‘Democratic reform’: New fad of subversion (The Herald)

Reason Wafawarova in SYDNEY, Australia

27 May 2010

IMPERIAL hegemony as an establishment must project false and injurious ideologies that are accepted by its victims, and tradition has it that these ideologies are often portrayed as givens, as natural and as incontestable.

When the United States insists on maintaining illegal economic sanctions on Zimbabwe, and doing so on the basis of pressing for "democratic reforms", the whole idea is to project a fraudulent ideology that is to be seen as not subject to question.

This is essentially the thinking and philosophy behind the proposed amendments to ZDERA, renaming it ZTDERA, as the US tries to administer a "transition" of governance in Harare from its Congress House in Washington.

To the US empire democratic reforms simply mean a governance system that is reliant on Western hegemony and that complies with the dictates of imperial authority.

For Zimbabwe, Prime Minister Tsvangirai is seen by the West as the face of that kind of a governance system, and subsequently any system that does not allow him and his party to run the affairs of Zimbabwe fails the "democratic reforms" test.

When the victims of Western imperialistic domination accept its ideologies uncritically, they automatically accept the rulership and dominance of the imperialistic Westerner.

The sad part is that the victims then begin to identify positively with the very group that is responsible for their problems.

The imperialistic Westerner has almost successfully defined for about half the population of Zimbabwe what democracy should be all about, namely abstract freedoms to do with Press, elections, media, association — freedoms solidly silent on shelter, food, land, water and other basic essentials needed for human survival.

The abstractions are the new post Cold War pretexts that allow the West to pick up bullying conflicts with nation states that stand in the way of imperialism — pretexts that are a replacement to the old enemy; Communism.

It does not matter that the oldest Western democracy, Britain, just produced a very strange coalition, under stranger circumstances at the strangest of times.

When the Britons thought they were speaking strongly against the Iraq War and its excesses on the economy of Britain by doing away with the Tony Blair and the New Labour legacy, as taken over by the unassuming Gordon Brown; what became of their efforts?

They had a chaotic election process that clearly failed to accommodate the voice and opinion of its own electorate, and that is by the admission of British media and commentators.

They now have David Cameron and his Conservatives, largely seen in British circles as a love child of George W. Bush and Margaret Thatcher — the former a legendary war monger and the later a military weapons fundamentalist. Cameron comes in spiced up in a coalition with Nick Clegg and his Liberal Democrats, a revived forgotten joke from the 1920s.

Britons can take heart in that there are other people in the world who have also seen that democracy can be an absolute scandal.

Zimbabweans have known it since 2000 that democracy can elect absolute idiots into political office, especially when the electorate is polarised.

We had that forgotten runaway kid, Tafadzwa Musekiwa, gracing parliament at the age of 24 in 2000, before he discovered that he was in a terribly boring place; away from youthful fantasies.

He just fled the place they call the august house to be with other youngsters –—away to the mesmerising glittering lights of London, leaving behind his overexcited hyper-ambitious friend, Job Sikhala, to secure yet another term of office in 2005 — well, before hell broke loose for him in 2008; only to produce another marvellous joke.

Zimbabwe’s urban councils are today littered with political jokes masquerading as councillors and this is how scandalous democracy can be. But I digress.

We are told by psychiatrists that mental problems, juvenile delinquency, criminality and other social problems, do stem from family relations.

While this may be true, there is always the political dimension that says families themselves are shaped by the political situation in which they are embedded.

The African mother, father or child cannot escape the politics of colour that was introduced by colonialism and apartheid; cannot escape the politics of segregatory economic privileges and the politics of marginalisation, even in post-independent Africa.

So we cannot convincingly explain the problems bedevilling the African of today without looking at the political context of Africa today, and how that context evolved from the political context of the colonial years.

It is like trying to explain the drunken stupor of the Aboriginal person in Australia without looking at the political context in which the Aboriginals co-exist with those who conquered and occupied their land.

These social problems are often prevalent as political necessities to sustain a dominant system that benefits itself from the crisis.

In order for Africans and Aboriginals in Australia to be where they are today, and not to have NATO pointing guns to each of their heads to sustain imperial hegemony, these people must be maintained in a particular state of mind — in essence out of their minds — literally.

So neo-colonialism and imperialism use mental maladaptiveness among our people as a political tool; as a social necessity, and this is instigated by political force, deception, and other forms of propaganda.

So we have this anaesthetic democracy imposed upon our minds in order to keep us running after abstract freedoms and liberties while the Westerner pillages our wealth and resources to maintain his privileged position. In fact the kind of democracy that Western nations preach, fund and back for developing countries is nothing but an unachievable abstraction.

The political necessity to deceive the world’s majority is based on the demographic fact that the European population is just about 10 percent of the world’s population. The European only inhabits a small part of the globe and the parts that he occupies are relatively resourceless when compared to those occupied by non-Europeans.

Yet the European is saddled with great wealth, economic and political power.

He controls the world and maintains humanity in a state of terror, and is capable of executing the earth’s suicide.

The question is how does such a minority of people, essentially resourceless in terms of natural resources maintain the power that they have over all others?

Why is it that the people whose lands contain so much of the wealth of the earth are the poorest of all people?

Africa has no less than 30 strategic metals that make the space age possible and yet the image of Africa portrayed in the West is that of starving children, that of a society in disorder, and that of a society on the verge of disaster.

The idea is to keep in existence a political, social and economic situation wherein the mental orientation of the African must be so structured that the power and the ability of the European to rule this earth are continually maintained.

We are then kept out of our minds by a simple method of contradictions and conflicts: where the mind is kept occupied by what appears to be unresolvable problems and dilemmas, and an endless pursuit of rhetoric and donor funded abstract goals.

This is why economic embargoes and sanctions are so very important to Western mentality.

They, like sponsored proxy wars and civil wars of the Cold War era, do provide a dilemma with two horns at each extreme.

They produce on one hand extreme conformity as can be seen through pro-West political parties like Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC-T, or extreme rebellion as can be seen through liberation movements like Zanu PF of Zimbabwe or the ANC Youth League of South Africa; yes Youth League; because it is only them expressing this rebellion at the moment.

The two extremes are specifically designed to maintain the status quo, to keep the African out of his mind, so to speak.

This is why the so-called outstanding issues between Zanu PF and the MDC-T are so central to Western foreign policy on Zimbabwe.

They provide the necessary contradictions that will keep Zimbabweans apart and out of their minds.

So did the sponsored civil wars immediately after the fall of colonialism.

They kept the new African governments out of their minds and that allowed imperial hegemony to continue unabated.

For the Westerner to rule the world the way he does today, at least to intimidate it as he does, these contradictions and conflicts must be a chronic part of the lives of all non-Westerners, as well as the mainstream Western populations.

Public Western opinion does not subscribe to intimidation and domination of others so it is important that the mainstream Westerner is made to see these contradictions and conflicts the way Western political elites want them seen.

The Imperialist must essentially function in a very devilish way, a fashion that uses deception as its major weapon.

The end result is often a reversal of fundamental values. The good must appear to be the bad and the bad must be seen as the good.

Light must be taken for darkness and darkness for light. The truth must be taken for the lie and the lie for the truth.

This is why reclamation of colonially stolen farm land in Zimbabwe is painted in so much bad light. It is for the same reason that the indigenisation policy designed to economically empower Zimbabweans is demonised as the best known way to scare away investors.

This writer was last week faced by a bold declaration from one of his readers from the West that Zanu PF and President Mugabe rigged the 1980, 1985, 1990, 1995, 1996 and all other elections that ever took place in Zimbabwe.

The reader said he was convinced Zanu PF and President Mugabe lost all those elections and stole them from various parties, including the late Abel Muzorewa’s UANC.

It is very important for imperialism to peddle such a lie because it will create the necessary contradictions and conflicts to sustain minority hegemony.

Botswana has become the West’s point country in the Sadc, and all because they do facilitate the necessary contradictions and conflicts required by imperial domination.

Everybody else is treated with scepticism because they have refused to do the West’s bidding on Zimbabwe. They are thus seen as getting closer to rediscovering their minds and that must be prevented by all means.

It is most unpleasing that the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe was reported to have welcomed the proposed changes to ZDERA, the US illegal sanctions law on Zimbabwe, arguing that the changes would "reward" reformists who are working towards establishing democracy in Zimbabwe.

Who are the Americans to judge the democracy of Zimbabwe, let alone reward its implementation?

Why would a Prime Minister of an African country welcome any form of a sanctions law against his own people?

This is the extreme conformity that Washington is looking for as they seek to establish client regimes across the world.

A Prime Minister who cannot say no to sanctions imposed on the government to which he is a principal is an absolute scandal in every sense of the word.

Equally, the whole idea of "democratic reforms" is just an absolute scandal to secure conformity and compliance to imperialistic control and Western hegemony.

Democratic reforms for Zimbabweans must be a matter for Zimbabweans as the AU and Sadc have repeatedly said.

They cannot be an administrative matter for Washington or part of the US Congress’ legislative mandate.

Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!