By Reason Wafawarova February 10, 2008

The code of morality was probably first established with the Biblical story of Adam receiving the single rule of doing anything else he so wished but eating of what we now commonly call the forbidden fruit. Of course, Adam’s complicity broke that code of morality in misguided solidarity with his wife, whose own obedience to the code of morality was apparently depended on Adam’s own control over his partner and not on her own responsibility. The Bible says God was infuriated by the violation of his one law moral code of conduct and he sentenced Adam, Eve and the serpent to some form of eternal punishment which man still suffers to this day.

The same God, in the same Bible, saw the importance and essence of morality in the Book of Exodus 34 verse number 28 and gave Moses two stone tablets bearing a code of moral conduct outlined through the Ten Commandments. Sounds fantastic!

Moses was a prophet, a politician, a community man, a social leader and a military man all put in one. This means that God’s idea of morality was an idea based on the human and eternal sense of morality, that is, a universal type of morality. Now our society has developed classes, be they social, economic, political or religious and any claim that there is such a thing like human or eternal morality has become a mere religious idea at best and viewed as plain ludicrous at worst.

Humanity has simply packaged the concept of morality as an interest based class phenomenon and this is why it is important to analyse the motivating factors behind the moralistic rhetoric on human rights, war crimes, crimes against humanity and even the gospel of poverty alleviation in Africa and other so-called third world countries.

The reason those Pharisees in John 8 vs 3 wanted to stone the woman who had been caught in the act of adultery and were blissfully blind to the fact that her male partner, whoever the bloke was; was also guilty of the same offence – was nothing but a gender based class interest that absolved members of the male social class from any wrong doing on matters of infidelity.

The philosophical intervention by Jesus Christ when he asked for anyone who had not sinned before to cast the first stone was just a classical revelation of how humanity had reinvented God’s idea of morality to suit their own group interests at the expense of weaker groupings.

The Zimbabwe opposition MDC has been wielding the morality political card for a while now, all the time pleading with South Africa, Sadc, the AU, the EU, the United States, Britain, other Western countries and the United Nations for a stoning onslaught on the Zimbabwean government. In fact, the government has been demoted from the more friendly and official term “government” to a more politically demeaning “regime” label. Indeed, it can only be some kind of a “regime” or “junta” that violates “the rule of law” by grabbing land from “productive white farmers” – it cannot be any government worthy of the name.

The charge list of the Zimbabwe government’s moral shortcomings – a list that the MDC so proudly flies around the globe with – includes the unqualified and unsubstantiated lack of rule of law, the over-sensationalised unfortunate deaths that occurred during the 2000 land occupation era; some 36 people, (may they rest in peace); the alleged deaths of “thousands and thousands and thousands more” raped, albeit without a single name attached to the thousands (Panorama, BBC TV, June 2003), the alleged and unproven rigging and stealing of elections, the one sided stories of the MDC-police clashes as well as the chilling economic effect of the alleged bad economic policies as supposedly evidenced by a declining economy.

For all these sins; for all these moral shortcomings – who should throw the first and heaviest stone? Of course it’s the US-led western alliance; that self proclaimed holier than all coalition. And what kind of morality does the United States and her western allies understand? Certainly not a morality that says its wrong to dispossess other people of their land, not a morality that says its wrong to invade other countries for covetous ends of accessing their resources, not a morality that says its wrong to kill Iraq civilians for fun, not a morality that says its wrong to assassinate other people’s leaders for purposes of subjugating those same people and most certainly not a morality that says its wrong to lie about other countries for the purpose of isolating them so as to create “screaming economies.”

The only morality that the United States and her team of the imperial gangsters understands is what Dave Holmes, an Australian democratic socialist and writer, calls a “class morality”. Trotsky, the 20th century socialist theorist puts it this way, “morality more than any other ideology has a class character.”

The imperialist ruling class morality has nothing to do with Jesus or God’s original idea of morality. It is purely and solely concerned with defending the interests of a tiny minority that owns the top five hundred corporations in this world. This minority has at its disposal the politicians and the mass media as the two top agents of ideological indoctrination and mass deception on the one hand and a sophisticated assortment of military arsenal on the other.

As Trotsky puts it, this powerful and wealthy minority knows as much as many people do, that imperialism cannot survive through force and repression alone – it needs “the cement of morality”. To this end imperialist ideology has to present everything that threatens its interests as “immoral”. It is no wonder that the US repeatedly referred to the USSR as the “Evil Empire” during the Cold War era and neither is at any wonder that George W. Bush refers to non-compliant countries as “axis of evil” – he even told primary school kids “they hate us because we are so good.”

Imperialist class morality is nothing but a hypocritical cover for material self-interests, or simply an escapist withdrawal from the harsh realities of the class struggles each time the poor silent majority of this world makes any threatening move. The capitalist slogan has always been “Getting Ahead” – of course ahead of others at their expense, and this slogan is the route cause of all the imperialist lying, demagogy, deception and aggression as we have seen George W. Bush declaring that the Iraq-Afghanistan wars are the beginning of the “war of our children and our children’s children.”
One glaring characteristic of class morality is that it always abounds in obscene contrasts, something that serves as an indicator of the real ethical values of those who make up the class in question. The MDC for example is a party led by middle class aspirants who cannot wait for their chance to exercise Washington-prescribed political power.

They dutifully preach the class morality gospel of non-violence with the fury of an anointed evangelist whenever they talk against the perceived, imagined or real violent encounters with the ruling ZANU PF. However, David Coltart, Welshman Ncube and Trudy Stevenson have all taken their time to undress the fire-and-brimstone-preachers for what they really are; “a kitchen cabinet” coordinated by a gang of violent and murderous leaders. They, the aforementioned MDC officials, all talk of the attempted murder of one Peter Guhu, a then Director of Security at the MDC Harvest House head office in Harare on the 28th of September 2004.

They talk of the assault of senior members with views differing from those of the MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, and these include Priscilla Misihairambwi Mushonga, and as for Trudy Stevenson, she maintains she knows that those who attempted to chop her head off with a machete were MDC youngsters she had personally worked with for a long time.

This is besides the documented inter-party attacks where MDC youths have either clashed with or attacked their opponents from ZANU PF, that including one young life that was lost during the Kuwadzana by-election between Nelson Chamisa (MDC) and one David Mutasa of ZANU PF in 2003. In that case, MDC youths were reported as having attacked what they called a ZANU PF campaign base and the young fellow died in the inferno caused by the petrol bomb attack.

When they are not preaching the anti-violence gospel the MDC leaders are preaching human rights and democracy, never mind that many of the assigned preachers know nothing more than the mere pronunciation of the two terms. The MDC are so much endeared to this strange version of human rights that they see nothing wrong in celebrating a declining economy in their own country. They, in fact have no squabbles whatsoever with escalating the suffering of the people to a “tipping” point where everyone gets so uncontrollably angry and marches with the fury of a wounded buffalo to overthrow the government on behalf of Mr. Morgan Tsvangirai and his gang of shadow this and that.

How does one fail to see the contrast in starving the people whom one intends to protect from supposed tyrannical rule? The right to life is not a right to be protected only from murderous people and bandits but also a right to access basic needs for life in order to exist. Why then would a party claiming to be a champion of human rights ever be found campaigning for sanctions against its own people, especially through the mouth of its own leader?

As for democracy, the events on the 12th of October 2005, when Mr. Tsvangirai split the MDC, are a clear indicator of how much democracy, or is it the lack of it; actually ever existed in the insidious party.

The MDC leader did everything a democrat should never do, from calling for a vote with a preferred result in mind, disregarding an election result, marching out of a democratic gathering, lying about the result to the media and above all declaring a split because the majority opinion did not go his way.

From what moral ground, other than individual and class interests can such an individual as Mr. Tsvangirai ever preach the morality of democracy? The attacks directed at the Zimbabwe government fail to hit the mark because the arsenal hits straight at democracy itself and can never reach the intended target.

Yes, morality is class morality and this is why it should not surprise anyone that those so-called Bishops in the ZCBC stood arrogantly blind to the gravity of the allegations levelled against their class peer, one Pius Ncube. Unsurprisingly, they had no will for neither word or advert for a “lesser” member of the Catholic who apparently shared half the participation in the alleged misdoings. These are the contrasts abound in our world of today and they illustrate how ethical the clergy has become.

As for the synod of this anti-Zimbabwe gospel, the US-led western alliance the contrasts are rather disgusting.

Its now common knowledge that the US has been pouring an average 3 billion dollars a month into the Iraq war and sacrificing over 20 US lives a month. One has to contrast this with the 5 or so billion dollars that was donated by the entire western alliance towards the Tsunami victims in 2004. The difference in the financial inputs by these western ruling elite is a clear measure of what amount of morality, if any, lies in those imperialist hearts of theirs.

The western ruling elite instructed their powerful media to give saturation coverage of the tsunami, right down to pictures of the countless bodies, in an apparent world posturing of a deep sense of morality. But behold – where on mother earth is this powerful and most capable media when the countless bodies of innocent Iraqi civilians are lying all over Baghdad?

Of course, it would be politically impossible for the United States to continue existing the way it does now if the same tsunami saturation coverage was given to the carnage caused by Washington’s bloody war in Iraq.

One can talk of the morality of funding the Contras in Nicaragua, UNITA in Angola, Renamo in Mozambique, the Taliban in Afghanistan – all murderous outfits of neo-liberal reactionaries bent on taking advantage of the US’ own greed and selfish aspirations, all for their own selfish ends of accessing power outside the democratic route.

Now the economy of Zimbabwe is what it is in spite of, not because of the sanctions. If the sanctions had their way, Tsvangirai and his western handlers would long have established a million percent inflation rate and would have long switched off electricity for the country. They would have long ordered every company to leave Zimbabwe and would have long blocked the fuel pipelines with a permanent seal. This is typical class morality, all geared for class interests at the expense of the ordinary person.
Does it surprise anyone that the principle of price cuts to cushion the suffering poor was labelled populist? It was populist because it was immoral in the eyes of profiteering business people and those who believe in inducing rebellion and uprisings through the suffering of the common man.

It is in the context of class morality that this writer reads all the rhetoric about human rights, democracy, rule of law, tyranny, dictatorships and all the “noble virtues” of the industrialised West and the “evil deeds” of lesser countries as perceived by the US-led western alliance.

This writer thinks that Zimbabwe has done most of the cycle that makes up a revolution against imperialist interests and its time an internal settlement of the confusion of the last eight years was reached. Zimbabwe, like any other society does have social classes and this writer knows that priorities are also class based. Zimbabweans have generally stood resolute in very challenging times, to the benefit of the government and when the tide starts reversing as is likely to happen soon, one hopes the peasant and the poor of the poor will get their due reward.

It is only through an honest commitment to the people that a revolution can be sustained. The most tragic way to end a revolution is to betray the people. Zimbabwe needs to place the people where they belong in the settlement of the current challenges through the Thabo Mbeki dialogue initiative, if the dialogue contiunes. The initiative must realise where the silent majority of Zimbabwe are standing and they must know what they are thinking.

This is the silent majority with no access to the Internet or international forums but very much rooted in the national interest as defined by the resources and the wealth of the country, particularly the land. Those who have capitalised on the revolution for personal gain must read the times well and take note and change their ways and so should those who have enriched themselves through the suffering of the common person.

The tide comes with a new chapter and together we will overcome.