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30 January 2010 By Reason Wafawarova
ZIMBABWEANS were left in no doubt that the unpopular
adumbration of describing the illegal and ruinous
economic sanctions on Zimbabwe as mere "restrictive
measures" as preferred by Prime Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai, and the vainglorious claim that it is
"only Zanu-PF" that can get the sanctions removed is
all mischievous hot air from the lips of
‘‘aristocrats’’ whose regard for the ordinary man is
akin to that of Satan for those under his temptation.
David Miliband, the British foreign and
Commonwealth secretary articulately enlightened the
whole world in the clearest of terms that the British
foreign policy on Zimbabwe is "above all" guided by
the MDC-T leadership.
He did not call the sanctions by any scanty name
like "restrictive measurers", as would those from MDC-T,
notably Tsvangirai and the bunch of cheerleaders from
his office.
In response to a question in the House of Commons,
Miliband had this to say, "In respect of sanctions, we
have made it clear that they can be lifted only in a
calibrated way, as progress is made. I do not think
that it is right to say that the choice is between
lifting all sanctions and lifting none at all.
"We have to calibrate our response to the progress
on the ground, and, above all, to be guided by what
the MDC says to us about the conditions under which it
is working and leading the country."
Clearly, the British are not going to be guided by
any action or lack of it, from Zanu-PF. Their game is
"above all" guided by MDC-T and it is this very party
that mobilised, organised and guaranteed the sanctions
in the first place.
They legitimised the illegal sanctions by welcoming
them in the name of a "persecuted" people.
MDC-T and its leader have in the past openly
bragged about "making Zimbabwe ungovernable" and in
2008 they adopted the infamous "tongai tione" motto,
bragging that they would call on their "international
partners" to starve Zimbabwe "until the regime falls".
This is the philosophy behind the compilations of
names of individuals and over 40 key companies that
are on the sanctions lists of Western governments and
the EU — compilations that were all done at Harvest
House for the benefit of these imperialist elites.
A former high-ranking MDC official has gone public
revealing that the party drafted the sanctions law,
the so-called Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery
Act for the Americans, and that assertion has not been
contested by anyone from MDC-T.
This revelation was not news to the majority of
Zimbabweans who are quite clear on the destruction
capabilities of Morgan Tsvangirai and his party.
Zimbabweans have been openly threatened with
starvation, diseases and all manner of suffering "if
you allow the regime" to rule.
Every Zimbabwean over the age of five knows who
said, "Muri kuti muri kushayiwa? Hamuna chekudya,
zvino muchanyatsoshayisisa chaizvo izvo", meaning,
"You think you have suffered lack and shortages yet?
You ain’t seen anything yet, you will suffer real lack
and that without fail".
These were utterances made by Morgan Tsvangirai at
a political rally and they have been replayed quite
often.
It is now absolutely ludicrous for MDC-T to keep
playing the democratic soldiers and to pretend with
straight faces that they are a party that cares for
Zimbabweans, let alone a "party of excellence".
It is in their power and capacity to tell their
British masters and by extension the masters of the
British themselves, the Americans; that Zimbabweans
have suffered enough under the ruinous sanctions
regime, and that the sanctions have to be lifted. Yet
this has not happened, and all despite the agreement
in the GPA that MDC-T would actively denounce
sanctions and also advocate the removal of the same.
The simple reason for what MDC-T is doing is that
to them, political power is more important than the
people.
Where they accuse Zanu-PF of using violence to push
people into submission, they themselves go for
economic strangulation and mass starvation to push an
entire nation into political submission.
The thousands who have died because of the ruinous
sanctions are mere collateral damage to MDC-T’s
notorious cause of leveraging Zanu-PF by starving the
nation.
The charlatans that compromise MDC-T leadership
have the temerity to pretend they did not hear
Miliband, and they of course underestimate the
intelligence of the common man, believing all the way
that they can make the nation believe it’s all
Mugabe’s fault always.
Eliphas Mukonoweshuro cannot try to obfuscate a
message as clear as was said by Miliband without
making a perfect fool of himself, and he should have
known better.
The question that needs an answer is what exactly
is MDC-T and what do they want to achieve? They call
themselves the "Movement for Democratic Change" but
are they in reality after "democracy"?
The MDC-T is led by people who see the path to
privilege and authority in service to state-corporate
power.
As David Hume wrote in his "First Principles of
Government", "responsible men" are guided by an
intuitive understanding of a maxim formulated to
ensure that "the many are governed by the few" and to
guarantee "the implicit submission with which men
resign their own sentiments and passions to those of
their rulers".
By keeping the sanctions regime running the MDC-T
hopes to get all Zimbabweans to surrender all their
aspirations and passions, land reclamation included,
to the rule of the MDC-T as directed by Britain and
her Western allies.
Hume’s philosophy propounds that governors must
control thought processes of the masses. He wrote, "It
is therefore, on opinion only that government is
founded; and its maxim extends to the most despotic
and most military governments, as well as to the most
free and most popular".
Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin observed that "the
worst of all despotic governments" was from this class
of "red bureaucrats" emerging from a "new class" of
intellectuals.
Thomas Jefferson made these reflections earlier
when he reviewed the classical liberal thought and the
libertarian socialist perspective. In his last years
Jefferson had serious concerns about the fate of the
democratic experiment. He made a distinction between
"aristocrats and democrats".
Jefferson defined aristocrats as "those who fear
and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers
from them into the hands of the higher classes". The
democrats in contrast are those who "identify with the
people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider
them as honest and safe, although not the most wise
depository of the public interest".
The aristocrats of Jefferson’s day were the
advocates of the rising capitalist state, which
Jefferson regarded with disdain because of the obvious
contradiction between democracy and capitalism,
whether in the state-guided Western model, or some
other form.
The MDC-T cannot claim to identify with Zimbabweans
when they mobilised ruinous sanctions against the
people. MDC-T leaders cannot claim to have confidence
in the people when Tsvangirai equated newly resettled
farmers to wild mushrooms sprouting on white occupied
farmlands.
The party cannot claim to cherish and consider our
people as honest and safe when they clearly think the
masses that reclaimed stolen farmlands are a danger to
their Rhodesian donors.
Rather the MDC-T fears and distrusts Zimbabwe, and
wish to draw all power from them into the hands of
imperialist elites who finance their party. This is
why the MDC-T thinks Britain must have more power over
the economic affairs of Zimbabwe first, before they
can have sanctions lifted.
MDC-T leaders are committed advocates for a
capitalist state whose affairs are run from London and
Washington, and they have expressed open disdain for
capital from within Zimbabwe and from countries like
South Africa and China.
MDC-T hopes to secure the reign of Western capital
through moneyed banking institutions and corporations
so that they can put the Zimbabwean "public in its
place"; that is, providing cheap labour for private
profiteers, and they want a Zimbabwe that is free of
"democratic dogmatisms" like how the popular land
reform program is viewed in the West.
As John Dewey noted in his later years, "politics
is the shadow cast on society by big business" and as
long as this is so, "the attenuation of the shadow
will not change the substance".
Real democracy requires that the source of this
shadow be removed, and this shadow is the lifeline of
the MDC-T; as the party is entirely funded by this
massive shadow of imperialist business.
Democracy requires the removal of this shadow not
only because of its domination of the political arena,
but because the very institutions of private power
undermine democracy and freedom.
Dewey was very explicit about the kind of power he
was talking about. He said, "power today resides in
control of the means of production, exchange,
publicity, transportation and communication. Whoever
owns them rules the life of the country".
Dewey described "actual power" as "business for
private profit through private control of banking,
land, industry, reinforced by command of the press,
press agents and other means of publicity and
propaganda".
This explains Minister Biti’s advocacy for Western
financial control over the economy, together with his
hysterical lobbying for a tax-free regime for foreign
media. That is exactly how you create actual power for
owners of capital.
The system we are talking about here is a source of
coercion and control, as are the sanctions illegally
imposed on Zimbabwe at the request of Tsvangirai and
his colleagues. Unless this system is unravelled we
cannot talk of democracy and freedom; all we can talk
of is government by the nobility, or aristocracy.
We cannot continue to have a system that will train
our children to work, not freely and intelligently,
but for the sake of the work earned, and designed all
to make profits for private power. This is the
glorious history of the farm worker of yesteryear whom
Zimbabwe is accused of depriving of an awesome
lifestyle under the employment of the white farmer.
These people toiled day and night for nothing else
but the profits of the slave masters that "employed"
them.
They had nothing more than food enough to allow
them to provide hard labour for their taskmaster and
no more than scant dressing to hide their private
parts while toiling on the farms. They were under the
system of "actual power" as Dewey would put it, and
MDC-T wants this aristocratic power restored.
This is why they find it hard to advise the British
that Zimbabwe does not deserve the illegal sanctions
they imposed. They view the lifting of sanctions as
the lifting of their control over an economically
subdued population. It is all just too sad.
There must be a public outcry for MDC-T to do
exactly what Miliband said he is waiting to see from
them.
The Prime Minister must call sanctions by their
name as his financiers represented by Miliband are
doing.
He must unequivocally call for the lifting of these
sanctions or else he must admit he has no intentions
to make any positive contribution for the country.
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