This is and dissection of the IPS' Social Action & Leadership School for Activists

Netfa Freeman argues that commentaries looking at Zimbabwe should also "include an analysis of and explicit stand against US-British intervention and address why and how they are targeting Zimbabwe.

When Collin Powell gave his infamous presentation to the United Nations, “proving” Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, Iraq dominated the headlines. It took some time and subsequent discoveries before many realized most of what we were fed was untrue.

Although not as elevated, today Zimbabwe has taken a high profile place in corporate media headlines. Are we getting the truth this time and can we rely on the same progressives who broke through misinformation around Iraq to do the same for us again?

This commentary is a response to the article by Bill Fletcher Jr., titled “Z” is for Zimbabwe; Turmoil & Silence as a Country Potentially Unravels [Published in Pambazuka as - Zimbabwe: Black America must not be silent;

Mr. Fletcher, also being a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies where I am a program director, makes us colleagues. As I respect him for his analysis on many if not most matters, we have differences when it comes to Zimbabwe. There are several points his commentary raises that I believe omit the complexity and context of the issue.

Contrary to what is implied, many Africans (people of African descent) interpret Zimbabwean developments, not necessarily through romanticism, but with a valid rejection of imperialism’s “mania for regime change”. Too often has the public seen leaders and countries demonized simply as a prelude for this policy.

The right of anyone to criticize ZANU PF or Mugabe is valid and should be reserved without a person being condemned as an agent of the CIA or State Department. However, progressives and certainly revolutionaries must necessarily include an analysis of and explicit stand against US-British intervention. This would mean also addressing why and how they are targeting Zimbabwe. More often critics of ZANU PF and Mugabe reduce US-British positions to mere words or rhetorical condemnations when imperialism is never so passive. Not only did the US State Department admit on April 5, 2007 that it was engaged in efforts for regime change in Zimbabwe, such efforts were written into the text of the US’ hypocritical Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001.

This policy includes pervasive economic sanctions (war without guns) designed to strangle the people into submission. No matter what one’s position on ZANU PF and/or Mugabe, a position against imperialism’s immoral assault on Zimbabwe should be a matter of principle, being that “the stakes are too high.” After all, even though Saddam Hussein was widely believed a cruel dictator, progressives nevertheless oppose not only imperialism’s war on Iraq but avidly opposed the preceding US sanctions against Iraq. In Zimbabwe’s case, hardly any stand is taken against imperialism and progressives often corroborate much of the misinformation.

Specifically on Mr. Fletcher’s commentary the following are a few instances where I feel more clarifications are warranted:

Mr. Fletcher says: “We ignored the violent crushing of a rebellion in the early years of the Mugabe administration” but another side would say: “the violent crushing of a ‘violent’ rebellion.” I don't know any other way to put down a violent rebellion than through violence. I’m assuming here that Mr. Fletcher is referring to what took place in Matebeland, often referred to as a massacre in order to demonize ZANU PF. It is a situation too complex to do justice in this commentary but knowing the alternative explanation is important. Following an agreement to integrate the armed forces of ZANU, ZAPU and Rhodesians to form a Zimbabwe National Army, it was agreed that all guerrillas and Ian Smith soldiers were to surrender their weapons to the national armory.

ZAPU secretly decided not to, hiding massive arms caches on its farms and in the bushes, including armored cars and heavy artillery. After being discovered by Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Organization, it is said that ZAPU failed to give a satisfactory explanation for this leading to a massive exodus of ZAPU leaders from the new government and the beginning of dissident activity in Matebeland. Shona speaking people and commercial farmers were being killed. Former ZAPU guerillas were roaming freely with guns, terrorizing people, especially in Matebeland and Midlands areas. The ZANU led government could not of course let this go on and it is said that security forces were deployed to end the dissident and banditry activity. Unfortunately people were killed along with dissidents and those who harbored them. However, what is more often mischaracterized as a massacre was more like a small-scale civil war with civilian casualties on both sides.

Subsequently, in 1987 ZAPU and ZANU leaders held talks, which culminated in a Unity Accord and is now celebrated annually on December 22nd, as ZAPU leaders were again put into the fold to form a government of national unity. It is instructive to note that the current National Chairman of ZANU is a former ZAPU leader, the National Youth Chairman is former ZAPU, the Second Vice President is former ZAPU, and the National Army Commander is former ZAPU. In fact former ZAPU members are now in control of many government and party institutions.

Mr. Fletcher says: “We ignored President Mugabe's adoption of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank formula of ‘structural adjustment.’”(ESAP) However, this ignores the context of the times and the world situation. Undoubtedly, it was a mistake to deal with the IMF and World Bank but the conditions and constraints that led to Zimbabwe's doing this were largely due to the collapse of the Soviet Bloc and were felt by all countries trying to pursue an independent path. Cuba referred to these conditions as their Special Period. This also ignores that Mugabe’s government abolished the ESAP, something done nowhere else in Africa.

Mr. Fletcher says: “And, we ignored the fact that the land was not being redistributed.”

But some was. Although it represented only one third of a 162,000 household target, more than 50,000 households had been resettled by 1990. Why wasn't more land redistributed before the late 1990s?

This is explained by constraints of the 1979 Lancaster House Agreement that brokered Zimbabwe’s independence and it is critical to note that the liberation forces were encouraged to accept this agreement by fellow liberation forces in the other Front Line states. The constraints in this agreement were not the choice of Mugabe or ZANU.

Mr. Fletcher says: “Many well-intentioned supporters of Zimbabwe ignored or were oblivious to the growing protests that had swept Zimbabwe in the 1990s among workers who stood in opposition to the economic policies of structural adjustment that were impoverishing them.” I don’t know what the point is here. That instead of commending ZANU-PF, for jettisoning ESAP as soon as it could, it is better to support the opposition, which wants to cement ESAP in place?

Mr. Fletcher says: “And some of us closed our eyes to who was actually benefiting from land redistribution and who was not.” With all due respect this sounds like a version of the land going not to the landless but to Mugabe's cronies routine. I’m sorry but I can’t believe Mugabe had 134,000 cronies to dole land out to in 2002. Land audits bear out the fact that land went mainly to the landless and had reached over 250,000 families by 2006. Furthermore, not only have there been eyewitness testimonies by others, such as that of Baffour Ankomah, editor of New African who has seen things for himself but I also personally know of a youth farming cooperative started with land from this exercise. Having been there and stayed at the home of the cooperative’s chairman I attest that these youth are hardly cronies of Mugabe.

Mr. Fletcher says: “I found myself attempting to explain to them (his Zimbabwean comrades) why many African Americans were silent in the face of President Mugabe's repression.” Actually, I haven't noticed this reluctance disproportionate to any other issue. Maybe I've seen too many articles taking the standard line against Zimbabwe. I have experienced quite a bit of cynicism among most intellectual African-“Americans” about my alternative position on the issues. On the other hand I also find that the common Black person on the street has legitimate reservations about anything remotely resembling the regime change rhetoric of imperialism.

Regarding Mr. Fletcher’s position on the elections, I agree that it would have been better to announce the results even with a recount needed. Although I recognize that the MDC and Western media would have treated the initial figure as real and the recount as rigging. From that standpoint, I think I can understand why the total has not been announced. But it still may have been better to do so. The same rigging claims were going to be tossed around regardless. Statements by British officials and US make it clear that they will accept no result that does not favor the opposition. What more is the iron first and velvet glove of imperialism doing to ensure their interests in Zimbabwe? Mr. Fletcher and I agree that the stakes in Zimbabwe are higher than the mere outcome of an election but I contend that it’s one of completely embedded neo-colonialism versus the right to national self-determination and sovereignty.

Mr. Fletcher says: “Though originally planned as a labor party, the MDC became a sort of united front of opponents of President Mugabe, ranging the political spectrum from the revolutionary Left to some conservative white farmers.” There is more to this than one could gather from this summary. In December 1998, with Zimbabwe having already earned the indignation of Western governments, a plan was presented to the European Union’s Africa Working Group recommending strategies for regime change. The plan called for the formation of a political party from this spectrum of opponents in “civil society”, naming in particular, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU). Prior to this, in May 1997 European trade unions had already singled out the then Secretary General of ZCTU, Morgan Tsvangirai as their presidential candidate against Robert Mugabe. It’s with this backdrop that the MDC was born.

I agree with Mr. Fletcher’s assertion, “Whether we like or dislike the MDC, or President Mugabe for that matter, holds second place to whether there is a political environment that advances genuine, grassroots democracy and debate in Zimbabwe.” Clearly, however such an environment cannot exist while foreign interests are so pervasively manipulating so much of what appears to be internal.

On January 24th, 1999 a meeting was convened at Britain’s Royal Institute of International Affairs to discuss the EU’s regime change policy. The theme of the meeting, led by Richard Dowden, now the Executive Director of the Royal African Society, was “Zimbabwe - Time for Mugabe to Go?” The “confiscating” of white-held land is what got a “yes” to the conference’s rhetorical question. Dowden presented four options:

1. a military coup
2. buying the opposition
3. insurrection
4. subverting Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party

A few months later, the US State Department held its version of that meeting, a seminar entitled “The Zimbabwe Crisis” to discuss its strategy for dealing with the same. Their conclusion too was that civil society and the opposition would be strengthened to foment discontent and dissent.

If we’re going to discuss Zimbabwe and what position to take on it, it’s important that the African community consider this context. While Mr. Fletcher is concerned with what he refers to as "infintile approaches" to controversy within our communities, I’m more concerned that our assessments are arrived at with plentiful and accurate context. Because, like Mr. Fletcher, I believe the stakes are much too high.

*Netfa Freeman is director of the Social Action & Leadership School for Activists (SALSA), a program of the Washington DC based Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), a longtime activist in the Pan-African and international human rights movements, and a co-producer/co-host for Voices With Vision, WPFW 89.3 FM, Washington DC. This article first appeared at www.blackcommentator.com

**Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

What is liberation? What is the existence of liberation like? While most holidays or commemorations celebrate people and things for whom or what they were, there are some that celebrate things as we aspire them to be. The latter is what can be said about May 25th when we celebrate African Liberation Day, often referred to as Africa Day.

Is African Liberation Day recognition of the rising tide of national independence that swept Africa and the Diaspora, or is it recognition of the continuing struggle for a completely liberated African world, free from all the vestiges of colonialism and neo-colonialism? The answer should not only be sought in history but also determined on the basis of which is more conducive to Africa's progress. Which best addresses the current exigencies of the African world?

History teaches that the origins of African Liberation Day are in the first Conference of Independent African States, which took place on April 15, 1958, in the Ghanaian capital of Accra. African leaders and political activists joined representatives from the governments of Ghana, Ethiopia, Liberia, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, The United Arab Republic (a federation of Egypt and Syria), representatives of the National Liberation Front of Algeria and the Union of Cameroonian Peoples.

This represented the first Pan-African Conference held on African soil, expressing the collective disgust of African people with the system of colonialism and imperialism.

This conference defined Pan-Africanism as "the total liberation and unification of Africa under scientific socialism", laid out a strategy for coordinating the liberation of the rest of Africa and looked forward to the eventual complete unification of the entire continent. The Conference called for the founding of Africa Freedom Day, a day to, "mark each year the onward progress of the liberation movement, and to symbolize the determination of the People of Africa to free themselves from foreign domination and exploitation."

Five years later in the city of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, another historic meeting occurred. On May 25, 1963, leaders of thirty-two independent African States met to form the Organization of African Unity (OAU). By then over two thirds of the continent had achieved independence from colonial rule. This historic meeting changed the date of Africa Freedom Day from April 15th to May 25th and renamed the occasion African Liberation Day (ALD).

Since then ALD has been held on May 25th in every corner of the African world. It marks the last stage of African people's struggle against imperialism, demanding the African masses to coordinate efforts on a global scale and for the intellectual and professional classes to fulfill a heightened obligation.

Africa's intellectual and professional classes must not forget that we are only such because generations of our people, past and present, have struggled and suffered. This means that our obligation is to embrace the theoretical and scientific ground work laid down throughout the generations, put it into practice and use it to better the masses of Africa's children. Countless great leaders have practiced and written about the African revolution. The intellectuals and professionals must study this so we can know why we occupy this designation and how we can pick up where generations before have left off.

In order to do this we must collectively examine the theories and practices within the various stages and phases of our struggle for liberation. In other words African people must work and study together in organizations that exist for the liberation of Africa.

Because those historic meetings/conferences called for the "unification of Africa under scientific socialism" this means our generation's mission as agents for Africa's liberation is to make this a reality. We should not allow the current propaganda interests of the global order to make taboo the terminology, theories and lessons that have been accumulated by martyrs like Kwame Nkrumah, Walter Rodney, Sekou Ture, Shirley DuBois, Thomas Sankara, M'Balia Camara, Samora Machel, Malcolm X, and so many others.

Revolution is a concept that must be resurrected in the African world, as it currently is in Latin America. Countries like Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia are boldly showing us that we must hold fast on ideals of socialism and revolution. If "a better world is possible" Africa's rich legacy of struggle and natural potential dictates that a revolutionary Pan-Africanism become possible.

The difference between a revolutionary African and someone else is that whether they are a doctor, lawyer, engineer, carpenter, farmer, professor, educator, student, or whatever; a revolutionary African uses their attributes and skills for an organized mass movement that is working for profound positive change. That is the definition of revolution. Many freedom fighters before us, and today call for concrete and working relationships among Africans worldwide. Not a rhetorical or symbolic relationship and not simply economic but a growing, moving, permanent political phenomena.

Concrete relationships mean systematic, streamlined and consistent lines of communication between the African continent and the Diaspora; joint projects, programs and institutions that engage us on a global scale and that are socialist in nature.

ALD should be an occasion to remind and reinforce African people and the world of these exigencies. As the liberation struggle continues, ALD should be an opportunity for us to become more politically educated about the history and ever changing realities of Africa and her Diaspora, in addition to Africa's relationship to the struggles of other oppressed peoples of the world.

It must become an occasion for highlighting and hearing directly from men, women and youth who are on the front line of the struggle for Pan-Africanism and other just struggles. ALD celebrates the glorious and rich culture of Africa, but more importantly it is a chance to dedicate and rededicate our energies and our creativity to an African Revolution.

* Netfa Freeman is director of the Social Action & Leadership School for Activists (SALSA), a program of the Washington DC based Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and an organizer with the Pan-African Liberation Organization (PALO). He can be emailed at netfa (at) hotsalsa.org.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Netfa Freeman, director of the Social Action and Leadership School for Activists in Washington, reflects on the annual Black History Month held in the US during February, criticizing how it has become commercialized and arguing for Black History Month to evolve so that it considers a broader Pan-African historical context. “…African people need to develop institutions for coordinating our political activities internationally; to generate faith and unconditional support for these activities; take control of information about our history and current geo-political events.”

“Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.” - Carter G. Woodson

“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots” -Marcus Garvey

The need to once and for all embrace a reasonable and comprehensive interpretation of African history that inspires and uplifts Black people is evident when examining how Black History Month is celebrated in US culture. Like most other historic reflections, Black History Month is sanitized with stagnate and idealistic interpretations, aimed at removing the vital elements of historical struggle and revelation. Today it is customary during the month of February for media to make superficial sound bites about "African-American" pioneers in technology, sports, scholarship and anti-slavery activism.

While schools highlight leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, Fredrick Douglas and several others, rarely is the celebration used to thoroughly reflect on the ethics, political vision, and philosophical insights of these leaders. Rarely does the celebration clarify the socio-political milieu in which they struggled and glean relevant lessons from historical context. Further, connections to Africa are generally severed at the Middle Passage, instead of recognizing the subsequent interconnections between the economic circumstances, cultural expressions, and political movements of African people. This is expected since it isn't difficult to see how knowledge of these connections conflict with a corporate capitalist culture that has effectively commercialized Black History Month as a means to advertise commodities. Nationwide Insurance airs a touching radio commercial that doesn't even offer history, but simply appeals to insure “personal Black history” by buying life insurance.

However, a proper examination of Black History Month must also take into account the laws of change and historical development to which everything is subject. In 1926, Dr. Carter Godwin Woodson, an African historian, writer, and educator, established Negro History Week to honor the contributions of African people in North America. For "historical clarity" African is being used to refer to all people of African descent, whether they are born in North or South America, the Caribbean, Europe or any other part of the world. Born 1875 to former slaves in New Canton, Virginia the extent and scope to which the Harvard educated Dr. Woodson identified did not extend beyond North America. Woodson even chose the month of February for the observance of Negro History Week because the birthdays of abolitionist Frederick Douglass and US President Abraham Lincoln fall in this month. Regardless, Dr. Woodson contributed profoundly to our understanding that a better knowledge of history is critical for African people, at least in North America, to achieve greater pride, self-determination and collective progress. As go the laws of change, Negro History Week itself transformed. About fifty years later, near the close of the Black Power era (early 1970s), the celebration was renamed Black History Week and even later expanded to Black History Month in 1976. These changes reflected a progression in how African people throughout the world had come to identify.

Dr. Woodson insisted that history was not the mere gathering of facts or a chronology of events, but that the object of historical study is to arrive at a reasonable interpretation of the social conditions of the period being studied. Applying this objective to the social conditions in which Dr. Woodson lived reveals coexistence with the 1914 Garvey movement in the formation of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and the Black Star Line. The UNIA's movement, led by the Honorable Marcus Garvey, broadened the ideological scope for African people beyond the confines of birth-country and into the extensions of the Diaspora.

Marcus Garvey offered a more inclusive philosophy of how African people could identify, reflect and engage. Before the UNIA, the Pan-African movement found an earlier expression in 1900 at the first Pan-African Conference convened in London by Sylvester Williams. Since that first conference there have been seven subsequent Pan-African Congresses, the seventh taking place in Uganda in 1994. Consistent with the teachings of Dr. Woodson, the inspiration that comes from biography and history must necessarily include the context that connects the "American negro" to a broader African people scattered and struggling in 135 countries worldwide.

Since the founding of Negro History Week a host of positive and negative personalities, events and historical developments have transpired, affording African history instructive and dynamic lessons for humanity. More has also been learned about philosophies and methods of history. Nevertheless, the most instructive lessons are largely neglected. Black History Month must do more than emphasize the inspiring achievements of great individuals. It must also help in refining a historical philosophy and method of study that helps us understand the prevailing conditions of our time. Historical study should explain such phenomena as how young Africans from the Congo to Haiti; from urban neighborhoods in the USA to other parts of the world are armed and reaping havoc on their own communities. It should be able to explain how a people from a continent that has spawned some of the greatest contributions to world civilization are persistently plagued by apathy, disease, poverty and political disempowerment in communities around the world. Neglecting the history that connects Black experiences and struggles beyond the confines of a particular country renders Black History Month deficient and leaves room for the notion of African inferiority.

Historical context presupposes more than outstanding achievements and personalities or else is it sterilized into something incapable of explaining present global challenges and illuminating future direction. For example, it is clearly significant that in March 1978 the US National Security Council issued secret memorandum 46 in response to directives from the president that "a comprehensive review be made of current developments in Black Africa from the point of view of their possible impacts on the black movement in the United States". This memo demonstrates the attitude and multiplicity of political and economic interests influencing US policy toward Africa and African people:

"…. adverse to U.S. strategic interests, the nationalist liberation movement in black Africa can act as a catalyst with far reaching effects on the American black community by stimulating its organizational consolidation and by inducing radical actions."

Surely it is a positive thing for any African community to achieve greater organizational consolidation and radical change from adversity. Instead the memo recommends:

“1. Specific steps should be taken with the help of appropriate government agencies to inhibit coordinated activity of the Black Movement in the United States.

2. Special clandestine operations should be launched by the CIA to generate mistrust and hostility in American and world opinion against joint activity of the two forces…

3. US embassies to Black African countries specially interested in southern Africa must be highly circumspect in view of the activity … opposing the objectives and methods of U.S. policy toward South Africa…

4. The FBI should mount surveillance operations against Black African representatives and collect sensitive information on those…include facts on their links with the leaders of the Black movement in the United States, thus making possible at least partial neutralization of the adverse effects of their activity.”

This history demonstrates that African people need to develop institutions for coordinating our political activities internationally; to generate faith and unconditional support for these activities; take control of information about our history and current geo-political events.

It’s common knowledge that the continent of Africa is the most naturally rich continent on earth. It is also painfully clear that African people everywhere are among the poorest and most oppressed. A proper reflection of Black history can combat this by educating people about the forces in conflict with African progress and providing lessons from past successes and failures. To combat inferiority complexes African people need to know that profound forms of organized resistance have been and are being waged against slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism and imperialism.

It is inspiring to know that the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements in the US were taking place simultaneously with similar struggles for independence and self-determination in Africa and the Diaspora. Leaders like Malcolm X, Kwame Nkrumah, Shirley Dubois, Sekou Ture and others were meeting, making plans and concretizing the Pan-African agenda. Knowledge of such things has proven to resolve notions of inferiority and to imbue African people with a greater sense of social obligation. The social movements in African history intersect across geographical boundaries and are energized by class struggle. The context in which we consider ourselves must be commensurate with the exigencies before us that exist within an increasingly globalized yet more polarized world. Just as Negro History Week has evolved into Black or African-American History Month, to continue having value it must evolve into a Pan-African Historical Context.

* Netfa Freeman is director of the Social Action & Leadership School for Activists (SALSA), a program of the Washington DC based Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). He can be emailed at netfa (at) hotsalsa.org.

* Please send comments to [email protected]