By Reason Wafawarova in SYDNEY, Australia

19 December 2009

It has become common practice that political foes often depart from the conventional meaning of common vocabulary with astonishing flaccidity, that one would think they take the world to be populated with retards that are so gullible that they swallow contrived meanings for absolute realities.

The conventional meanings of such terms as dictator, tyrant, authoritarian, totalitarian, sell-out, puppet, terrorism, genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, patriotism, national interest, democracy, human rights, rule of law and many such terms are often far different from the political meanings that are contrived by one group of politicians against their rivals.

This is common in domestic politics of nation states as it is common in global politics. The United States would prefer to talk about "disproportionate use of force" when they feel they have to criticise the habitual Israeli atrocities in the Palestinian occupied territories, while most people have argued that Israel has habitually committed crimes against humanity in that region.

It, however, becomes so easy for the United States to use the phrase "crimes against humanity" when they are commenting on the Darfur conflict in Sudan, or the pre-election political violence of the Zimbabwe 2008 election.

By definition terrorism has become an act of others against the "civilised world"; the prestigious label that the West has bestowed upon itself since September 11 2001.

The 2008 indiscriminate killing of 156 innocent civilians in southern Afghanistan by the US military was described simply as a "regrettable act" by Hillary Clinton, and it has nothing to do with terrorism. In fact, Obama just beefed up the US military with another 30 000 troops so that such an anomalous mishap does not recur ever again. That is the thinking at White House.

The official cause for the US military occupation of Afghanistan is "pre-emptive defence" and it must make sense that the United States and its allies are in Afghanistan in defence of their homelands. That is, of course, ludicrous but it would not do to say the US and its allies are in Afghanistan to install a puppet government of their choice, so they can encircle China, their rival with puppet allies.

There was no question of terrorism in the 2008 Afghan attack and that is for two reasons. Firstly, the victims were not Westerners and most importantly the attackers were not Arabs.

That is the limited and contrived political meaning that has been attached to terrorism. It is always an act of others against the West, and cannot be an act of the West against others.

The torture at Guantanamo Bay is described as "isolated allegations of torture" and not state systematic human rights abuse. It does not matter that Guantanamo is a state established torture base running on its own laws and unaccountable to anyone.

Even Obama has failed to close the lawless torture camp, despite election promises.

It is when political rivals in countries like Zimbabwe become rowdy and lawless to the point of brutally attacking each other on behalf of politicians that we begin to hear that there is such a thing as "state systematic human rights abuse".

At domestic levels there are politicians who would feel free to declare anyone who does not support their own political party as undemocratic or tyrannical while others would maintain that anyone outside their political party is inherently unpatriotic.

For Zimbabwe, one gets this dogmatic obsession with polarity that says all Zanu-PF supporters are a lawless undemocratic bunch of thugs, while the other side largely holds that MDC supporters are inherently an unpatriotic treacherous lot, and insidious by their very nature.

So by definition, a Zanu-PF supporter cannot be treacherous, unpatriotic or insidious; and likewise an MDC supporter cannot be undemocratic, lawless or a thug.

All ministers from the MDC have become efficient and transparent as defined by their political affiliation while Zanu-PF ministers are labelled inept, corrupt and unaccountable as defined by their belonging to a party so loathed by Western powers. That is the vocabulary you get in Western political circles.

The conventional meaning of corruption, efficient, transparency or accountability does not matter in political circles. The label does. It is such ludicrous labels that make politicians so unaccountable — labels that say MDC people cannot sin and Zanu-PF people cannot practise any form of holiness.

A writer published by The Herald, like this writer; is biased and a lap dog of Robert Mugabe, even before he writes the first sentence of any of his articles.

That is the thinking in Western circles and it is all based on the misassumption that The Herald is "a Zanu-PF mouthpiece".

John Makumbe can write and insult the President of Zimbabwe as having a skull "full of mucous" and his primitive and barbaric behaviour is heralded as the most civilised and impartial way of writing.

If this writer suggests that Makumbe’s way of thinking is as stained as his not so attractive a face, daggers will be drawn that hate speech is intolerable, but that applies not to Dr Makumbe.

So if you are Zimbabwean, you can pick any online anti-Mugabe publication and you can write and deride, vilify and ridicule anything Mugabe and Zanu-PF all you like and you are still a very objective and unbiased writer worth of accolades and rewards. That is the Western mentality and defined position.

Issues of hate speech, bias and bad writing are limited as acts carried out by those perceived to be in sympathy with Zanu-PF and Mugabe, and only these are capable of egregious intellectual crimes.

One of the most sensationalised accusations one can ever face today is being labelled an anti-Semitist.

In 1988, the George Bush Senior campaign was marred by accusations of being littered with Nazis.

There was this part of the campaign that was called the "Ethnic Outreach Committee" which was aimed at organising ethnic minorities for support; obviously that did not mean blacks or Hispanics, it meant Ukrainians, the Polish, Romanians and such other important business.

It turned out that the committee was being run by a bunch of East European Nazis, hysterical anti-Semites, former Iron Guard Romanians and such other people, or at least the allegations ran.

When this got exposed some of the people were reshuffled, some were hidden in back scene positions in the Republican Party, and all just passed rather quietly. The Democrats surprisingly never raised the issue during the election campaign.

There was a very good reason why the Democrats did not say anything about the issue. They were silenced by such Jewish organisations like the Anti-Defamation League.

These organisations do not care in the least about anti-Semitism; what they really care about is opposition to the policies of Israel — or more precisely opposition to their own hawkish version of these Israeli policies. This is what constitutes anti-Semitism to them.

They are basically Israeli lobby groups and they understood that these Nazis in the Bush campaign were quite pro-Israel, so there was nothing to worry about.

The New Republic, which is almost a mouthpiece for these Jewish groups, carried out an editorial on anti-Semitism, and it referred to the fact that this committee was being run by anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers and Nazis.

The editorial went on to say, yes; that was all true, but it said this was just "antique and anemic" anti-Semitism.

To them this was not terribly important and there was no need to worry too much about it. They then argued that the real anti-Semitism that was a real worry were the "Jew haters" in the Democratic Party.

The evidence provided was that the Democrats were actually willing to discuss and debate a resolution calling for Palestinian self-determination at their national congress, and therefore they were the "Jew haters", and that was the real anti-Semitism in the United States.

The Democrats got this message very clear and they went absolutely silent and they never raised a peep about the Nazis in the Republican Party. They were so scared of being labelled "Jew haters" that they avoided the topic altogether.

This writer has had feedback labelling him an anti-Semitist because of criticism for Israeli atrocities in the Palestinian occupied territories, and threats of all sorts have been issued in the name of fighting a "Nazi".

This is how vocabulary is politicised for the benefit of those that wield forms of political power and their cheerleaders.

So we have this risible situation in Zimbabwe where Western forces view the MDC-T as "democratic forces" and Zanu-PF as "dictatorial forces". The understanding is that Zanu-PF is pro-dictatorship while the MDC-T is pro-democracy. The real meaning about this is, of course, that the MDC-T is compliant to Western domination and manipulation, while Zanu-PF is guilty of independent nationalism.

Dictatorship in this sense is enshrined in such policies as land redistribution and economic indigenisation. This is dictatorial not because it is dictated upon the people of Zimbabwe but against the global imperial order.

The victims of these "dictatorial policies" are the white commercial farmers who lost their grip on Zimbabwe’s prime agricultural land, and also the holders of global capital whose aim is to exploit the resources of developing countries at the lowest cost possible, getting maximum profits.

The MDC-T is "democratic" not because it has ever proven to anyone that it is good at consulting the grassroots masses on policies and their implementation, but because they have shown a willingness to respect the Western-dominated imperial order in a relationship Morgan Tsvangirai describes as taking Zimbabwe "back into the family of nations".

This means that kind of global family that defines the West as "the international community", and they subscribe to the global leadership of the US and its allies.

In fact, the MDC-T leader did not even think of consulting his own supporters when he took the decision to "withdraw" from the June 2008 election run-off. That is how democratic his political behaviour is.

Recently he informed the nation that he had consulted his party’s supporters on whether or not his party should continue to be part of the coalition Government with Zanu-PF.

He said the supporters had overwhelmingly endorsed the position that his party should remain in the coalition.

Two days later he announced that his party was withdrawing from the inclusive Government indefinitely until his rhetoric on "outstanding issues" was attended to.

Whatever had happened to the decision of the supporters has never been explained and will most likely never be explained.

This is how democratic the MDC-T is, and the fervent declaration of the decade has been that this party is bringing a "new Zimbabwe"; whatever that means.

Of course, Zanu-PF is considered dictatorial for its "populist policies" such as giving land to landless blacks, and supporting new farmers with farming inputs.

These are seen as the typical policies of a dictator and for such "unsound policies", Zimbabwe’s inclusive Government has been called upon to show a "serious commitment to reforms".

This is the West’s trade-off call for the lifting of the illegal economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe since 2001.

These reforms include "reviewing property rights", a euphemism for lost commercial farms, and that also includes the protection of the commercial interests of Western corporations in industry.

It has nothing to do with the protection of Zimbabwe’s own property rights, or the protection of the property rights of the new farmers.

Such rights are hardly any part of a democracy. Rather they are more of "unsound policies" and "populist policies" that need serious reforms.

It is important that we understand political language for what it is if we are going to develop real democracy in Zimbabwe.

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