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Mugabe the martyr
The pan-African movement was an important movement in the continent's recent history. The idea that Africans, not only in Africa but world-wide, would unite to wrest away the continent's fortunes from European imperialists or Cold War-era superpowers in order to usher in a new, united Africa that acts on its own accord and benefits from its own actions is a truly noble thing.
But in the post-Cold War period, with the Western powers now largely ignoring Africa, the pan-African movement seems to be losing its way. Anyone who does not believe this fact should pick up the May issue of the New African magazine, the long-standing, respected publication of the pan-Africanist movement, and they will be convinced. The issue amounts to nothing less than a full, unadulterated sponsorship of Robert Mugabe's failed regime in Zimbabwe and it includes at its zenith an interview, filled with loaded, softball questions, of Mugabe himself with the magazine's editor Baffour Ankomah. In addition to the interview, page after page of a 'sponsored supplement' (sponsored, of course, by Zimbabwe's Ministry of Information and Publicity) paints the country's main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai as a violent instigator who essentially earned the beating that he received in March at the hands of Mugabe's police force by being a puppet of the West. Other articles take great pains to show that Mugabe actually enjoys wide-ranging support among the people of Zimbabwe. It also blames the country's 2,200% inflation rate and 80% unemployment rate entirely on the ruthless sanctions put into place by the United Kingdom and the United States. The supplement ends with a laughable quote made by Mugabe during his address last month at a gathering that marked the twenty-seventh year of Zimbabwe's independence where he congratulates his citizens for refusing to be "re-colonized" and, in typical Mugabe fashion, continues on to rail against the British government.
There is no mention of the massive food shortages, and resulting starvation, that has occurred since Mugabe's disastrous land redistribution policy began seven years ago. The shortages, of course, are blamed on drought and sanctions. There is no mention of the countless electoral irregularities that have occurred in Zimbabwe. There is no mention of the brutal sweep that Mugabe's thugs made through Harare recently that amounted to the destruction of hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses of Zimbabwe's people. There is plenty of talk about the Southern African Development Community's recent summit in Tanzania that resulted in what amounts to a shocking endorsement of Mugabe and his regime's practices. There is also plenty of discussion about the secret backroom dealings of the US and British governments, ruthlessly trying to undermine Mugabe's poor, peaceful, government despite the fact that it only wants what is best for its citizens.
Let's concede that Zimbabwe's situation might in fact be more complicated than what is regularly presented in the Western press. Its current troubles may be caused by a number of issues, it is fine to recognize that fact and it is fine to try to present both sides of the story. But when a nation's "democratically" elected leader, who has been in power for twenty-seven years, presides over a government that has the highest inflation rate in the world, one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, and the lowest life-expectancy in the world and, at the same time, is facing extreme food shortages that will likely result in the death of large numbers of its population, regularly ignores the rulings of the judicial branch of its government, suppresses freedom of the media, is continuously accused of human rights abuses by a wide range of governments and nongovernmental organizations, has been accused of rigging elections by multiple sources, and openly beats and tortures political opponents, that, in a nutshell, is the definition of a failed state. How would it be possible for a leader of such a failed state to hold any popularity at all unless it was through deception and tyrannical means? It is simply impossible.
Now, even if it is conceded that Mugabe isn't entirely to blame for the situation in Zimbabwe (and that would be a lot to concede), even if we agree that the West has to share some of the blame, how could anybody or any media outlet advance the notion, in 2007, that Mugabe is a freedom fighting victim of Western imperialism? How could anyone say that Mugabe really just wants what is best for the people of Zimbabwe and that if it wasn't for Tony Blair and George W. Bush and the evil meddling of their governments this would be the golden age of Zimbabwe?
It is a sad indication of the status of the pan-Africanist movement today when one of its most important media outlets decides to accept such an obviously flawed and dangerous argument. It is ironic too that Mugabe's argument is, in the end, diametrically opposed to the well-being of Zimbabwe's people, African people, the very thing that the pan-Africanists should be fighting hardest to protect.
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