen to be sympathetic to the workers to the extend of ignoring glaring issues with the miners themselves such as the senseless murder of 10 people. Ever since the 34 miners were shot the 10 people they killed have hardly ever been mentioned. Sometimes not even as an afterthought.
The populist politics kickstarted by Malema culminated with Zuma kneeling before people some of whom may be murderers who should be arrested for killing their colleagues, security guards and police officers. The only thing absent from the political rhetoric is any meaningful condemnation of the murders that took place before the police action.
The sad irony is there no chance that the murders were legal, yet the police action could entirely be justified given the circumstances.
It is difficult to see how the current attention being feted on the miners cannot be seen to be rewarding them for the violence in which they senselessly murdered their colleagues.
7. Season everything with a bit of sangoma mystique
Throughout the week the media had reported that a man (or men) who appeared to be a sangoma (witch doctor) dressed in all white seemed to be performing rituals for the miners. One report claimed that the sangoma performed rituals over a group of stark naked men.
At the moment of the shooting itself, a large group of strikers was tiptoeing towards the police from a behind a sparse scrub of bushes that can scarcely provide cover for one man, let alone such a large group. The story I heard from a friend who comes from close to Marikana is that the sangoma had told the men that they would be invisible to the police!
They, armed with pangas, spears, kerries, a relic shotgun and a couple of pistols stolen from murdered police officers, expected to tiptoe, in broad daylight, up to a squad of police officers armed to the teeth with automatic rifles and overpower them.
Reports that appeared in the press later claimed that a well known n'anga from the Eastern Cape had charged R1000 per person to give them magic portions that would make them invincible. But, as with all sangoma prescriptions, there was a catch - no one was supposed to look back ever.
It is difficult to see how anyone can believe such hogwash from a sangoma. But then such is the power of faith. In some parts of the world people are prepared to blow themselves up in the belief that they will get tens of virgins once they die.
Friday 3 August 2012
Kofi Annan abandons Mission Impossible
Kofi Annan recently announced his resignation as UN and Arab League envoy to Syria. His mission seemed promising in the beginning but ultimately achieved no success at all.
Where Kofi Annan got it wrong right in the beginning was focusing on making demands upon Bashar while he should have been focusing on demanding that those arming the rebels stop in order to de-escalate the situation.
In fact he passed on demands that were never aimed at ending the conflict but where aimed at creating breathing room for the rebels to regroup and launch stronger assaults against the government. We can see the growing rebel strength in Syria. It is sad to say but it appears Kofi Annan was used. His resignation may arise from the fact that he realises that he is merely being used.
It is not up to Bashar to withdraw the CIA agents busy directing the rebels. It is not up to Assad to stop the sophisticated communications equipment Barak Obama is busy sending to them. It is not up to him to stop Sunni governments from bankrolling the rebels. Yet all these important factors were never tackled in Annan's original plan.
In short it is not up to Assad to end the violence. All he can do is fight on as best as he can. He is in a little bit better position than Gadhafi in that he has direct Russian help. So the fight can drag on quite a bit and the Syrians are sure gonna suffer. I would call it Cold War version 2.
The rest of us in the world are completely powerless to stop the American and Western sponsorship of the violence. We are not even a position to counter their propaganda. According to them everything is Assad's fault. Even a baby still suckling at their mother's breast will know that sponsoring and propping up a second centre of power will worsen a conflict. So it cannot be that those who a sponsoring a second centre of power have absolutely clean hands in the conflict.
Yes Russia is also arming Bashar, but that is an existing centre of power. America and the West are expressly engaged in efforts to create a second centre of power. There are encouraging as much as they can, while maintaining a measure seeming concern for the ordinary people, conflict between their centre of power and the existing centre of power.
Our brother Obama does not have the vision, courage or wisdom to stop the misuse of American power to destabilise the world, and create hotspots all over the globe, with the only real beneficiary being the American defence industry. For example in Iraq it is Iraqis who died in their thousands but it is Blackwater now Xe who made huge profits.
People who think and claim they know everything but upon closer examination prove to know nothing, a busy engaged in efforts that lead to nothing but death and suffering for thousands of people.
The last time we witnessed an American led proxy war against a government in the Middle East we got the Taliban led Afghanistan as a result. There is not reason to believe that Syria is not headed in the same direction.
People also seem to be forgetting that while it is easy to get weapons into the hands of ragtag loosely trained and unaccountable rebels, it is difficult to take them back no matter who wins the conflict. Does Libya ring a bell?
Now that Kofi Annan has abandoned a mission that was always meant to be impossible, the rivals can lay into each other with greater ferocity. When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. The grass, has no choice on where the elephants pick their fight. It is unfortunate that the Syrian people have to be the grass beneath the feet of duelling elephants.
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