Why Robert Mugabe is a "Demon" but Mandela a Moral Icon.
WHY ROBERT MUGABE IS A “DEMON” BUT MANDELA A MORAL ICON
Reframing the Zimbabwe debate in equity terms
In contributing to the debate on Zimbabwe, we would like to employ the equity maxim that “He who comes to equity must come with clean hands”, to reframe the Zimbabwe debate, by inserting an essential moral question, ignored by Robert Mugabe’s detractors. We take the view that, past immoral conduct of those who use moral and rights arguments to condemn and hang others, is relevant to the test of the merits of their claims. In our case, we would like to argue from the vantage point that, British and American breach of Zimbabwe Independence covenants on land and corresponding British and American obligations, undermined their and Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) -as -their client’s moral claims of standing for the force of good and Mugabe as evil personified in Zimbabwe.
Our sympathies are with the view which asserts that, British and American reneging on their undertakings with specific regard to land in the hands of white farmers, against historical equity and justice claims by displaced and dispossessed majority black population, have precipitous, compelling, and relevant connection to equity claims by Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) leadership in its defence, and to current turmoil in Zimbabwe. Consequently, in broad terms and taking a complete historical, moral, justice and equity vistas of the Zimbabwe debate, we take the position that, alleged rights violations in Zimbabwe, electoral malpractices by ZANU_PF, cannot be imposed as moral equivalents and bar, to vitiate incontestable arguments for justice and equity for the black masses, who were displaced, dispossessed and dehumanised by predatory British colonial rule, and under racist Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) of Ian Smith.
State Realism or altruistic cosmopolitan morality?
The issues of contest in the Zimbabwe debate ought to be the question of the moral, fair, just and equitable treatment of people, black and white, in Zimbabwe, by the proponents on both sides-the British, American, Western Alliance and Tsivangirai on one end, and ZANU-PF, Zimbabwean nationalists, Pan-Africanists and Mugabe on the other. Moreover, we cannot limit the time frame to recent electoral politics of Zimbabwe, but the gamut of that nation’s and its people’s history of struggles and past and present roles of those currently engaged in staking moral and political claims to its fortunes and future. The questions whether Robert Mugabe is a corrupt despot or has conducted fair or unfair elections or not, are secondary, if what we are interested in is to genuinely search for solutions to the roots of the Zimbabwe debacles.
Mugabe’s perceived dishonesty, whether in the redistribution of land appropriated from white farmers; or in conducting elections; or heavy and underhanded treatments of political dissent in Zimbabwe, though deserving attention, revulsion and contempt in their own objective context, cannot and should not, however, provide a defensible stratagem for Britain, USA and the Anglo-Saxon alliance, to use to trump justice and equity questions in a post colonial and post-racialist Zimbabwe. By latching on recent claims of electoral malpractices, cronyism, and authoritarian bent of ZANU-PF and its leadership, while disregarding the fundamental question of social justice and equity posed by the land question, Britain and its Western allies are immersed in realist politics, pure and simple, while dangling renegade Tsivangirai, who is nothing more than a puppet on a string, to proclaim their moral posturing on Zimbabwe.
For Western state realism, Tsivangirai in opposition serves the same interest as Yoweri Museveni of Uganda does in power. While Tsivangirai is feted as champion of democracy in Zimbabwe, the opposition and oppressed masses of Uganda are treated with suspicion; but Museveni, a man who banned political parties for 20 years, was all the while coddled and dotted in Western capitals. His human rights and democratic credentials were none purer, if not more despicable than those of Mugabe. No doubt, the Zimbabwean security forces were heavy-handed in putting down dissent in Matabeleland in mid 1980s. And Mugabe has been inflexible and understandably less accommodating in his dealing with political opposition in Zimbabwe. But these pale in comparison to the counterinsurgency brutalities perpetrated by Museveni’s National Resistance Movement / Army (NRM / A) in northern Uganda, where a silent genocide has been going on for the last 22 years with complete Western connivance through their national aid agencies and non-governmental organisations, who turned blind eyes while northern Ugandan population were forcibly herded into concentration camps and left to their own devices by the security forces.
In addition, political parties, other than the ruling NRM, do not operate freely outside their national headquarters in the capital. Because Museveni bought into neoconservative agenda of economic liberalisation, privatisation, and global capitalism, his sins, whether for holding sham elections, brutalising opposition, maiming and killing or abandoning two million of his citizens in concentration camps without a care, can be forgiven by his Western benefactors. He is forgiven not because such policies benefit the Ugandan masses more than it has been achievable in Zimbabwe; nor that the welfare of ordinary Ugandans are better off than those of ordinary Zimbabweans because of ZANU-PF’s socialised approach to welfare and beneficence. Musevni’s sins are forgivable because his client regime provides a staging deck for Western imperialist capital into east and central Africa. But god help you, if you are Robert Mugabe, and you fought British imperialism and racialism, and you have white settlers in your country, whose historical rights and privileges as a master race, are pitted against poor black souls and their claims for social justice and equity.
He who comes to equity must come with clean hands
Given Western hypocrisy and double standards in dealing with issues of democracy, human rights, justice, and equity in Africa, without pointing out those in the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, we are convinced that fair-minded people will agree that British and American imperialism have no basis to claim equity interest in the moral and justice claims on behalf of the people of Zimbabwe, as something that arises from some kind of cosmopolitan moral trust, to which the West somehow contributed and have this recognisable altruistic faith and commitment. On closer scrutiny of Western involvement in the Middle East, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Colombia, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Chile, to mention but a few, their claims are at times contradictorily realist, relativist, and internationalist at one and the same time. But in all cases, regardless of the moral position adopted, they are never on the sides of those whose rights are abused or justice claims denied.
In the Zimbabwean disputes, it is apparent that British, Western, and intellectually, morally bankrupt African leaders, intelligentsia, and Western –patronised opposition politicians put considerations for political power over and above questions of fairness, justice, equity and basic morality. That being the case, they, and particularly Britain, have no higher grounds to assert any equitable rights to the political, social, moral and economic fortunes of Zimbabwe; whether in condemning Mugabe, or questioning the sense of his holding onto power for 28 years, without at the same time recognising and attempting to justly and equitably remedy past British imperialist and UDI / Ian Smith racialist injustices, and breach of the Lancaster House stipulations on land and agrarian reforms in independent Zimbabwe. In equity terms, the British are not coming to equity on Zimbabwe with clean hands. Had the British made good on their end of the bargain on the independent covenants on land reforms, and had Mugabe then become the villain and the callous, racist despot that the West have cast him after everyone had lived up to their obligatory undertakings, the equity maxim would have been essentially irrelevant and Mugabe alone would have been accountable for the fiasco that is Zimbabwe today.
In this debate, I would like to encourage those who uncritically dismiss moral and equity arguments in support of Mugabe’s political actions, to at least be intellectually courageous enough to countenance a public conscience test of the Zimbabwe imbroglio. This is to say, there is need to carry out a dispassionate assessment of the adverse consequences of British colonialism and Ian Smith’s UDI against the adverse consequences of Robert Mugabe’s rule, land reforms and agrarian policies on the peoples of Zimbabwe and Africa. In our view, as far as things obtain in Zimbabwe and Africa today, it matters little, if at all, whether it is Morgan Tsivangirai or Robert Mugabe who is president in Zimbabwe. What matters, is however, that such a leadership has a proportionate view of history and justice as progressive, refined and improved. And whether in opposition or in power, their sense of self-importance should not obscure their intuition and unsolicited unity on questions of social justice and equity, and the priceless sacrifices Zimbaweans such as General Tongogara made so their compatriots should be free. Given its history and context, and aware of Tsivangirai’s preoccupation with form rather than substance, we are not coy to pronounce that Tsivangirai is not fit to rise to position of national leadership in Zimbabwe during these contentious times.
We have no doubts in our minds that had Robert Mugabe, like Morgan Tsivangirai, put his self-interest ahead of the interests of the poor majority of Zimbabwe; closed his eyes to the justice claims of blacks; scrapped any notion of land and agrarian reform and distributive justice, and left Zimbabwe to the devices of pre-independence structural and institutional inequalities, he would be the darling of the West and a celebrated freedom fighter, hero and moral icon. But with a clear sense of history, purpose and destiny, he could not do that and live with a clear conscience. And for this, he is demonised, because he “failed” to “achieve” in Zimbabwe, while Nelson Mandela “succeeded” in South Africa-to acquiesce in white and racial privileges through forgiveness and truth-telling and pardoning apartheid crimes against African humanity. Had Mandela taken the path of equitable justice against white perpetrators of apartheid crimes, social and economic dispossession of black South Africans, he would not be the moral icon he is today. In that sense, Mugabe’s crime is not that he brutalises his political opponents and ordinary black Zimbabweans, but that he dares tell truth to white racial privileges and power.
Reframing the Zimbabwe debate in equity terms
In contributing to the debate on Zimbabwe, we would like to employ the equity maxim that “He who comes to equity must come with clean hands”, to reframe the Zimbabwe debate, by inserting an essential moral question, ignored by Robert Mugabe’s detractors. We take the view that, past immoral conduct of those who use moral and rights arguments to condemn and hang others, is relevant to the test of the merits of their claims. In our case, we would like to argue from the vantage point that, British and American breach of Zimbabwe Independence covenants on land and corresponding British and American obligations, undermined their and Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) -as -their client’s moral claims of standing for the force of good and Mugabe as evil personified in Zimbabwe.
Our sympathies are with the view which asserts that, British and American reneging on their undertakings with specific regard to land in the hands of white farmers, against historical equity and justice claims by displaced and dispossessed majority black population, have precipitous, compelling, and relevant connection to equity claims by Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) leadership in its defence, and to current turmoil in Zimbabwe. Consequently, in broad terms and taking a complete historical, moral, justice and equity vistas of the Zimbabwe debate, we take the position that, alleged rights violations in Zimbabwe, electoral malpractices by ZANU_PF, cannot be imposed as moral equivalents and bar, to vitiate incontestable arguments for justice and equity for the black masses, who were displaced, dispossessed and dehumanised by predatory British colonial rule, and under racist Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) of Ian Smith.
State Realism or altruistic cosmopolitan morality?
The issues of contest in the Zimbabwe debate ought to be the question of the moral, fair, just and equitable treatment of people, black and white, in Zimbabwe, by the proponents on both sides-the British, American, Western Alliance and Tsivangirai on one end, and ZANU-PF, Zimbabwean nationalists, Pan-Africanists and Mugabe on the other. Moreover, we cannot limit the time frame to recent electoral politics of Zimbabwe, but the gamut of that nation’s and its people’s history of struggles and past and present roles of those currently engaged in staking moral and political claims to its fortunes and future. The questions whether Robert Mugabe is a corrupt despot or has conducted fair or unfair elections or not, are secondary, if what we are interested in is to genuinely search for solutions to the roots of the Zimbabwe debacles.
Mugabe’s perceived dishonesty, whether in the redistribution of land appropriated from white farmers; or in conducting elections; or heavy and underhanded treatments of political dissent in Zimbabwe, though deserving attention, revulsion and contempt in their own objective context, cannot and should not, however, provide a defensible stratagem for Britain, USA and the Anglo-Saxon alliance, to use to trump justice and equity questions in a post colonial and post-racialist Zimbabwe. By latching on recent claims of electoral malpractices, cronyism, and authoritarian bent of ZANU-PF and its leadership, while disregarding the fundamental question of social justice and equity posed by the land question, Britain and its Western allies are immersed in realist politics, pure and simple, while dangling renegade Tsivangirai, who is nothing more than a puppet on a string, to proclaim their moral posturing on Zimbabwe.
For Western state realism, Tsivangirai in opposition serves the same interest as Yoweri Museveni of Uganda does in power. While Tsivangirai is feted as champion of democracy in Zimbabwe, the opposition and oppressed masses of Uganda are treated with suspicion; but Museveni, a man who banned political parties for 20 years, was all the while coddled and dotted in Western capitals. His human rights and democratic credentials were none purer, if not more despicable than those of Mugabe. No doubt, the Zimbabwean security forces were heavy-handed in putting down dissent in Matabeleland in mid 1980s. And Mugabe has been inflexible and understandably less accommodating in his dealing with political opposition in Zimbabwe. But these pale in comparison to the counterinsurgency brutalities perpetrated by Museveni’s National Resistance Movement / Army (NRM / A) in northern Uganda, where a silent genocide has been going on for the last 22 years with complete Western connivance through their national aid agencies and non-governmental organisations, who turned blind eyes while northern Ugandan population were forcibly herded into concentration camps and left to their own devices by the security forces.
In addition, political parties, other than the ruling NRM, do not operate freely outside their national headquarters in the capital. Because Museveni bought into neoconservative agenda of economic liberalisation, privatisation, and global capitalism, his sins, whether for holding sham elections, brutalising opposition, maiming and killing or abandoning two million of his citizens in concentration camps without a care, can be forgiven by his Western benefactors. He is forgiven not because such policies benefit the Ugandan masses more than it has been achievable in Zimbabwe; nor that the welfare of ordinary Ugandans are better off than those of ordinary Zimbabweans because of ZANU-PF’s socialised approach to welfare and beneficence. Musevni’s sins are forgivable because his client regime provides a staging deck for Western imperialist capital into east and central Africa. But god help you, if you are Robert Mugabe, and you fought British imperialism and racialism, and you have white settlers in your country, whose historical rights and privileges as a master race, are pitted against poor black souls and their claims for social justice and equity.
He who comes to equity must come with clean hands
Given Western hypocrisy and double standards in dealing with issues of democracy, human rights, justice, and equity in Africa, without pointing out those in the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, we are convinced that fair-minded people will agree that British and American imperialism have no basis to claim equity interest in the moral and justice claims on behalf of the people of Zimbabwe, as something that arises from some kind of cosmopolitan moral trust, to which the West somehow contributed and have this recognisable altruistic faith and commitment. On closer scrutiny of Western involvement in the Middle East, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Colombia, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Chile, to mention but a few, their claims are at times contradictorily realist, relativist, and internationalist at one and the same time. But in all cases, regardless of the moral position adopted, they are never on the sides of those whose rights are abused or justice claims denied.
In the Zimbabwean disputes, it is apparent that British, Western, and intellectually, morally bankrupt African leaders, intelligentsia, and Western –patronised opposition politicians put considerations for political power over and above questions of fairness, justice, equity and basic morality. That being the case, they, and particularly Britain, have no higher grounds to assert any equitable rights to the political, social, moral and economic fortunes of Zimbabwe; whether in condemning Mugabe, or questioning the sense of his holding onto power for 28 years, without at the same time recognising and attempting to justly and equitably remedy past British imperialist and UDI / Ian Smith racialist injustices, and breach of the Lancaster House stipulations on land and agrarian reforms in independent Zimbabwe. In equity terms, the British are not coming to equity on Zimbabwe with clean hands. Had the British made good on their end of the bargain on the independent covenants on land reforms, and had Mugabe then become the villain and the callous, racist despot that the West have cast him after everyone had lived up to their obligatory undertakings, the equity maxim would have been essentially irrelevant and Mugabe alone would have been accountable for the fiasco that is Zimbabwe today.
In this debate, I would like to encourage those who uncritically dismiss moral and equity arguments in support of Mugabe’s political actions, to at least be intellectually courageous enough to countenance a public conscience test of the Zimbabwe imbroglio. This is to say, there is need to carry out a dispassionate assessment of the adverse consequences of British colonialism and Ian Smith’s UDI against the adverse consequences of Robert Mugabe’s rule, land reforms and agrarian policies on the peoples of Zimbabwe and Africa. In our view, as far as things obtain in Zimbabwe and Africa today, it matters little, if at all, whether it is Morgan Tsivangirai or Robert Mugabe who is president in Zimbabwe. What matters, is however, that such a leadership has a proportionate view of history and justice as progressive, refined and improved. And whether in opposition or in power, their sense of self-importance should not obscure their intuition and unsolicited unity on questions of social justice and equity, and the priceless sacrifices Zimbaweans such as General Tongogara made so their compatriots should be free. Given its history and context, and aware of Tsivangirai’s preoccupation with form rather than substance, we are not coy to pronounce that Tsivangirai is not fit to rise to position of national leadership in Zimbabwe during these contentious times.
We have no doubts in our minds that had Robert Mugabe, like Morgan Tsivangirai, put his self-interest ahead of the interests of the poor majority of Zimbabwe; closed his eyes to the justice claims of blacks; scrapped any notion of land and agrarian reform and distributive justice, and left Zimbabwe to the devices of pre-independence structural and institutional inequalities, he would be the darling of the West and a celebrated freedom fighter, hero and moral icon. But with a clear sense of history, purpose and destiny, he could not do that and live with a clear conscience. And for this, he is demonised, because he “failed” to “achieve” in Zimbabwe, while Nelson Mandela “succeeded” in South Africa-to acquiesce in white and racial privileges through forgiveness and truth-telling and pardoning apartheid crimes against African humanity. Had Mandela taken the path of equitable justice against white perpetrators of apartheid crimes, social and economic dispossession of black South Africans, he would not be the moral icon he is today. In that sense, Mugabe’s crime is not that he brutalises his political opponents and ordinary black Zimbabweans, but that he dares tell truth to white racial privileges and power.
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