IF the future of Africa lies in the hands of men like Raila Odinga of Kenya and his friends in Zimbabwe such as Tendai Biti and Morgan Tsvangirai, then as Africans we are all doomed.
‘Safa saphela iSizwe saBansundu bakithi!’
Addressing the so-called World Economic Forum in South Africa, Mr Odinga had only harsh words for the President of Zimbabwe and the country’s electoral process.
He also rubbished the entire African leadership past and present saying Africa remains poor because of the mediocrity of its leadership and lamented the fact that Africans were blaming colonialism for their problems when according to him Asian countries that had similarly been colonised were apparently thriving well compared to Africa.
That must have been sweet music to all imperialists—an African colonial apologist trying to revise the history of our struggles both current and gone-by to the advantage of the colonisers.
I do not know what political geography this man who boasts in his website that he is a former university lecturer (www.raila07.com) studied or reads. The last time I checked, and that was today, Bangladesh was still one of the poorest countries in the world. Forbes actually lists it as one of the fifty most poverty stricken nations of the world. Sri Lanka was still an island in turmoil with a rampant civil war still tearing the country apart. Nepal was not making any economic waves contenting itself with the abolition of its century’s old monarchy in pursuit of the elixir of a perfect democracy. In Myanmar there was said to be widespread hunger exacerbated by the ravages of the country’s latest disastrous cyclone.
Further afield, Pakistan remains a smouldering cauldron ready to erupt in flames any time. Afghanistan is hardly recognizable as a nation. In truth it has been a failed state since United States invaded in 2001. With its more than a billion people, India remains riven by economic inequalities, sectarian conflict, religious and tribal violence. Its caste system—used as a divisive weapon by the British imperialists last century—is responsible for the current violent clashes in Mumbai. Human rights against these so called Dalits numbering 160 million people are too many and too painful to list. Even as far as the Philippines examples of poverty and depravation bequeathed to the world by Western colonialist imperialist policies abound.
So what better progress has Asian countries made in comparison to Africa is this man talking about?
Indeed due to its colonial history, most of Asia remains poor, unstable and underdeveloped same as much of Africa.
It is therefore moronic and idiotic for the Kenyan Prime Minister, to ridicule the founders of independent Africa by saying they were sleeping on the job when it is obvious the man is totally ignorant about the workings of the present world order and the international system.
Making simplistic statements about governance, democracy and economic progress has become the standard talk for the new opposition parties in Africa today.
The West, through NGOs which fortunately have been banned in Zimbabwe pending the next election, has managed to manipulate the minds of our new breed of African opposition leaders to the extent that they hate themselves so much for being African. Whilst the men of the generation that fought for us to get our Independence like Kenyatta, Kaunda, Nkomo, Neto, Machel and so on were happy to call themselves African Nationalists through and through, now we have these upstarts like Raila Odinga calling themselves Social Democrats, espousing unworkable Western capitalist rooted doctrines and feeling good about insulting the last of Africa’s revolutionaries like President Mugabe and President Mbeki with relish.
Because they have no-time for anything authentically African, these new champions of our “democracy” work with the former colonizers to undermine African national institutions. They are foot soldiers of nefarious imperialist organisations that are seeking to re-colonize us by stealth.
They have become used to generous funding from their pay masters like WFD, IRI and others.
In their warped minds democratically elected leaders are either corrupt, dictatorial or both and therefore can legitimately be removed from power via street protest/violence by ill-educated urban mobs high on drugs bought and paid for by some donations from some shadowy NGOs. These are the guys who jet off around the globe talking down our elected leaders calling for foreign armies to invade and occupy our countries. They campaign for sanctions on their people leading to widespread economic meltdown as we see in Zimbabwe and brazenly blaming sitting governments for resulting economic difficulties.
On his website, Raila shamelessly calls for sanctions on Kenya. He has not even bothered to strike the offending page out now that he is in the so-called government of national unity because I suspect to him, it is an honourable thing to have called for hunger and hardship to be visited on his own motherland.
Bob Marley singing about mental slavery must have foreseen that Africa would come to this bleeding end at the hands of her sell-out children.
When Odinga thundered, “It would not happen in Europe. Let us say what we mean and mean what we say when we talk about African development,…..the way it has been ruled is responsible for Africa’s underdevelopment,” one could indeed sense the man was not comfortable with the skin he was born in.
People like this man and Biti and the West’s favourite adopted son after Mandela, Morgan Tsvangirai, love the motherland so much that they are not loath to spill (or threaten to spill) a bit of precious African blood in pursuit of political power.
Odinga presided over the death of 1 500 Kenyans and the displacement of 600 000 others so as to get into government via violence. Even before the election, his warlike language was stupendous. Notes the Africa Policy Brief (No. 1 Jan 2008):
“The road to Kenya’s 2007 election was a deadly minefield of ethnic fighting in many parts of Kenya, including Kerusoi and Mt Elgon in the Rift Valley and Western provinces, respectively. Hyped idiom of war during campaigns heightened tension to a perilous pitch. “We shall attack the enemy from every direction”, Raila quoted Winston Churchill’s war-time speech, and “We shall launch a simultaneous attack from the land, the air and sea, until we secure victory.”
The threat of violence became explicit during the ODM’s final rally in Nairobi on 24 December when the party leadership threatened to stage a “Ukrainian-style civil unrest if the government rigged”.
Contrast this with the language of the MDC and it becomes apparent that these people sing from the same hymn sheet authored and inspired by their imperialist handlers in the West.
The MDC-T camp on the eve of Zimbabwe’s harmonised elections said, “The lesson from (the election of) 2002 is we didn't plan for after the vote. Everyone stayed at home and said we will go to the courts. What happened in Kenya was they knew there would be fraud and they were ready. We will be out in the streets celebrating when the polls close. It can turn into a protest easily. Zimbabweans are angry; they are desperate; they are ready to protest. It's the tipping point we are planning for."
In an earlier election in 2000, Tsvangirai had warned via the same belligerent language then yet to be adopted by ODM/Odinga, that he would remove Mugabe violently if Mugabe did not leave peacefully.
Immediately before the March 29 elections both factions of the MDC made deafening noises about how Mugabe was about to steal the election and win a bogus landslide victory.
In doing so, Stephen Gowans, commenting on Western subterfuge and policies in Africa, says:
“The opposition had planned to use the March 29 elections to follow the color revolution script written in Washington to springboard to power. That script called on the opposition to declare victory in elections before the first vote was cast, and then to denounce any outcome other than a clear opposition victory as evidence of electoral fraud. If the opposition failed to prevail at the polls, its supporters were to be mobilized to take to the streets to bring down the government, in a repeat of previous Western-engineered color revolutions in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine.”
Whilst the model did work to a large extent in Kenya, it failed in Zimbabwe even after Tendai Biti brazenly declared that his boss Morgan had won the election with a landslide victory before the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission had even finished collating the results.
Therefore Biti is now to be found contenting himself by warning the world day in day out about the outbreak of civil war so that the MDC can be taken into a government of national unity if they lose at the ballot box in a couple of weeks.
The GNU template is a new Western ploy to get their stooges into the state machinery and erode our African democracies from within.
It appears to be the fall back position when a colour revolution fails to take off to desired effect.
In Zimbabwe, it remains to be seen if Zanu PF will buy into this latest Western ploy now given that even a respectable African statesman like President Kaunda has been roped in to demand the same.
It is indeed galling to have outright western imperial agents in our African midst giving lectures about democracy to principled African revolutionaries like Mbeki at so-called world forums that are organised, sponsored and facilitated by reactionaries.
What is even more stunning is that these guys are following quite an obvious script, yet there are no outpourings of outrage from the children of the motherland. They are shallow and make overly simplistic statements about human rights, freedom and justice, yet many compatriots fall for their sickening rhetoric.
They use the same language daily to articulate their masters’ policies, yet millions of our children still buy into all this hogwash. Morgan Tsvangirai even has the audacity to call himself a freedom fighter. He says his desire to subvert our Revolution and reverse our Independence and political gains is a struggle that equates to our fight against the Rhodies.
What preposterous nonsense!
Africa, it’s time to get out of your slumber. It’s time to gird the loins and defend the Revolution. There is no Nkomo, Kenyatta or Machel to fight for you anymore. Mugabe is an old valiant warrior on his last legs. Mbeki cannot struggle alone. Our children must wake up and take up the struggle. We cannot allow political dimwits high on Western praise and adulation to continue taking the continent down the sewage drain.
Leaders like Raila and Morgan and the rest of their ilk in the Western funded Africa Liberal Network only serve foreign interests. To them being a statesman means being welcomed to second rate neo-liberal get-togethers like the recently ended 55th congress of Liberal International where they wine and dine with dubious characters from counter-revolutionary entities like the Democratic Alliance in South Africa under the approving watchful eye of their Western puppeteers.
Entrusting our future to these political charlatans is tantamount to committing suicide via a fast action rat poison. Africa deserves better.
A leader like President Mugabe has indeed overstayed at State House. He should be in retirement, writing his memoirs by now. But how is he expected to leave the country in the hands of upstarts who have no clue what it means to be free and be rid of colonialists forever?
How is a man who sacrificed so much being imprisoned by Rhodie colonists and racists hand over his country to clueless imperialist sponsored stooges because Raila Odinga a man whose political depth is questionable says so? Safa saphela iSizwe saBansundu!
Mdelelwa Mdelelwa
mdelelwa1@yahoo.co.uk
