Regulating Democracy

Thursday, 15 December 2011 13:46

Reason Wafawarova

In the play largely attributed to tragedian Greek playwright Aeschylus, the play being “Prometheus Bound,” the pathetic figure of one Hermes, who was the messenger and servant of the gods, appeals to the rebellious Prometheus to make his peace with the supreme beings of the time.

The response from the misery-afflicted Prometheus, who was being tortured for betraying the secret of fire to humans, is a good illustration of the politics of democracy today. He said:

“Be sure of this, I would not change my evil plight for your servility. It is better to be slave to the rock than to serve Father Zeus as his faithful messenger.”

It is not an exaggeration to say that a modern day politician in the West, regardless of them being neo-liberal or left leaning – operates as the messenger-servant of wealthy and powerful corporations, themselves the cornerstone of the evil called imperialism; defending them vehemently against any serious intended critics, and ensuring that any obstacles threatening corporate power are either prevented or eliminated.

The right to profit has become sacrosanct in word affairs today, and any alternative to this is to be rejected as a matter of survival for those at the core of capitalist power. This is why the Chinese incursion in Africa is cause of concern in every Western capital. The vilification of the Chinese economic ascendance is packaged in humanitarian wrappings, like the much denounced cheap labour propagandistic hoopla that has become synonymous with Chinese investment.

We are told Chinese investors are unthinking little devils full of brutality and carrying hearts of stone. They are accused of flooding African countries they invest in with cheap labourers from their own country, that way depriving the locals of an opportunity to provide the same derided cheap labour.

Chinese products are denounced as being of cheap quality, which many times they are; to the extent that being in possession of something from China is often seen as a sign of close proximity to poverty and lack. In fact to some nothing long-lasting or reliable can ever come from China.

There is a story that tells of a Chinese bloke that got married to a Zimbabwean woman; and the couple had the misfortune of losing their first baby son after just a few weeks from birth. During the funeral the Chinese bloke’s mother in law was wailing loud saying, “Mwanangu ndakagara ndazvitaura kuti zvinhu zvamaChina hazvigari,” (My daughter, I did tell you before that Chinese things do not last).

The deriding of the Chinese may be partly because of their mass production policy that clearly has flooded the world market with cheap quality products, in a way a good thing for lower class denizens who at least can now access things like televisions and computers even with challenges of durability. But more importantly this criticism is done on behalf of the traditional Western capitalist whose monopoly of the world market has been wrecked beyond redemption, at least for now.

It is important for the capitalist world that democracy be regulated in order to secure the survival of the richest – to secure profits. Genuine democrats seek to regulate and moderate capitalism so that true democracy can be secured.

This is where the duel is between Zimbabwe’s ZANU –PF and the Morgan Tsvangirai led MDC-T. The MDC wants to garner votes by protecting the interests of the richest of this world while ZANU PF wants to garner votes by regulating the wealth of the richest of this world – making the wealthy share their control of the country’s riches with the locals.

Morgan Tsvangirai openly preaches that he is a messenger-servant of large Western corporations – disguisedly referred to as “international investors.” To the ordinary people he vehemently promises jobs, essentially expense number one on any businessperson’s inputs list, followed by such items as rent, electricity, water and so on.

For Morgan Tsvangirai it is a lot better to be slave to Western Corporations than to change his political plight for the servility of local economic empowerment of Zimbabwean entrepreneurs. After all being an input in someone’s business is a feat easy enough for anyone not too happy with the challenge of initiative and sacrifice. It is a comfort zone that Morgan Tsvangirai hopes to capitalise on, not necessarily because he is shrewd enough to comprehend the socio-political dynamics of societies and the subsequent weaknesses, but mainly because he himself does not know any better. Not with his base level of education and apparent lack of advice.

Addressing a rally in Marondera recently this is what Morgan Tsvangirai said about Zimbabwe’s Economic Empowerment policy: “We are totally opposed to this programme being undertaken by (Minister of Youth Development, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Saviour) Kasukuwere and Zanu-PF.

There are some people who are moving around saying: ‘indigenisation, indigenisation’. How can you implement a party programme wakavanda neGovernment? Ours is a job plan. We cannot have a society where 90 per cent of our children are not employed. Our plan is of jobs and starts by encouraging investment. Our plan is not to take from Peter to pay Paul. We cannot have another situation like what happened with the land reform, taking away from a few whites and giving to a few blacks.”

How an aspiring candidate for the presidency of a country can be “totally against” the empowerment of his own people is quite unthinkable, until one is told that Morgan Tsvangirai is leading a Western founded, Western-funded, and Western-directed political project carrying the name and image of a political party in Zimbabwe.

ZANU PF remembered the way of the people in 2000, after playing client party to the diktats of the IMF and the World Bank in the aftermath of the Cold War, shamelessly embracing the murderous and ruinous Economic Structural Adjustment Program in 1992, privatising part of the economy and cutting welfare while vehemently instructing the populace to “tighten your belts” as “investors will be coming in.”

The enthusiasm with which ESAP was preached could have been comical had it not been for the tragedy it caused through the wreckage of our economy. In fact Tsvangirai rose to prominence directly from the effects of ESAP, as a firebrand trade unionist, yet so unsophisticated that it took a single attempt with Western moneybags to convert him into a breathtaking puppet politician.

Now the man who yesteryear lambasted ESAP and propped himself as a popular pro-worker advocate now stands “totally opposed” to the economic empowerment of Zimbabweans, and believes the same investors that used ESAP to access the country’s resources will today come as generous providers of employment. It is called genuine gullibility caused by well-intentioned foolishness.

After realising its egregious errors in bed with Westerners, ZANU PF woke up to take over the land reform program from its authors – the revolting masses; going ahead to reclaim colonially stolen land in 2000 – distributing it among the landless masses.

The party has made a follow up correction to its earlier errors by embarking on the economic empowerment program – totally opposed by the country’s Prime Minister. It really does not matter that ZANU PF may be motivated by political interests like electioneering. They should if they seriously want to be elected. But the important thing is that land was reclaimed and redistributed to its rightful owners, just like the issue of import now is that foreign investors will have to partner with locals in the exploitation of our natural resources.

The community share scheme is particularly impressive if it is not hijacked by political rascals with vampire attributes, something not to be entirely ruled out. My friend and homeboy Takura Zhangazha believes our political parties are sizeably infested with thieves and crooks from across the divide; and that cannot be dismissed as a wild claim. Communities could easily develop their infrastructures if dividends from these shares were to be well managed, and one hopes this will be the case.

The inhumane exigencies of corporate power preclude policies like the land reform program and the economic empowerment policy. This is because such policies thwart profiteering, and to the rich profit is a sacrosanct right.

It is only the radicalism like we saw with the land reform program that pushes corporate power in a reformist direction. The Kimberly Process Scheme somersault over the sale of Zimbabwean Diamonds by the West was another sign of corporate power being tamed in a reformist direction by sheer radicalism. It does not matter that the US has thrown a tantrum by adding Mbada and Marange Resources on the sanctions list. It is a plainly futile and stupid gesture, given the irrelevance of the US factor in diamond trading at the moment.

When one is at the service of corporate power, they become unable and unwilling to deliver any serious reforms, just like what Barack Obama is doing in the United States.

The poor man has become the master of the sympathetic gesture, that understanding smile, the pained, hapless but friendly expression that tells us that the world is what it is and we cannot change it – that might is right; whether we like it or not.

So the system has made Obama escalate an unwinnable war in Afghanistan, bail out savvy elites from Wall Street, hire insurance companies to draft for him the new “health care” bill, listen to the rich suggesting nominations to his cabinet and to the Supreme Court, bomb and destroy Libya to steal its oil, massacre the people of Pakistan, and preach war against Syria and Iran.

Morgan Tsvangirai and the entire leadership of his party cannot openly criticise the illegal war on Libya, the massacring of the people of Pakistan, or any of the excesses of their Western masters, not exactly because they are evil hearted beasts with no humanitarian feelings, or because they are too unintelligent to distinguish between real and declared intentions of the West, but because they are hopelessly bound financial prisoners enslaved to their powerful funders.

It is bondage far stronger than the spirit that torments the PM with his inimitable lust and bed-hopping.

The vote fought for between ZANU PF and the MDC-T is a vote between the choices of regulating capitalism to create true democracy and that of regulating democracy to safeguard capitalism and to secure profits of the rich and powerful. The people of Zimbabwe will have to make a choice. Let no one be fooled by the preaching of aid and loans. No country was ever successfully built by NGOs and the IMF or the World Bank. Dambisa Moyo is quite clear on this one. Aid from the West is nothing but a tool to create dependency and to perpetuate poverty and that point is not an opinion but fact.

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

Reason Wafawarova is a political writer based in SYDNEY, Australia.