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31 May 2010 By Reason Wafawarova IMPERIAL
hegemony as an establishment must project false and
injurious ideologies that are accepted by its victims,
and tradition has it that these ideologies are often
portrayed as givens, as natural and as incontestable.
When the United States insists on maintaining
illegal economic sanctions on Zimbabwe, and doing so
on the basis of pressing for "democratic reforms", the
whole idea is to project a fraudulent ideology that is
to be seen as not subject to question.
This is essentially the thinking and philosophy
behind the proposed amendments to ZDERA, renaming it
ZTDERA, as the US tries to administer a "transition"
of governance in Harare from its Congress House in
Washington.
To the US empire democratic reforms simply mean a
governance system that is reliant on Western hegemony
and that complies with the dictates of imperial
authority.
For Zimbabwe, Prime Minister Tsvangirai is seen by
the West as the face of that kind of a governance
system, and subsequently any system that does not
allow him and his party to run the affairs of Zimbabwe
fails the "democratic reforms" test.
When the victims of Western imperialistic
domination accept its ideologies uncritically, they
automatically accept the rulership and dominance of
the imperialistic Westerner.
The sad part is that the victims then begin to
identify positively with the very group that is
responsible for their problems.
The imperialistic Westerner has almost successfully
defined for about half the population of Zimbabwe what
democracy should be all about, namely abstract
freedoms to do with Press, elections, media,
association — freedoms solidly silent on shelter,
food, land, water and other basic essentials needed
for human survival.
The abstractions are the new post Cold War pretexts
that allow the West to pick up bullying conflicts with
nation states that stand in the way of imperialism —
pretexts that are a replacement to the old enemy;
Communism.
It does not matter that the oldest Western
democracy, Britain, just produced a very strange
coalition, under stranger circumstances at the
strangest of times.
When the Britons thought they were speaking
strongly against the Iraq War and its excesses on the
economy of Britain by doing away with the Tony Blair
and the New Labour legacy, as taken over by the
unassuming Gordon Brown; what became of their efforts?
They had a chaotic election process that clearly
failed to accommodate the voice and opinion of its own
electorate, and that is by the admission of British
media and commentators.
They now have David Cameron and his Conservatives,
largely seen in British circles as a love child of
George W. Bush and Margaret Thatcher — the former a
legendary war monger and the later a military weapons
fundamentalist. Cameron comes in spiced up in a
coalition with Nick Clegg and his Liberal Democrats, a
revived forgotten joke from the 1920s.
Britons can take heart in that there are other
people in the world who have also seen that democracy
can be an absolute scandal.
Zimbabweans have known it since 2000 that democracy
can elect absolute idiots into political office,
especially when the electorate is polarised.
We had that forgotten runaway kid, Tafadzwa
Musekiwa, gracing parliament at the age of 24 in 2000,
before he discovered that he was in a terribly boring
place; away from youthful fantasies.
He just fled the place they call the august house
to be with other youngsters –—away to the mesmerising
glittering lights of London, leaving behind his
overexcited hyper-ambitious friend, Job Sikhala, to
secure yet another term of office in 2005 — well,
before hell broke loose for him in 2008; only to
produce another marvellous joke.
Zimbabwe’s urban councils are today littered with
political jokes masquerading as councillors and this
is how scandalous democracy can be. But I digress.
We are told by psychiatrists that mental problems,
juvenile delinquency, criminality and other social
problems, do stem from family relations.
While this may be true, there is always the
political dimension that says families themselves are
shaped by the political situation in which they are
embedded.
The African mother, father or child cannot escape
the politics of colour that was introduced by
colonialism and apartheid; cannot escape the politics
of segregatory economic privileges and the politics of
marginalisation, even in post-independent Africa.
So we cannot convincingly explain the problems
bedevilling the African of today without looking at
the political context of Africa today, and how that
context evolved from the political context of the
colonial years.
It is like trying to explain the drunken stupor of
the Aboriginal person in Australia without looking at
the political context in which the Aboriginals
co-exist with those who conquered and occupied their
land.
These social problems are often prevalent as
political necessities to sustain a dominant system
that benefits itself from the crisis.
In order for Africans and Aboriginals in Australia
to be where they are today, and not to have NATO
pointing guns to each of their heads to sustain
imperial hegemony, these people must be maintained in
a particular state of mind — in essence out of their
minds — literally.
So neo-colonialism and imperialism use mental
maladaptiveness among our people as a political tool;
as a social necessity, and this is instigated by
political force, deception, and other forms of
propaganda.
So we have this anaesthetic democracy imposed upon
our minds in order to keep us running after abstract
freedoms and liberties while the Westerner pillages
our wealth and resources to maintain his privileged
position. In fact the kind of democracy that Western
nations preach, fund and back for developing countries
is nothing but an unachievable abstraction.
The political necessity to deceive the world’s
majority is based on the demographic fact that the
European population is just about 10 percent of the
world’s population. The European only inhabits a small
part of the globe and the parts that he occupies are
relatively resourceless when compared to those
occupied by non-Europeans.
Yet the European is saddled with great wealth,
economic and political power.
He controls the world and maintains humanity in a
state of terror, and is capable of executing the
earth’s suicide.
The question is how does such a minority of people,
essentially resourceless in terms of natural resources
maintain the power that they have over all others?
Why is it that the people whose lands contain so
much of the wealth of the earth are the poorest of all
people?
Africa has no less than 30 strategic metals that
make the space age possible and yet the image of
Africa portrayed in the West is that of starving
children, that of a society in disorder, and that of a
society on the verge of disaster.
The idea is to keep in existence a political,
social and economic situation wherein the mental
orientation of the African must be so structured that
the power and the ability of the European to rule this
earth are continually maintained.
We are then kept out of our minds by a simple
method of contradictions and conflicts: where the mind
is kept occupied by what appears to be unresolvable
problems and dilemmas, and an endless pursuit of
rhetoric and donor funded abstract goals.
This is why economic embargoes and sanctions are so
very important to Western mentality.
They, like sponsored proxy wars and civil wars of
the Cold War era, do provide a dilemma with two horns
at each extreme.
They produce on one hand extreme conformity as can
be seen through pro-West political parties like Morgan
Tsvangirai’s MDC-T, or extreme rebellion as can be
seen through liberation movements like Zanu PF of
Zimbabwe or the ANC Youth League of South Africa; yes
Youth League; because it is only them expressing this
rebellion at the moment.
The two extremes are specifically designed to
maintain the status quo, to keep the African out of
his mind, so to speak.
This is why the so-called outstanding issues
between Zanu PF and the MDC-T are so central to
Western foreign policy on Zimbabwe.
They provide the necessary contradictions that will
keep Zimbabweans apart and out of their minds.
So did the sponsored civil wars immediately after
the fall of colonialism.
They kept the new African governments out of their
minds and that allowed imperial hegemony to continue
unabated.
For the Westerner to rule the world the way he does
today, at least to intimidate it as he does, these
contradictions and conflicts must be a chronic part of
the lives of all non-Westerners, as well as the
mainstream Western populations.
Public Western opinion does not subscribe to
intimidation and domination of others so it is
important that the mainstream Westerner is made to see
these contradictions and conflicts the way Western
political elites want them seen.
The Imperialist must essentially function in a very
devilish way, a fashion that uses deception as its
major weapon.
The end result is often a reversal of fundamental
values. The good must appear to be the bad and the bad
must be seen as the good.
Light must be taken for darkness and darkness for
light. The truth must be taken for the lie and the lie
for the truth.
This is why reclamation of colonially stolen farm
land in Zimbabwe is painted in so much bad light. It
is for the same reason that the indigenisation policy
designed to economically empower Zimbabweans is
demonised as the best known way to scare away
investors.
This writer was last week faced by a bold
declaration from one of his readers from the West that
Zanu PF and President Mugabe rigged the 1980, 1985,
1990, 1995, 1996 and all other elections that ever
took place in Zimbabwe.
The reader said he was convinced Zanu PF and
President Mugabe lost all those elections and stole
them from various parties, including the late Abel
Muzorewa’s UANC.
It is very important for imperialism to peddle such
a lie because it will create the necessary
contradictions and conflicts to sustain minority
hegemony.
Botswana has become the West’s point country in the
Sadc, and all because they do facilitate the necessary
contradictions and conflicts required by imperial
domination.
Everybody else is treated with scepticism because
they have refused to do the West’s bidding on
Zimbabwe. They are thus seen as getting closer to
rediscovering their minds and that must be prevented
by all means.
It is most unpleasing that the Prime Minister of
Zimbabwe was reported to have welcomed the proposed
changes to ZDERA, the US illegal sanctions law on
Zimbabwe, arguing that the changes would "reward"
reformists who are working towards establishing
democracy in Zimbabwe.
Who are the Americans to judge the democracy of
Zimbabwe, let alone reward its implementation?
Why would a Prime Minister of an African country
welcome any form of a sanctions law against his own
people?
This is the extreme conformity that Washington is
looking for as they seek to establish client regimes
across the world.
A Prime Minister who cannot say no to sanctions
imposed on the government to which he is a principal
is an absolute scandal in every sense of the word.
Equally, the whole idea of "democratic reforms" is
just an absolute scandal to secure conformity and
compliance to imperialistic control and Western
hegemony.
Democratic reforms for Zimbabweans must be a matter
for Zimbabweans as the AU and Sadc have repeatedly
said.
They cannot be an administrative matter for
Washington or part of the US Congress’ legislative
mandate.
Reason Wafawarova is a political writer and can
be contacted on
wafawarova@yahoo.co.uk or reason@ rwafawarova.com
or visit
www.rwafawarova.com
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