Politics and violence

Thursday, 26 January 2012 00:00

In a December 13, 2006 feature article on Politics and Violence, Elizabeth Frazer of Oxford University and Kimberly Hutchings of the London School of Economics compared and contrasted the political theory and philosophy of political violence as propounded by legendary Frantz Fanon and prolific author and commentator Hannah Arendt.

We have an amazing number of African politicians who subscribe to the doctrine of flagellating political opponents into submission. Campaigns are characterised by sloganeering, song and dance, as well as street and stadium chants that reflect everything on euphoria and hysterics, and absolutely nothing on policy.
Whipping up emotions and conspiring to demonise political opponents has sadly become synonymous with African politicking, and it is this primitive culture that breeds political violence.

Election Watch 2012: The MDC-T Perspective (The Herald)

Thursday, 19 January 2012 08:48

The last time this writer engaged Senator Obert Gutu on his routine publications on political commentary was when he wrote about the indigenisation policy and what he thought of its chief presiding executive, Minister Saviour Kasukuwere.

Then Senator Gutu profusely expressed his allured admiration for Direct Foreign Investment as the panacea to economic growth for Zimbabwe, arguing that FDI would “inevitably” grow the economy to a point where local entrepreneurs would also “inevitably” pop up from our midst. It was an argument akin to telling a man to wait for roast chicken to fly into the mouth. That wait can only be forever.

The piece was an effort by Gutu to spin Morgan Tsvangirai’s Marondera shallow attack on the indigenisation policy, pretty much as uncalculated as Fidelis Mhashu’s infamous promise to return Zimbabwean commercial farmland to dispossessed white farmers.

Oil and Israel: Unalterable Determinants of US Policy (The Herald)

Reason Wafawarova

Thursday 12 January 2012

There is an unquestionable strategic importance always assigned to the Middle East by successive US presidents, regardless of which political party they belong to.

One has to always take into consideration the historical and contemporary intensity of imperial domination in this region, and with this understanding it becomes a lot easier to interpret the recent wave of uprisings that swept across the Arab world, making many people falsely believe there has been a reawakening of Arab nationalism and unification.

The way the uprisings developed can only be fully understood within the context of an understanding of the dynamics of each wave, inasmuch as it is equally important to place each uprising in the context of the location of the Arab world in the international order of world affairs.