When “THEY” tell us Africans are stupid, we cringe

By Nomazulu Thata

When we are told by them that “Africans are as a matter of fact not only unintelligent but also very stupid,” we become very annoyed and we shout on top of our voices; down with imperialist thinking that Africans are inferior.

So how do we justify the Chairmanship of a nonagenarian: 91-year-old Robert Mugabe at the African Union right now – to the applause of fellow African Presidents. He must be wearing his diapers sitting at the AU chair addressing over 50 heads of States.

Are we telling our children that a president can abuse power for over 35 years and still be revered in Africa as one of the “greatest statesmen of our time“? Are we telling our children and children’s children that a president can rule for ever until he collapses from his office without formally passing on the baton to the younger capable ones?

Are we telling our children that elections can be rigged and it does not matter to Africa? Why are African Presidents doing this to us? Are they aware of what Mugabe has destroyed in Zimbabwe?

Are they aware that he was an architect of genocide between 1980 and 1987 that claimed 20,000 lives; of the farm invasions of 2000 that killed thousands of farm workers and displaced over half a million people; of Murambatsvina that left thousands of citizens dead and displaced three quarters of the urban population; and of the 2008 general elections that claimed thousands of lives and displaced millions.

Worshiped by heads of state

Yet here he is at the highest centre of Africa’s Headquarters – worshipped by the Heads of States. Why are their memories selective? This is a very bad example to the young people of Africa.

Should we wonder then when we Africans (still trying to cross the road) are still crawling while many other countries have exponentially developed leaving Africans basket cases of hunger, poverty and a hotbed of diseases: HIV/AIDS, malaria, ebola, just name any disease it’s found in Africa too. They whisper in their verandas to avoid insults that Africans are stupid!

Mugabe ruled Zimbabwe with an iron-fist from the onset, although the rhetoric during the liberation was that the new Zimbabwe policies would be socialist oriented. Everything about socialism and Vashandi/Izisebenzi stopped on April 18, 1980.

Mugabe and his henchmen co-opted the racist Smith’s regime economic policies in word and script. Their economic policies were disastrous since 1980. The land issue was not negotiated beyond the Lancaster agreement – 70% of the land belonged to 4,500 white farmers. As it turned out, however, imperialism could not believe its luck.

From the very beginning, Mugabe was a faithful worshipper of the market, and dedicated himself to the preservation of capitalism. Workers who went on strike and occupied factories believing that the ‘people’s government’ would welcome this, found themselves staring into the barrels of the guns of liberation.

While Mugabe was entertaining Anglo-American’s Harry Oppenheimer in the capital, Harare, workers at the Anglo-American owned Wankie colliery were driven back to work at gunpoint. (From the socialist Today. Issue 47, 2000)

Clueless from the start

A quarter of Zimbabwe’s economy was in the hands of foreign investors; Britain, South Africa and America were the business partners and stakeholders. The environment to pursue neo-liberal policies inherited from the Smith regime was perfect.

By the beginning of the 1990s the government of Zanu was clueless as it largely depended on the economic prescriptions from the world fiscal lending bodies; World Bank and IMF.

ESAP was introduced; an economic prescription that had dismally failed other countries in Sub-Sahara; it was accepted as an economy recovery pill. The government was instructed to cut down on social spending; they did.

They were told to deregulate their markets to attract investment in the already economic ailing Zimbabwe, they did – notwithstanding the number of people who got retrenched when the big companies started to relocate to South Africa and other places.

The war veterans, disgruntled about the economic developments, demanded compensation for their contributions in the struggle for independence. They got it – and the Zimdollar plummeted, never to recover. – Don‘t miss part 2 next week.