By Reason Wafawarova December 6, 2007

Poverty, disease, wars, global warming, pollution and other life threatening problems facing the world today are all worrisome issues causing untold misery to the human race and indeed threatening its very survival.

From a Marxist perspective and more so from the point of view of the oppressed masses of this world, particularly those in the Southern part of this global planet we call Earth, the number one cause of all this misery is very clear. It is imperialist capitalism, in particular, US imperialism, the world’s sole super power.

The human race lives on earth and needs a particular ecosphere to continue its existence. The US led imperialistic forces have paid little regard to the need to preserve that ecosphere and have expanded their selfish imperialistic interest with reckless abandon, even denying that there is such a thing as global warming.

The current system of social organization imposed by the US led imperialistic alliance is capitalism, now well advanced in its imperialistic stage. This is the basic reality of our society, which, without its full understanding, makes it simply impossible to understand modern global politics- this understanding determines everything.

The ideology of capitalism developed well over many centuries but the phenomenal century for capitalism was of course the 19th century when it embarked on an absolute stupendous growth as Marx and Engels so dramatically evoked in the 1848 Communist Manifesto.

In the 1890s, capitalism metamorphosed into a new stage as laissez faire capitalism gave way to monopoly capitalism or in more familiar terms imperialism.

This development saw a handful of giant corporations dominating and taking over firms from a relatively large number of small and medium sized firms, resulting in a great bulk of output being accounted for by just a handful of companies.

As this trend took root bank capital merged with industrial capital to create finance capital, the kind developing countries fall over each other for, as they endeavour to out do each other in coming up with the so called sound or attractive Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policies.

The creation of finance capital led to the domination of the politics of the developed capitalist countries by giant associations of capitalists, corporations and cartels. This tradition has perpetuated itself in an unabated manner so much that it is the underlying factor of who is in power in the US and sad as it may be, the very underlying factor to the sabre-rattling US foreign policy- indeed inclusive of the ruthless decision to occupy both Iraq and Afghanistan.

The advent of imperialist capitalism was of an aggressive nature right from the start. As the home market was too small for the demands of the new system’s operations, there was inevitable need to expand these markets by spreading over the globe in search of markets, raw materials, fields of investment and capital export (loans).

As a result, colonialism received a tremendous impetus, so much that between 1876 and 1914, a mere 38 years, six little European countries had grabbed 25 million square kilometres of land, that including the repossessed land of Zimbabwe and the under dispute stolen lands of Palestine.

The area of grabbed, or more precisely, stolen land was two and half times bigger than that of Europe, home to the six little thieving states. The colonial venture enslaved an incredible 523 million people many times more than the population of the six imperialist states.

Our homeland, Africa, was largely carved up among the European powers in the late 1890s and 1900s as fabulous wealth flowed back to the ruling elite classes in Western cities.

Britain and France had the largest colonial empires while Germany was a powerful but late arrival that was lagging badly in the race for colonies. Germany realised that the only way it could create a world empire was to seize colonies from both Britain and France.

This is the reality that led to World War 1; the resolve by the old empires to hang on to their stolen goods as Germany fought to grab a share of the loot for itself. This was the proverbial war of robbers for control of ill-gotten loot.

As the European wing of imperialists was fighting over what remained of good old Africa, the US imperialistic crusade was erupting in 1898 onto the world stage as the US cruised to easy victory in the Spanish-American war. The victory gave the US a good opportunity to establish its own strategic assets. They annexed Puerto Rico in the Caribbean and they also went on to push aside the indigenous liberation forces of Cuba as they established a harsh, bullish and brutally set up protectorate over Cuba. The Cubans would have none of this nonsense and to this day the war between the US and Cuba has not ended as the Americans are always on the offensive to bring down Cuba under imperialistic control.

In the Pacific, Washington grabbed the Philippines, yet again pushing aside and brutally crushing the native liberation movement. They went on to annex Guam and completed their imperialistic adventure, which they had started by overthrowing the Hawaiian monarchy years before the Spanish war. They completed their mission by annexing the islands in the pacific, thus completing their corridor to China and the Far East. In 1903, the US rulers, through the CIA, engineered a revolt in Panama, separating the country from Colombia, and immediately embarking on the construction of the strategically and economically vital Panama Canal, which they completed in 1914. General Noriega should have known better than turning against his erstwhile masters and employers the US, not to mention posing a threat on the strategic Panama Canal. When one does such things, they should be prepared for the worst from the imperialist empire, particularly the US imperial empire. It simply brooks no mercy for those standing in its way.

The biggest threat the fight against imperialism will ever face is that of the victims of imperialism becoming part of the problem. In Africa, its 44 years after Kwame Nkurumah of Ghana proclaimed Pan-Africanism as a way of countering the damaging effects of imperialism. He himself was demonised to a humiliating end by the imperialistic forces and from those days every demonisation campaign undertaken by the US imperialism has taken its toll, taking in various prominent left wingers when they are not physically eliminating them as they did with Samora Machel of Mozambique on October 19, 1986 and Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso on October 15, 1987; (October seems to be the CIA dirty month).

Those who have been taken in are caved and made to swing over in support of the US foreign policy. These are the so-called reformists, the kind the US-British alliance is so desperate to find in Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF party in troublesome Zimbabwe.

Did we not all hear how the British “triumphantly tamed” Colonel Muammar Gaddaffi of Libya into a reformist becoming one of Tony Blair’s “best friends?” Well, the recent events at the AU summit seem to show the world that Gaddaffi did manage to fool the imperialists for once and has all but re-energized for another anti-imperialist fight.

Gaddaffi’s unending machinations aside, the imperialist empire caves in left wingers from politicians, intellectuals and revolutionaries by dangling bribes disguised as incentives as well as the sheer use of brutal military force. There is talk of economic packages for Zimbabwe “only if or after Mugabe goes” and this is all too familiar talk from the western imperial ruling elite.

Is it any wonder then that the Zimbabwean political armatures who founded the opposition workers’ party, the MDC were swiftly, literally in one single swoop, caved in and swung over to support the British and US foreign policy as their heads were romanticised by the glitter of western capitals to which they were told their nemesis in Zanu PF would never ever set foot again? An additional incentive of a few million greenbacks was just too much to resist for the bunch of semi-professionals and college dropouts who occupied most positions in the MDC leadership.

If renowned left wing intellectuals like Fred Halliday of Britain could be swung over by imperialistic forces to support the 1990-91 Gulf War it is a bit of asking for too much to expect a villager from Buhera to discern through the complexities of global politics.
If such a renowned scholar as Christopher Hitchens has disappointed many of his readers by coming out in support of Washington’s “fight against Islamic fascism” as well as deriding and berating such other renowned left intellectuals as Noam Chomsky, Edward Herman, Edward Said and John Pilger, very little can be expected from minnows like Proffessor Mukonoweshuro, who must be ruing his affiliations with a faction of Zanu PF Masvingo factionalism politics in the early 1990s.

It must be noted that both Hitchens and Halliday are not necessarily victims of the brutal effects of imperialism, since they are both bona fide Britons; citizens of one of the oldest imperialist empires. They are, or is it they have been, honest and well meaning intellectuals who at one time saw through the deception of the very system of which they are unworthy beneficiaries.

It only becomes a worrisome problem when an intended victim of imperialism such as our own leadership in the MDC, does the unthinkable of being servile to the imperial forces, that to the extend of fawning and being so meanly submissive to the very force aimed at milking one’s own motherland.

This is when victims become part of the problem; when the exploited feel rewarded by oppression. The slaves did that against each other, right in the toiling plantation fields of America, the colonised did that to each other, not sparing Zimbabwe’s own Abel Muzorewa, Ndabaningi Sithole and the infamous Nyathi of the Nyadzonia tragedy, the Congolese did that to each other through the treacherous exploits of Moise Tshombe and Mobutu Sese Seko, the Mozambiqueans saw it through their own son, Alfonso Dhlakama, so did the Angolans through their very own Jonas Savimbi and today Africa has so many of these reactionary forces, unfortunately some of them actually in positions of government.

The imperialistic machinations are not unique to Africa only. In the 1960s, a young rebel by the name Sadam Hussein was provided with crucial intelligence information on his way to crushing the Iraq Communist Party before he was ordered to wedge a bloody meaningless war on Iran after Iranians removed the bloodstained US installed Shah by popular revolt.

Of course Saddam mistook the strength of his imperial master for his own and started to threaten US interests in the Middle East through reckless egoistic conduct and the two Bush Presidents were clearly less than impressed with the equally reckless junior Bush going straight for the kill.

Saddam’s life cycle as a poodle of the US mirrors that of Afghanistan’s Taliban, whom the US sponsored in toppling the more civilised and women tolerating Soviet-backed government of the People’s Democratic Party. It was precisely to destroy this government and its socialist reforms that Washington armed and bankrolled the reactionary, brutal, women hating, drug dealing, fundamentalist mujaheddin “freedom fighters”. As many are already aware, Osama bin Laden was a key figure in this counter revolutionary crusade.
To cover their backs, the imperialist forces use the media to portray those standing in their way or those intrepid few that dare stand up to the system, the likes of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Mammoud Hammadinejad of Iran and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe in the blackest of all colours.

This is when the newly converted Hitchen describes the Taliban as members to “Islamic fascism”. Fascism arose in Italy and Germany, two of the most developed imperialistic countries and it was a mass movement of a desperate middle classes, set in motion by big capital and the ruling elite to crush powerful workers’ movements and peasants-something the British have been trying to do with the Harare middle class in Zimbabwe.

The Taliban might be undemocratic and treacherous but to suggest that they are structured and powerful enough to run such a fascist movement as Mussolin and Hitler’s police state or even one that remotely compares to it is just absurd.

The only function of such characterisations is to give political cover to the evils of the US led imperialistic forces, achieving the deceiving effect that there is always something worse out there. It is the usual tact of diversion.

However, historical experience and Marxist theory show that any member of the exploited periphery who departs from the position that the fundamental enemy of the human race is imperialist capitalism, especially US imperialism, is in serious danger of becoming part of the problem and of being enlisted in Washington’s drive to defend its global empire. Arthur Mutambara beware!

And so be Munyaradzi Gwisayi and maybe the so-called reformists in the ruling Zanu PF if ever any are nicodemously receiving such epithets from agents of imperialism.

Zimbabwe is for Zimbabweans and let it be known that its legacy will not allow the triumph of reactionary forces.