Zimbabwe and Namibia: The people betrayed
In 1980 the Zimbabwean “povo” (people) celebrated a victory over settler colonialism and Western imperialism. We celebrated with them. For us, this was a step closer to Namibian sovereignty, even though the overwhelming victory of ZANU was time-wise a detour on our long road to Independence. The unexpected result had taught Western imperialism a lesson. It shattered its manic assumptions that one could orchestrate and manipulate an election, even if the people are allowed to cast a secret vote at the ballot. Without major intimidation the “povo” used the weapon of an electoral process, by voting for the cock (the symbol for Mugabe’s ZANU), and not the archbishop (Abel Muzorewa, who was considered the blue eyed boy of the West). The people knew what they wanted: a government of their own choice, which they had reasons to believe would represent their interests.
Almost three decades later, 18 years into Namibian Independence, we have to face the sobering realities: Mugabe and his loyal clique in ZANU/PF messed it up. By the end of the 1990s they had lost the “povo.” While they blamed Western imperialism for this, it was in the first place their own elitist neocolonial project, which betrayed the liberation gospel and thereby the people. From the start, the new rulers were not shy of ruthlessly violent practices. Remember the genocidal mass violence in Matabeleland shortly after Independence (“Gukuhurundi”). Tens of thousand innocent people were tortured, maimed, raped, mutilated and slaughtered between 1983 and 1985 by the North Korean trained Fifth Brigade. Only because being Ndebele they were considered guilty of being in support of Josuah Nkomo’s ZAPU, a competing liberation movement finally coerced into the ZANU/PF alliance. With a few exceptions (notably the Catholic church inside Zimbabwe), those who knew remained silent and thereby endorsed if not encouraged the perpetrators to further cultivate their dehumanizing version of “chimurenga” against the people.
The violent nature of the new elite in control over the state displayed similiar features to the mindset of those “Rhodies” they were fighting against during the “chimurenga”. It was the language of coercion and oppression, which dictated the colonial reality and crept into the “liberated” society, where it prospered and flourished. By the time of Independence, the former victims had turned increasingly into perpetrators to achieve their goals. More than twenty years later the degree of violence and brutality with which they treated their fellow-Zimbabweans had exceeded the atrocities under colonial rule and made life for the majority of the people more miserable than before Independence.
When the self-enrichment schemes of the new elite alienated its members and their beneficiaries more and more from the “povo”, they blamed Western imperialism for the deterioration of legitimate rule and the erosion of credibility. But the anti-imperialist rhetoric, which became an opportunistic, populist effort to cover up the own failures, was merely a smoke screen. It worked for many among those, who were not at the receiving end of the government’s policy at home. Those, who could afford to identify with the pseudo-alternative discourse promoted by Mugabe at a time, when he had already lost the confidence and support of his very own people. In contrast to these privileged outsiders, who could cheer to the misleading tune without consequence for themselves, those who were supposed to benefit from the fruits of Independence now fled their home country in the millions. More than ever before under colonial rule have meanwhile ended in exile and wait for the time to return. That is in itself an outrageous scandal.
After twenty years under Mugabe’s ZANU/PF, Zimbabweans moved away in ever growing numbers from the liberation movement in power. Manipulated elections could not cover up the realities that Mugabe had lost the “povo.” Not because of an imperialist conspiracy, which sought to undermine a nationalist government challenging the West. But because those who pretend to uphold the banner of anti-imperialism had in actual fact betrayed the very same people whose interests they claimed to represent. As a matter of fact, the people did not even count any longer. As Mugabe stated just ahead of the scheduled runoff presidential vote to a group of businessmen in Bulawayo: “Only God, who appointed me, will remove me.” – The voice and vote of the “povo” had been eliminated from the justification of executing power.
In an act of betrayal, the Zimbabwean sell-outs posed as truthful revolutionaries, while they served foremost their own narrow class interests. Operation “Murambatsvina” (meaning “clean out the rubbish” or “sweep out the dirt”) destroyed in a large-scale operation during 2005 systematically the shacks of the urban dwellers, while Mugabe and his clan lived in the luxury of palaces. The poorest were even robbed of what was left to them. The derogatory term, in which reference was made to the tens of thousand of marginalized, as if they would be vermin, speaks for itself. This was the arrogance of power, alienated from the masses. The same masses, who once formed the basis for a successful struggle against the minority rule in control if not over the people, then at least over the state power and its repressive military and police apparatus.
How similar is the situation today. Again an estranged minority maintains rule by all means and at all costs over a majority yearning for change. Only that the minority regime is not foreign. The “intimate enemy”, as the Indian post-colonial theorist Ashis Nandy termed it, is born and bread under colonialism and socialized in a colonial context and its terms, no matter how much it poses as its alternative. It comes from the belly of the beast. It speaks the same language of power. It shows the same disrespect for human rights and democracy. It documents that the colonial legacy is not yet defeated. Imperialism, as the ultimate irony of the story, lives on in the pseudo-anti-imperialist postures of the regime, which has lost the people but tries to compensate for this by claiming to challenge imperialism.
If the project of liberation from foreign rule was more than mere lip service to cover up a neo-colonial elite project, we need to position ourselves in no uncertain terms in opposition to such betrayal. We need to re-define our notion of solidarity. It is not us, who turn our back to solidarity by taking the ZANU/PF regime to task and deny it any rightful claim to a continued existence. It is the words and deeds of the ZANU/PF regime, which show that they have lost any moral claim to any form of recognition and support. This does not mean that we end up as bedfellows to the Blairs, Browns, Bushs and Co., as long as we continue to condemn in no uncertain terms their double talk, their Guantanamo Bays, their invasions, their inherent racist immigration policies, their state terror dubbed as “war against terror”, their hegemonic global projects. We have little to nothing in common with them, even though we criticize like they do in certain cases the same violation of fundamental human values. Our motives are different. But if we compromise on this, we compromise our values and end up as bedfellows to the Mugabes. This cannot be the alternative.
Our position to Zimbabwe should be guided by our commitment to true liberation, which embodies a democratic, human rights oriented culture within a socio-economic system seeking to at least reduce (if not to eliminate) the indecent proportions of inequality. The struggle for political self-determination was a struggle for emancipation also in economic terms. It was a struggle for human dignity shared by all. Those who deny such human dignity to others, often for their own selfish interests and gains, forfeit any claim to support. If we continue to back them, or at least indirectly continue to allow them to literally get away with murder by remaining evasive or silent, we betray our own values and people. We betray our own project of liberation, which is one in no isolation from other people. It is a project, which applies to all people everywhere.
Imperialists the world over and in all colours and shades try to exploit the contradictions and conflicts we seek to come to terms with for their own gains. We have to live with this challenge, even if it means that we need to part with old companions. We do have to part because we have not given up the commitment and determination to contribute to a better future for more people. Because we remain convinced that this is the way forward, instead of compromising with the class interests of a new elite, which continues to exploit and terrorize the people just as the colonial masters of the past did.
It should not be pigmentation that ultimately decides over loyalties and common bonds. It should be the shared values and norms to pursue freedom, equality and dignity for as many people as possible with the aim to ever increase their numbers. If this means to part with some old friends, it also means at times to re-join the “povo”. The wretched of the earth are entitled to our empathy, our identification, and our solidarity.
“A luta continua” should never be accepted as a translation into “the looting continues”, as the East African scholar activist Firoze Manji warned a couple of years ago at a Southern African conference in Windhoek. Otherwise we sacrifice our own credibility and legitimacy, and betray the very same values, which motivated our struggle and the sacrifices of so many. As people, we deserve better. And political representatives of the people, who care about integrity, legitimacy and the “povo”, should learn from Zimbabwe and the writing on the wall.
*Dr. Henning Melber is Executive Director of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation in Uppsala/Sweden. He has been Research Director of The Nordic Africa Institute (2000-2006) and Director of the Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit (NEPRU) in Windhoek (1992-2000).
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