Printer friendly versionObey ICC: Mandela
Posted: Thursday, February 6, 2003
By Robert Craddock, Fox News
FORMER South Africa president Nelson Mandela has weighed into the World Cup cricket crisis by declaring Australia must play its match in Zimbabwe.
As the Zimbabwe Cricket Union announced it would refuse to play any of its matches if they were switched to South Africa, Mandela urged Australia and England to go ahead with their games in crisis-torn Zimbabwe.
"They (Australia and England) must respect the International Cricket Council," Mandela said.
"If we refuse to follow the ICC we will introduce chaos to cricket. They have examined the matter and concluded it is safe. They know what is dangerous for cricketers. If they say cricketers should go to Zimbabwe, that is what they must do."
Though Mandela has no official role in the decision-making process, his iconic word as the first president of united South Africa still shapes the thinking of South African society.
The ICC has consistently maintained its security reports have provided no reason for the teams to cancel their matches in Zimbabwe. MORE
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African diplomats lambast US
Posted: Saturday, February 1, 2003
Herald Reporter
AFRICAN ambassadors and High Commissioners accredited to Zimba-bwe have lambasted the United States government's call for its citizens not to visit Zimbabwe saying the move was a deliberate ploy to derail the hosting of World Cup Cricket matches to be played in the country this month.
The diplomats said the travel warning by the US government was misleading because the current situation in the country did not pose any security threat to anyone who wished to visit Zimbabwe.
In a statement, the African Group of Ambassadors and High Commission-ers said they were deeply concerned about the US warning, as it did not give a true picture of the real situation prevailing in the country.
"In fact, Zimbabwe as a destination is far safer than the security situation obtained in some capitals of those countries that are on the forefront of isolating Zimbabwe," read part of the statement issued by the Dean of the African Heads of Missions, Mr Ndali-Che Kamatai.
Mr Kamatai is Namibia's High Commissioner to Zimbabwe.
The US government recently issued a directive to its nationals not to travel to Zimbabwe and advised those in the country to leave, citing security concerns.
It alleged that there was total breakdown of rule of law in the country and that the US government would not be held accountable for the safety of those ignoring the call to leave the country.
However, the African diplomats said the US warning was political and directly connected to the deliberate efforts geared towards derailing the hosting of the Cricket World Cup matches, which are scheduled to take place in Zimbabwe this month.
They said they were satisfied with the level of preparations and security arrangements undertaken by the Government of Zimbabwe in hosting the cricket matches.
"In this connection, we concur with the recent International Cricket Council delegation's conclusion that Zimbabwe has put in place requisite measures.
"We believe that this is not the time to isolate Zimbabwe, but rather engage the Zimbabwe Government with the view to finding solutions to the challenges currently facing the country."
The ambassadors called upon all the people intending to visit the country to proceed with their arrangements as their security was assured.
They urged the English and Australian cricket teams not to be influenced by political considerations of their governments.
http://www.herald.co.zw/index.php?id=18028&pubdate=2003-02-01
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Africa should unite to eliminate imperialism
Posted: Tuesday, January 28, 2003
www.herald.co.zw
This is the last part of Chinondidyachii Mararike's article which focuses on how the imperialist West is fighting an economic and propaganda war against the innocent people of Zimbabwe, their Government, their President and their ruling party.
The same courage, determination and unity of purpose that won us Phase 1 will win us Phases II and III, because President Mugabe’s revolution is a Zanu-PF revolution.
A Zanu-PF revolution is a Zimbabwe-led revolution for the total liberation of Southern Africa and the rest of sub-Saharan Africa.
Zimbabwe should export this revolution to its neighbours, where the remnants of the racist white farmers went to settle.
Once successfully exported, the revolution’s momen- tum will deny the beleaguered imperialists any room to manoeuvre, and will force them to either retreat or engage us on our terms - ostensibly because the resources they are stealing from our neighbours will not be available to them.
And with our hero, President Mugabe (the one who brought down ‘whites’) continually assaulting imperialism and vowing to fight on, Africans will not turn the other cheek in compromise.
Africa has the highest number of imperialist victims divested from their land. They dwell in deplorable shanties and refugee camps, and remain insulated from their history and decent existence.
The imperialist, bereft of any ounce of conscience, inflicts untold suffering to their victims. It is these victims that Tony Blair and George W. Bush think they can root out with Nepad. It is these that in the so-called Third World the West thinks it can root out with IMF and World Bank structural schemes.
For the imperialist victims, the effects are disastrous. This is what Europe desires - to have Africans overlook the fact that it is they, the Europeans, that are plundering the continent’s abundant natural and human resources. Consequently the new post-colonial state in Africa is contenting with rampant capitalism and relentless exploitation.
"In the Southern African context in particular," writes the Sunday Mirror’s Scrutator, "the socio-political and economic dynamics attendant to the liberatory and transformative process" continue to be "threatened by the combined forces of globalisation" and an increasingly Western-induced hostile environment in which reactionary MDC-style opposition parties "are forging closer ties with former colonisers and agents of globalisation".
Zimbabwe’s task is, therefore clear: to export the revolution to countries in Africa whose current institutional arrangements and societal perceptions are still based on or stem from imperial structures dominated by foreign private sector interests and therefore, perpetuating inequitable entitlements and access to African resources.
When Zimbabwe’s liberationist volcano explodes, its lava will scorch and smoother the resisting settlers on the continent. Mugabe’s Revolution has to move forward and through phases - Phase II makes Africans the primary beneficiaries of Africa’s abundant mineral and other natural resources. Phase III sees the complete Africanisation of our commercial and industrial sectors.
In tandem with both phases should be the development of Afro-centric epistemologies, representations, discourses, and narratives in which the central tenets of African culture and religion as in Mwari-via-Vadzimu neMasvikiro, languages, architecture, dressing, food, music, jokes and general way of life, occupy the middle ground of the values that inform our activities.
Sure we can not afford to throw a protective blanket over this revolution, for to do so would be to throw away what we have achieved for Zimbabwe and Africa and in the process squander this most rare opportunity when we can successfully export this revolution to others whose land remains in the talons of imperialists.
The fact that Mugabe’s Revolution is already spread- ing fast into Namibia and South Africa, and has found resonance throughout the world makes our task less cheerless indeed.
That, indeed, is why we hear all these people chanting: Pamberi neZanu-PF, Swapo neANC! - (Pamberi!)
Chinondidyachii Mararike is a Zimbabwean lawyer, writer, political analyst, and secretary-general of Davira Mhere.
RaceandHistory Zimbabwe Watch
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Whose Black? Brazil's Amazing Skin-Shedding Trick
Posted: Tuesday, January 28, 2003
By Zarina Geloo
January 27, 2003 www.ipsnews.net
Being white means not being black right? Not in Brazil. Here you can be white if you are rich, like soccer icon Pele. You can be black if you are white and poor. To be more precise, you can also call yourself a"little bit black or a little bit white", depending on how deep your skin is hued.
The situation has anthropologists frustrated. How can racism in its most virulent form be dealt with if it is hidden behind the semantics of colour, asks anthropologist Valeria Aydos from Sao Paulo.
"We do not talk about racism, but it is a big problem. Officially, we call ourselves of mixed race because historically we have integrated with the indigenous Indian the immigrant white and the black slaves," she told a meeting on racism chaired by the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA).
As a result, Aydos says, there is no policy to tackle the racism that exists in the country.
Afro Brazilians"suffer in silence because we have not admitted that we have a racial problem. It is easier for America or other countries to adress racial tensions because they admit it is there. We have not even began to tackle the issue."
She says Afro Brazilian society itself has only recently began to talk about racism, but it is hard going. There is documented evidence that black people are excluded and discriminated against, have less access to top education and medical facilities and are more likely to be charged with crimes. Racism, she added, is engrained in the psyche of people who have been socialised to think that lighter skin colour is superior.
"The only way black people are going to be respected ... is when they become superstars or have a lot of money."
Gary Leech for NACLA said while the Colombian government had approved one of the most progressive constitutions every written in Latin America which recognises the rights of all its citizens and places premuim on the cultural heritage of those of African descent, the reality is different. He said Afro Colombians suffered economic, political and social marginalisation and victimisation under a political system in which they are excluded. Their life expectancy had dropped to 54 years (the national average is 74). As if that were not enough, Afro Colombians were being forcibly displaced with no compensation, (in the La Guajira area) by US energy giant ExxonMobil, which has bought El Cerrejon the world's largest open-pit coal mine.
"The Colombian government and the multinational mining companies need to be exposed to force them to live up to the contents of the constitution and treat people with dignity and respect."
Reproduced from:
http://www.ipsnews.net/fsm2003/27.01.2003/nota8.shtml
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Male stance/Female narcissism
Posted: Sunday, January 26, 2003
by Bukka Rennie, January 25, 2003
Important issues have been raised by two very keen readers of this column. Both good friends of mine. One male and at present living and working in T&T, the other female, at present living and studying in Ottawa.
In response to my contention that generally in relation to the Graeco-Roman, Western, white-controlled, global military-industrial complex, the black male has a "natural stance" of subversion and revolution, this is what he said, inter alia:
"...I was particularly struck by what you said about the 'natural stance' of the black male. I am not sure what you mean by 'natural' in that sense. If natural is normative, then most males are in fact either unnatural or some might claim to be supernatural. The stance you describe demands engagement and few black males are really 'engaged' with our reality, in my opinion..."
The point is that black or African people were the only human element that found themselves forced into a relationship with the Western world and its military-industrial complex in which they were made to be "property" and "socialised labour" on a hemispheric scale.
It stands to reason therefore that every form of their resistance, passive or active, conscious or subconscious, was meant to transform that relationship and in the process attack and destroy this white-controlled global superstructure.
All the historians that have examined the Caribbean experience, for example, will tell you that the struggles of the Afro-Caribbean people have always been geared to destroy the property and property relations engendered by the system of plantation slavery and to make themselves the "new masters of the islands".
Non-white colonised people around the world have the same experience to one degree or another and in all their struggles of decolonisation, we see similar responses from below.
Embodied in the very being of their "blackness", this, their "natural stance", became over time the very antithesis of the global white status-quo and establishment. With the objective being unconditional "freedom", they could only be about subversion, ie on an individual level, and revolution which is on a collectivised or social level.
There are of course various levels of engagement by black people, both male and female, in this regard. These levels are determined by the levels of self-consciousness and social consciousness that may become generalised from time to time. I chose to describe them as levels of combativity that have their moments of highs and lows.
In modern times it is the black male who in all ways, in demeanour, and almost out of habit, who bears the brunt of this "natural stance" to the hilt.
To the white social leaderships the "black dude" is always a "trouble-maker" or a potential trouble-maker. It is why prison in this Western Hemisphere is comprised consistently of a 75 per cent black male population. To the white leaderships that is where black males are supposed to be and black males do not disappoint them.
The statistics on a hemispheric basis have not been compiled but it is obvious from mere observation. Black males, both politically and culturally, hold pride of place on the front lines as all males per se are nurtured to be.
So today when you have a human complex that is both black or non-white and Muslim, given the 1,000 years of battle between Muslims and the Western Christian world, you in fact have a "double-whammy" as was said before.
That's why we agreed with the contention of WEB Dubois that the problem of the 20th century, and beyond, we may add, is the problem of the colour line. If the Western world does not come to terms with this by reformation, it will eventually be destroyed by implosive force.
My female reader friend from Ottawa took issue with my criticism of what women have brought to the Carnival agenda as a social force. This is what in part she said:
"I have to pick a little bone with you on this article... I agree in principle with your points, but really – feminine = narcissistic? Apart from the etymological twist (narcissus being that exceptionally vain man) I really can't agree with that concept. Of course, it may be that my female role models, friends and relatives are exceptional, but that's for another time...
"The banality of commercialism dictates to the lowest common denominator — this is pretty obvious. But I think that the role of exhibitionism is more to do with economics than otherwise. Having convinced generations of people that looks matter most, then rewarding exhibitionism by having the least-clad females 'selected' over the others, the inevitable progression then becomes the need to exhibit more in order to maintain the status quo.
"You had pointed out in an earlier column that the violence done in society was in part due to competition for sex...
"This is also why (to my way of thinking, anyhow) the proliferation of the 'party tune' has escalated. It's not that it's superior, but it gets the attention quickly, and is rewarded... money talks, ent? So the grousing about the banal, offensive, boring exhibitionism will continue as long as there is money flowing towards it..."
I agree but there is still to be addressed that element of females themselves being overwhelmed by the tremendous power of their own sexuality and the need to utilise this very power to make a positive statement in and through Carnival since women are now the greatest social force in Carnival outside of capital (ie accumulated wealth still controlled by male investors).
The extracts from the poem "Red Hawk" were meant to indicate what black males at the bottom of society did with Carnival when they were the greatest social force in Carnival... they transformed themselves into "Geronimoes". Again, the natural stance, ent?
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Mbeki broadsides Bush with tough anti-war vow
Posted: Friday, January 24, 2003
By John Battersby, www.iol.co.za
President Thabo Mbeki has called on all South Africans to join the world campaign against a United States-led war against Iraq.
His call on Friday came as the transatlantic rift widened over whether to disarm Iraq by force.
Mbeki also sent a clear message to US President George Bush: there are no grounds for war.
"Nothing credible has been said that any such breach has occurred to justify a resort to war," Mbeki said, articulating a view which has a groundswell of support among the industrialised nations and the backing of the entire developing world.
And in a broadside against Washington, Mbeki lambasted those who threatened Iraq with war but did nothing about Israel's nuclear weapons.
"They say nothing whatsoever against Israel's weapons of mass destruction.
"Of course, from their point of view, the matter has nothing to do with principle.
"It turns solely on the question of power... We disagree."
Mbeki's intervention comes on the eve of a critical session of the United Nations security council which will hear the first report of the UN weapons inspectors on their findings after several weeks of inspection in Iraq.
Bush's insistence that the US has sufficient grounds to wage war without a security council vote has pitted Russia, Germany, France, China and Canada against his country and Britain.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair - looking increasingly isolated in supporting the United States-led rhetoric for military action to disarm Saddam Hussein - is expected to face probing questions from Mbeki on his attitude to the UN and the consequences of a war with Iraq when they meet for a one-on-one summit next Saturday.
Mbeki, joining the growing international outrage at the prospect of war said in his weekly letter on the African National Congress's Today website:
"The situation demands that once more the masses of our people must act together as a powerful force for peace in the world.
"They have an obligation to stand up and join the struggle for peace," he said.
It is understood that mass action was discussed at the ANC's three-day workshop last weekend and that peace marches, led by the ruling party and supported by trade unions and civil society, are in the planning stage.
In his strongest call yet for Bush to heed the mounting global anti-war protest, Mbeki said that a war against Iraq would threaten international peace and security.
It would also spark a deep economic crisis in Africa as the price of oil soared and poverty deepened, and further delay a resolution of the Middle East conflict.
Mbeki said that Iraq had agreed to comply with the UN security council resolution and had allowed the weapons inspectors to return to pursue their mandate unhindered.
"We have committed ourselves to do everything in our power, limited as this power might be, to persuade Iraq to give herself and the United Nations the necessary space to resolve the matter at issue, peacefully and expeditiously."
He said the effort to disarm Iraq should not be used to justify a declaration of war.
"We are not aware of any information that would suggest that Iraq has been in serious material breach of the security council resolution."
Mbeki said South Africa was committed to the resolution of all disputes by peaceful means and was the "first and only" country in the world to voluntarily implement a comprehensive programme of disarmament and the destruction of its weapons of mass destruction.
And, in a statement after a three-day cabinet workshop, chief government spokesperson Joel Netshitenzhe said the cabinet had reiterated South Africa's request to the UN that the arms inspectors' report should be considered in an open session in the presence of United Nations members who were not on the security council.
"South Africa supports the efforts of the international community to deal with this matter strictly in accordance with the resolutions of the UN security council," the cabinet statement said.
"It also welcomes the growing peace movement, in particular its objective of ensuring that actions pursued in the Gulf region are determined the interest of humanity as a whole."
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=13&art_id=ct20030124214059225P430688&set_id=1
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Tsvangirai addresses diplomats, threatens bloodbath
Posted: Friday, January 24, 2003
Herald Reporter
STUNG by the failure of Wednesday’s stayaway, visits by Nigerian and South African foreign ministers as well as the softening of attitudes by some European countries towards the Zimbabwean Government, MDC leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai has threatened a bloodbath in the country.
Addressing diplomats, mostly from European countries at a hastily arranged meeting in Harare yesterday, Mr Tsvangirai said: "I want to say once again, that we have reached a stage whereby we can no longer counsel patience on such a dangerously restive population.
"There is clearly a red light flashing for the Mugabe regime to stop. There is a gathering storm of the people’s anger. We have no power to stop it and we refuse to take responsibility for whatever transpires," he said.
Mr Tsvangirai’s comments were also prompted by a scathing attack by some white members of his party who reportedly felt that he was not doing enough to bring about a change of government. MORE
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Britain and South Africa in Mugabe retirement plot
Posted: Wednesday, January 22, 2003
By Chris Talbot, 22 January 2003
An article in a Zimbabwe newspaper reveals a move amongst top leaders to remove President Robert Mugabe in exchange for obtaining economic support from the West.
According to the Zimbabwe Sunday Mirror, a paper that supports the ruling Zanu-PF party, a plan is under discussion in which Mugabe is made to retire and replaced by the current Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa, who would hold power for a two-year "transition" period, after which elections would be held. During the two-years, an interim government would be installed with constitutional changes "that would allow Mugabe a dignified exit and would not force elections during the transitional period," the Mirror reports.
The newspaper also states that Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has accepted the proposal. The British government is also said to be backing the plan, with South Africa acting as intermediary. Britain would pay out £500 million to help "jump start" the collapsed economy, and financial support from the West would be restored.
Both Zanu-PF and South Africa have denied the plan exists, but in an interview with the BBC Tsvangirai admitted that he had been approached in December by a representative of Mnangagwa and the commander of the Zimbabwe armed forces, General Vitalis Zvinavashe. Tsvangirai says he was willing to consider immunity from prosecution for Mugabe in exchange for a return to "normal political activity" that would later lead to "free and fair" elections. According to the Mirror however, Tsvangirai only initially agreed to the plan but later backtracked after "a tiny, aggressive white minority" in the MDC objected to immunity for Mugabe. Factions within Zanu-PF are also said to be opposed to the plan partly because Mnangagwa, a ruthless functionary who is said to be Mugabe's chosen successor, is widely disliked.
Reports in Africa Confidential, a magazine close to British intelligence and African business interests, verify the Mirror's accounts. Even before the latter had published its account, which was then taken up by the British press, Africa Confidential had already commented on a new South African initiative on Zimbabwe. Explaining that Mnangagwa and his business allies attended the recent conference of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa and were warmly greeted by President Mbeki, it commented "the bargain would be that President Mugabe agrees to retire within the year, in exchange for Britain lifting sanctions, compensating displaced white farmers and financing agricultural development."
Whether the plan fails or—more likely—goes ahead in some modified form, the Mirror's revelations expose something of the machinations of the British government in relation to Zimbabwe. Ever since Britain and the West's preferred option of Tsvangirai winning the presidential elections failed last March, Britain has been attempting to get Mugabe removed. One approach has been through South Africa and other African countries, with US pressure.
At first South Africa and Nigeria arranged for talks between the Zanu-PF regime and the MDC to discuss some form of power sharing, but the government's intensified persecution of MDC members led to Tsvangirai pulling out. Later last year, according to the Mirror, South Africa's President Mbeki had discussions with Simba Makoni on forming a Zanu-PF alternative to Mugabe. Makoni, a pro-free market economist, was removed from his post as Finance Minister by Mugabe last summer.
The possibility of a more direct intervention, possibly using "covert operations," cannot be ruled out, although Zimbabwe has a British-trained army and a small airforce that so far have remained loyal to Mugabe. Last November, Mark Bellamy, deputy assistant of state for African affairs, was reported as saying, "We may have to be prepared to take some very intrusive, interventionist measures to ensure aid delivery to Zimbabwe."
Now it seems that the intense economic pressure on Zimbabwe, led by Britain, and allowing much of the population to face famine and starvation, has paid off, forcing the top Zanu-PF old guard to consider another South African-brokered deal.
The choice of Mnangagwa in the latest plot to remove Mugabe is not accidental. For all the sermonising about Mugabe's suppression of the MDC opposition, Britain is clearly prepared to accept transitional rule by a man who as a former Minister of Security is particularly associated with massacres carried out by the notorious Fifth Brigade in Matebeland in the 1980s. There is no doubt that he would be even more brutal than Mugabe in suppressing opposition amongst workers and peasants. The Mirror quotes a source close to the Zanu-PF tops defending Mnangagwa as a replacement for Mugabe as "a strong ruthless person who is not easily manipulated," who is "going to be unpopular because he has to put right a lot of wrong things."
Both Mnangagwa and Zvinavashe have extensive business interests and have been at the centre of the looting of timber, diamonds and other minerals from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo. In exchange for their military support of the Kinshasa government in the Congo war, Zimbabwe made arrangements for their military top brass to set up a range of lucrative operations.
A transitional regime under Mnangagwa will have to clamp down on the Zanu-PF members and supporters who thought they could benefit from Mugabe's land seizure programme. It is now widely known that far from representing a new agricultural revival heralded by Mugabe, as much as 90 percent of the land taken from the wealthy white farmers is lying fallow. Because of the drastic decline in Zimbabwe's economy the inputs and infrastructure needed by the new small farmers has not been forthcoming. The Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU) representing the small farmers predicts a yield this season that will only be 30 percent of the previous season, itself depressed by the effects of drought and the farm invasions.
Repressive measures will also have to be stepped up to police the urban population. To begin implementing the kind of economic policies necessary for Zimbabwe to mend its relations with the International Monetary Fund and secure Western finance and aid, tens of thousands of public sector jobs will have to be slashed. With unemployment already very high, this would produce widespread opposition. Britain is clearly prepared for Mnangagwa to continue strong arm measures as long as it is behind a veneer of democracy and the MDC leaders are incorporated into the transitional regime.
Zimbabwe's economy, once relatively affluent compared to the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, is falling apart, with GDP contracting by 25 percent over the last three years, inflation at 175 percent, and fuel supplies running out. Even General Zvinavashe, whilst denying the reports that Mugabe was to be retired, was forced to accept in a recent interview that "we must admit there is a crisis." Such a statement by a Zanu-PF leader would previously have been regarded as impermissible.
At present half the population, 6.7 million people, are facing food shortages due to famine. Zanu-PF officials have no doubt attempted to divert food aid to their own members, but the food shortages and the effects of inflation are widespread and are causing discontent among ZANU-PF supporters.
The Mirror article admits that the crisis in Zanu-PF ranks and the willingness to mend fences with Britain and the West arise from a fear of mass opposition: "the economic hardships ravaging the weary population threaten to spill over to the political level, thus spelling grim consequences for the government and the country as a whole." On top of this, "Zimbabwe's political elite, who fly to Europe literally on a daily basis in pursuance of their vast business interests, have been terribly hurt by the travel sanctions imposed by Britain."
Beyond brief reports that a deal to remove Mugabe has been discussed, the British government has managed to keep out of the media the details of the bribe it is prepared to pay out for Mugabe to go quietly, as well as the track record of his possible replacement.
All attention for the last month has been focused on the Blair government's pressure on the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to pull out of the Cricket World Cup that is to be held in Zimbabwe.
It has been known for four years that World Cup fixtures were to be played in Zimbabwe and the English cricket team played a full tour in Zimbabwe in 2001. The British government raised no objections. Last July the ECB asked for a meeting with the British Foreign Office over playing cricket in Zimbabwe and were told there was no problem.
Within the last weeks, however, the Blair government suddenly began actively intervening in cricket affairs. It whipped up a campaign to demand the England team do not play in Zimbabwe, with ministers vying with one another to attack the ECB for its "immorality" in choosing to go ahead with the game. A clearly nervous ECB has argued that it has no choice but to play because pulling out at such a late stage would cost it millions of pounds. Labour's new-found concern for cricketing morals can only be explained as a cynical diversion from its own rapprochement with the Zanu-PF elite.
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'Oldest star chart' found
Posted: Tuesday, January 21, 2003
Tuesday, 21 January, 2003, By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC News Online science editor
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2679675.stm
The oldest image of a star pattern, that of the famous constellation of Orion, has been recognised on an ivory tablet some 32,500 years old.
The tiny sliver of mammoth tusk contains a carving of a man-like figure with arms and legs outstretched in the same pose as the stars of Orion.
The claim is made by Dr Michael Rappenglueck, formerly of the University of Munich, who is already renowned for his pioneering work locating star charts painted on the walls of prehistoric caves.
The tablet also contains mysterious notches, carved on its sides and on its back. These could be a primitive "pregnancy calendar", designed to estimate when a pregnant woman will give birth.
Man-like figure
It was found in 1979 in a cave in the Ach Valley in the Alb-Danube region of Germany. Carbon dating of bone ash deposits found next to the tablet suggest it is between 32,500 and 38,000 years old, making it one of the oldest representations of a man ever found.
It was left behind by the mysterious Aurignacian people about whom we know next to nothing save that they moved into Europe from the east supplanting the indigenous Neanderthals.
The ivory tablet is small, measuring only 38 x 14 x 4 millimetres, but from the notches carved into its edges archaeologists believe that it was made that size and is not a fragment of something bigger.
On one side of the tablet is the man-like being with his legs apart and arms raised. Between his legs hangs what could be a sword and his waist is narrow. His left leg is shorter than his right one.
From what is speculated about the myths of these ancient peoples before the dawn of history, archaeologists have suggested that the man-like figure could be praying or dancing, or be a half-man, half-cat, or a divine being.
But Michael Rappenglueck thinks it is a drawing of the constellation of Orion that is nowadays, and was perhaps also 32,000 years ago, called the hunter.
The proportions of the man correspond to the pattern of stars that comprise Orion, especially its slim waist - which corresponds to its famous belt of three stars and the left "leg" of the constellation being shorter.
The "sword" on the ivory tablet also corresponds to a famous and well-know feature that can be seen in Orion.
There are also other indications that Dr Rappenglueck may be correct.
The stars were in slightly different positions 32,000 years ago because they are moving across the sky at different speeds and in different directions, a phenomenon called "proper motion".
Dr Rappenglueck allowed for this effect by using a computer program to wind back the sky and found evidence for a particular star in Orion that was in a different place all those years ago.
Human gestation period
The tablet may also be a pregnancy calendar.
There are 86 notches on the tablet, a number that has two special meanings.
First, it is the number of days that must be subtracted from a year to equal the average number of days of a human gestation. This is no coincidence, says Dr Rappenglueck.
It is also the number of days that one of Orion's two prominent stars, Betelguese, is visible. To ancient man, this might have linked human fertility with the gods in the sky.
Orion is one of the most striking constellations. The Ancient Egyptians identified it with their god Osiris and it has a special significance for many cultures throughout history throughout the world.
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Pharaonic statues found in north Sudan
Posted: Tuesday, January 21, 2003
Published 2003-01-21 Middle East Online
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=4068
Artefacts represent kings Taharqa, Tanutamon, last of black pharaohs as well as two monarchs who all lived about 600 years BC.
KHARTOUM - Granite statues and stelas of pharaohs who ruled from northern Sudan some 2,600 years ago, including the last "black pharaohs," have been found by a team of French and Swiss archeologists, a statement said Sunday.
The artefacts represented kings Taharqa and Tanutamon, the last of the "black pharaohs," as well as monarchs Senkamanisken and Aspelta, who all lived about 600 years BC, the French embassy here said in the statement.
These discoveries "represent a significant contribution to the history of ancient Sudan and without a doubt count among the masterpieces of sculpture worldwide," the team said in the statement.
The artefacts were found in a grave in Kerma, south of the Third Cataract of the Nile, by a team from the University of Geneva headed by Charles Bonnet, and including French archeologist Dominique Valbelle.
Like the Egyptian kings, the kings of Kush were also buried in pyramids.
Taharqa (690-664 BC) inherited a dynasty that ruled Egypt until the Assyrian conquest began and his reign was pushed back to between the third and fourth cataracts.
Lies From The Western Media re: African Ourstory
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Israel, Zionism, and the Misuse of M.L.K.
Posted: Monday, January 20, 2003
By Tim Wise
Rarely am I considered insufficiently cynical. As someone who does anti-racism work for a living, and thus hears all manner of excuse-making by those who wish desperately to avoid being considered racist, not much surprises me. I expect people to lie about race; to tell me how many black friends they have; to swear they haven't a racist bone in their bodies. And every January, with the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday just around the corner, I have come to expect someone to misuse the good doctor's words so as to push an agenda he would not likely have supported. As such, I long ago resigned myself to the annual gaggle of fools who deign to use King's "content of their character" line from the 1963 March on Washington so as to attack affirmative action, ostensibly because King preferred simple "color-blindness." That King actually supported the efforts that we now call affirmative action--and even billions in reparations for slavery and segregation--as I've documented in a previous column, matters not to these folks. They've never read King's work, and they've only paid attention to one news clip from one speech, so what more can we expect from such precious simpletons as these? And yet, even with my cynic's credentials established, the one thing I never expected anyone to do would be to just make up a quote from King; a quote that he simply never said, and claim that it came from a letter that he never wrote, and was published in a collection of his essays that never existed. Frankly, this level of deception is something special. The hoax of which I speak is one currently making the rounds on the Internet, which claims to prove King's steadfast support for Zionism. Indeed, it does more than that.
In the item, entitled "Letter to an Anti-Zionist Friend," King proclaims that criticism of Zionism is tantamount to anti-Semitism, and likens those who criticize Jewish nationalism as manifested in Israel, to those who would seek to trample the rights of blacks. Heady stuff indeed, and 100% bullshit, as any amateur fact checker could ascertain were they so inclined. But of course, the kinds of folks who push an ideology that required the expulsion of three-quarters-of-a-million Palestinians from their lands, and then lied about it, claiming there had been no such persons to begin with (as with Golda Meir's infamous quip), can't be expected to place a very high premium on truth. I learned this the hard way recently, when the Des Moines Jewish Federation succeeded in getting me yanked from the city's MLK day events: two speeches I had been scheduled to give on behalf of the National Conference of Community and Justice (NCCJ).
Because of my criticisms of Israel--and because I as a Jew am on record opposing Zionism philosophically--the Des Moines shtetl decided I was unfit to speak at an MLK event. After sending the supposed King quote around, and threatening to pull out all monies from the Jewish community for future NCCJ events, I was dropped. The attack of course was based on a distortion of my own beliefs as well. Federation principal Mark Finkelstein claimed I had shown a disregard for the well-being of Jews, despite the fact that my argument has long been that Zionism in practice has made world Jewry less safe than ever. But it was his duplicity on King's views that was most disturbing. Though Finkelstein only recited one line from King's supposed "letter" on Zionism, he lifted it from the larger letter, which appears to have originated with Rabbi Marc Schneier, who quotes from it in his 1999 book, "Shared Dreams: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Jewish Community." Therein, one finds such over-the-top rhetoric as this:
"I say, let the truth ring forth from the high mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of God's green earth: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews--this is God's own truth." The letter also was filled with grammatical errors that any halfway literate reader of King's work should have known disqualified him from being its author, to wit: "Anti-Zionist is inherently anti Semitic, and ever will be so." The treatise, it is claimed, was published on page 76 of the August, 1967 edition of Saturday Review, and supposedly can also be read in the collection of King's work entitled, This I Believe: Selections from the Writings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. That the claimants never mention the publisher of this collection should have been a clear tip-off that it might not be genuine, and indeed it isn't. The book doesn't exist. As for Saturday Review, there were four issues in August of 1967. Two of the four editions contained a page 76. One of the pages 76 contains classified ads and the other contained a review of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's album. No King letter anywhere.
Yet its lack of authenticity hasn't prevented it from having a long shelf-life. Not only does it pop up in the Schneier book, but sections of it were read by the Anti-Defamation League's Michael Salberg in testimony before a House Subcommittee in July of 2001, and all manner of pro-Israel groups (from traditional Zionists to right-wing Likudites, to Christians who support ingathering Jews to Israel so as to prompt Jesus' return), have used the piece on their websites.
In truth, King appears never to have made any public comment about Zionism per se; and the only known statement he ever made on the topic, made privately to a handful of people, is a far cry from what he is purported to have said in the so-called "Letter to an Anti-Zionist friend." In 1968, according to Seymour Martin Lipset, King was in Boston and attended a dinner in Cambridge along with Lipset himself and a number of black students. After the dinner, a young man apparently made a fairly harsh remark attacking Zionists as people, to which King responded: "Don't talk like that. When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You're talking Anti-Semitism." Assuming this quote to be genuine, it is still far from the ideological endorsement of Zionism as theory or practice that was evidenced in the phony letter.
After all, to respond to a harsh statement about individuals who are Zionists with the warning that such language is usually a cover for anti-Jewish bias is understandable. More than that, the comment was no doubt true for most, especially in 1968. It is a statement of opinion as to what people are thinking when they say a certain thing. It is not a statement as to the inherent validity or perfidy of a worldview or its effects.
Likewise, consider the following analogous dualism: first, that "opposition to welfare programs is forever racism," and secondly, that "when people criticize welfare recipients, they mean blacks. This is racism."
Whereas the latter statement may be true--and studies would tend to suggest that it is--the former is a matter of ideological conviction, largely untestable, and thus more tendentious than its counterpart. In any event, as with the King quotes--both fabricated and genuine--the truth of the latter says nothing about the truth or falsity of the former.
So yes, King was quick to admonish one person who expressed hostility to Zionists as people. But he did not claim that opposition to Zionism was inherently anti-Semitic. And for those who criticize Zionism today and who like me are Jewish, to believe that we mean to attack Jews, as Jews, when we speak out against Israel and Zionism is absurd.
As for King's public position on Israel, it was quite limited and hardly formed a cornerstone of his worldview. In a meeting with Jewish leaders a few weeks before his death, King noted that peace for Israelis and Arabs were both important concerns. According to King, "peace for Israel means security, and we must stand with all our might to protect its right to exist, its territorial integrity."
But such a statement says nothing about how Israel should be constituted, nor addresses the Palestinians at all, whose lives and challenges were hardly on the world's radar screen in 1968.
At the time, Israel's concern was hostility from Egypt; and of course all would agree that any nation has the right not to be attacked by a neighbor. The U.S. had a right not to be attacked by the Soviet Union too--as King would have no doubt agreed, thereby affirming the United States' right to exist. But would anyone claim that such a sentiment would have implied the right of the U.S. to exist as it did, say in 1957 or 1961, under segregation? Of course not.
So too Israel. Its right to exist in the sense of not being violently destroyed by hostile forces does not mean the right to exist as a Jewish state per se, as opposed to the state of all its citizens. It does not mean the right to laws granting special privileges to Jews from around the world, over indigenous Arabs.
It should also be noted that in the same paragraph where King reiterated his support for Israel's right to exist, he also proclaimed the importance of massive public assistance to Middle Eastern Arabs, in the form of a Marshall Plan, so as to counter the poverty and desperation that often leads to hostility and violence towards Israeli Jews.
This part of King's position is typically ignored by the organized Jewish community, of course, even though it was just as important to King as Israel's territorial integrity.
As for what King would say today about Israel, Zionism, and the Palestinian struggle, one can only speculate.
After all, he died before the full tragedy of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza would be able to unfold.
He died before the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel; before the invasion of Lebanon and the massacres at Sabra and Shatilla; before the 1980's intifada; before Israel decided to serve as a proxy for U.S. foreign policy--funneling weapons to fascist governments in South Africa, Argentina and Guatemala, or helping to arm terrorist thugs in Mozambique and the contras in Nicaragua.
He died before the proliferation of illegal settlements throughout the territories; before the rash of suicide/homicide bombings; before the polls showing that nearly half of Israeli Jews support removing Palestinians via "transfer" to neighboring countries.
But one thing is for sure. While King would no doubt roundly condemn Palestinian violence against innocent civilians, he would also condemn the state violence of Israel.
He would condemn launching missile attacks against entire neighborhoods in order to flush out a handful of wanted terrorists.
He would oppose the handing out of machine guns to religious fanatics from Brooklyn who move to the territories and proclaim their God-given right to the land, and the right to run Arabs out of their neighborhoods, or fence them off, or discriminate against them in a multitude of ways.
He would oppose the unequal rationing of water resources between Jews and Arabs that is Israeli policy.
He would oppose the degrading checkpoints through which Palestinian workers must pass to get to their jobs, or back to their homes after a long day of work.
He would oppose the policy which allows IDF officers to shoot children throwing rocks, as young as age twelve.
In other words, he would likely criticize the working out of Zionism on the ground, as it has actually developed in the real world, as opposed to the world of theory and speculation.
These things seem imminently clear from any honest reading of his work or examination of his life. He would be a broker for peace. And it is a tragedy that instead of King himself, we are burdened with charlatans like those at the ADL, or the Des Moines Jewish Federation, or Rabbis like Marc Schneier who think nothing of speaking for the genuine article, in a voice not his own.
Tim Wise is an antiracist essayist, activist and lecturer. He can be reached at (and footnotes procured from) timjwise@msn.com
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BBC scam exposed
Posted: Saturday, January 18, 2003
Herald Reporter
THE British Broadcasting Corporation is allegedly buying air tickets for opposition MDC activists in Zimbabwe to fly to the United Kingdom where they are later used on its programmes to demonise President Mugabe’s Government.
The BBC has taken these same people to other European countries and the United States where they have been given platforms to attack their country while at the same time garnering for British support to overthrow President Mugabe and the Zanu-PF Government.
The Herald has established that Adellah Chiminya nee Mutero, divorcee of the late MDC campaign manager-cum-driver for Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, was flown out of the country by the BBC.
She appeared on the BBC programme Hard Talk last Thursday where she insulted African Heads of State for what she called "sympathising" with Preside-nt Mugabe.
Adellah said the BBC had also bought tickets for her two children Faith and Blessing who are now resident in the UK.
The BBC Press Office yesterday said it was highly unlikely that the BBC paid Adellah’s airfares for its programmes and to take part in a court case in the US.
"We do however, pay for certain people to come to our studios for interviews on our programmes,’’ said a spokesperson for the BBC who identified herself as Helen Martin.
Earlier, another official of the BBC who identified himself as Douglas Spitz said his organisation could fly, from any part of the world, guests coming to any of its shows.
Asked if it was the norm for the station to fly sources and their dependants into the United Kingdom where they are eventually granted asylum, Spitz said: "I wouldn’t know really, maybe the Foreign Office would know."
However, Adellah said: "As we speak, (Mr) Elliot Pfebve and his family arrived here last week and I am sure they got their tickets from the BBC."
Mr Pfebve (MDC) lost the Bindura by-election held after the death of the former Minister of Gender, Youth and Employment Creation, Cde Border Gezi.
Adellah, it was learnt, parted ways with Mr Chiminya long before he died and she took advantage of his death to thrust herself into the limelight as a grieved widow of an MDC activist.
She told the BBC that she last saw her husband in September, which was in 1999 and the husband died eight months later in April 2000.
Investigations by The Herald established that at the time of his death, Mr Chiminya lived-in with someone in Highfield while Adellah lived by herself in Hatfield.
Adellah, who repeatedly asked the Herald reporter not to write what the two were discussing, also opened up her heart saying she was in the UK for her survival although she believed some people were using her for their political goals.
"If you write this, I will sue you. Are you aware that I am taping the whole conversation we are having . . . siyana nazvo iwe (leave it alone) that’s my wish," she said.
She said ever since she went to the US with Ms Maria Stevens, Ms Evelyn Masaiti and Mr Pfebve, to sue the President, she had not benefited anything.
But on the BBC TV programme Hard Talk, Adellah, who repeatedly called South African President Thabo Mbeki a liar, said she was living in a house that Amani Trust, a folded Zimbabwean Non-Governmental Organisation that is heavily involved in politics, had bought her.
"But of course we have travelled to many European countries and we have been to Switzerland, you can name any country," she said.
It is understood that in those European countries, Adellah and her Zimbabwean "exiled" colleagues were used to address people on television as the British tried to garner for international support to overthrow President Mugabe.
Adellah said after the BBC TV Hard Talk programme, scores of whites from the US, Europe and South Africa had phoned her to congratulate her.
"I received calls from all over the world. They said I had done well. Many whites phoned me," she said without saying how they got her number.
Asked whether she was not ashamed to capitalise on the death of a man, with whom her marriage had broken down, Adellah who comes from Nerupiri, Gutu, said she had to survive.
She also agreed that she had become a fully-fledged member of the opposition MDC but would not shed light on the alleged affair she was reported to have had with a top official before she left the country.
She was known to have told some of her close relations that a top MDC official was dating her and she was getting fed up of his insensitivity.
According to some well-placed sources and relatives of the late Mr Chiminya, Adellah fled their matrimonial home to settle alone following endless problems which dogged their marriage.
And when the former husband died, she immediately saw and seized her opportunity to get sympathy and deceived the world that everything had been going on well and she was still married to him.
"Those two were not living together as husband and wife, Mr Chiminya lived with another woman and his children Blessing and Faith in Highfield. Adellah had left," said a relative.
Adellah was employed as a secretary at a school in Harare and was seeing a banker then before flying to the UK.
She had all intentions of returning but did not when she learnt her salary had been frozen while she was in the UK.
"She left in October 2001 and when she heard that her salary had been frozen because she was away without leave, she resigned and sought political asylum," said the relative.
After that she advised the BBC to facilitate her children’s flight.
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Mugabe: 'I am not retiring yet'
Posted: Wednesday, January 15, 2003
By Innocent Gore who was in Lusaka, Zambia
President Mugabe yesterday said it would be foolhardy, counter-revolutionary and disrespectful of the people who re-elected him last March if he were to step down before the expiry of his term.
He said this in the wake of British media reports that some Zanu-PF and MDC officials were working out a plan for him to step down before the expiry of his term, to pave the way for a government of national unity.
Cde Mugabe told reporters on arrival at Lusaka International Airport in Zambia that he would never surrender to British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair.
"Well, I am not used to answering questions about nightmares that are dreamt in Britain at Number 10 Downing Street and I only heard about that in the papers. There is no truth in it at all," he said in response to a question by a Zambian journalist who had asked him to comment on the issue.
"Only a few months ago, the people elected me to serve them and it will be foolhardy and absolutely counter-revolutionary. In fact, it is disrespectful of the support that the people gave, the loyalty the people reposed in me if today I am seen to be surrendering to Mr Blair. Never ever, never!"
The President was in Zambia to witness the conferment of the Honour of the Eagle of Zambia to that country’s founding president Dr Kenneth Kaunda in recognition of his service to Zambia and the liberation of Southern Africa, including Zimbabwe. MORE...
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There Is No Sanity Left In British Journalism
Posted: Tuesday, January 14, 2003
By Dr. David Nyekorach - Matsanga in London
What a travesty of journalism! And what has become of this world of the Queen? Is the end of the world nearing? Where will it begin? Are there any more intelligent journalists left in Britain? Democracy, good governance, public accountability, redounds positively on good journalism. But when all papers turn yellow like the editors who allow these stories to appear in Britain then we know these are the signs of a desperate nation and their devilish shoe polisher son called Satan Tsvangirai. Whatever the merits and demerits of the faked story there is a looming danger in the MDC who have been begging and pleading for more money from Britain to oust Mugabe.
A senior official in the British foreign office told us that the MDC has been told to step up the propaganda in order to receive more funding from British organisations like WFD and ZDT. Last month saw many opposition MDC MPS coming to Britain in search for money for disruption and other activities in Zimbabwe. A very reliable source at the foreign office in London was quoted as saying that "yes Baroness Amos has had a series of meetings with those MDC members of Parliament who visited London in December 2002 and January 2003". Then this explains the plethora of information that the British system has waged on Zimbabwe of late. The British divide and rule tactic is now at the centre of the so-called foreign policy. The doctored story that appeared on BBC and in several British newspapers about President Mugabe being removed by Hon. E D Mnangagwa and the Army chief General Vitalis Zvinanashe of his own party is clear example of politics of zygotes and half dead journalism whose spirit has been rejected by God and wondering free in the Queens territory. I am beginning to see the bad side of politics since embarked on this voluntary job of defending Zimbabwe abroad.
There are those surrogates of imperialism in Zimbabwe and Britain, who is too anxious to find sermons in stones, books in the running books and has unleashed terror-using journalism as weapon to kill President Mugabe and Zimbabwe. The whole UK woke up on Monday 13th January 2003 to find headlines about President Mugabe leaving power. WHAT A HOAX OF THE NEW YEAR! These reports have not only caused a mockery of the so-called British liberal press underpinned with the so called good governance but only shines with ignorance that is embedded in the minds of most British journalists. It is not only Zimbabwe that has suffered the torrent of silly accusations and silly praises.
While they are killing pluralism in Zimbabwe they are busy praising Uganda as model of Africa by the same Newspapers like The Times. Uganda has not even given the people parties like President Mugabe has done in Zimbabwe but the same GAY journalists like Robert Thomson who travel to Uganda to infect our people with HIV/AIDS are busy praising the country. What a shame to such smelly and polluted journalism coming from the brains of men who have defied the Bible creed of WOMAN marrying MAN. They go to Africa to buy sex from men who have no principles like those well-known GAYS in MDC. I have been humble in my articles in defence of Mugabe but to my readers please spare me this time I have changed my approach towards a Labour government, which has a bunch of gays whose scandals will cause mayhem to the world. How can men who defy the Bible be able to make correct judgment?
I have never witnessed such a goofed hoax and propaganda being peddled by journalists who call themselves white yet they don't know the colour of their skins. Britain has become a milling station of rumours and confusion. Indeed the poison of yellow journalism in Britain is worse than the Ricin powder that the Algerians had started manufacturing in the North of the City of London. Most of the men writing stories in British newspapers have narrow and shallow brains intellectually and these were former office messengers who were promoted to become editors of the current yellow newspapers. This explains the current onslaught on the people of Zimbabwe with stories that lack substance and are unbalanced.
The exposure of the "double standards" of Britain last week by the Herald Newspaper of Zimbabwe has forced the opposition MDC and the British MI6 to change their tactics on Zimbabwe. The source at the (I I S S) International Institute of Strategic Studies has told us that the comments on BBC by Prof. George Shire on 7th January 2003 and Africa Strategy's letter dated 6th January 2003 to the so called African affairs Minister Baroness Amos have sparked a series of a co-ordinated propaganda similar to that which was used in Yugoslavia before the fall of Melosvic from power. The enemies of Zimbabwe are attacking from two fronts. There is the official attack using the acrobatic style of British High Commission officials in Harare and organizations like ZDT and WFD, which have poured millions of British pounds to the opposition. This front is loaded with lethal weapons of propaganda machinery and a cocktail of doses of smelly substance called white man's arms twisting and creation of imaginary fever of panic in Zimbabwe. "THIS COCKTAIL IS CALLED "DIVIDE AND RULE" of the black ignorant masses.
The second flank is manned by the so-called "night dancers" who sneak into Zimbabwe under the pretext of playing golf and supported by the dirty malcontents of MDC. This so called visitors who fake their way into Zimbabwe visit the homes of the opposition supporters and interview those they claim are dying of hunger. Then these stories are beamed worldwide for the ignorant masses in Britain who believe everything their BBC or Channel 4 telecasts. The most worrying factor is that most of these so called undercover journalists are gays who hate President Mugabe. We have received evidence and information that those who appear on these so called documentary are paid huge amounts of money to appear on programmes like the ones that appeared on Channel 4 on Sunday night. It has also been revealed that most of the Opposition members are being sexually abused by these high flying undercover journalists like John Osborne who are paying up to £ 500 per night for sexual therapy that they cant have in Britain. Africa Strategy would like to join a long queue of those who will condemn the most recent reports on Zimbabwe.
These are some of the so-called distorted and imagined stories that have appeared Between December 26th 2002 and January 2003:
On Thursday 26th December 2002 a gay journalist by name Peta Thornycroft filed a story in The Daily Telegraph " Mugabe's wife selects her farm and orders the owners to leave" which was untrue.
On the same day another lesbian journalist called Alice Thomson filed a story entitled " Murderous Mugabe should be treated like bin Laden" also published by The Daily Telegraph.
On Thursday January 9th January 2003 another yellow gay journalist by name Peter Oborne files a story in the Daily Mirror the so called paper of the year 2002 "Africa's Nazis" it formed a basis of the documentary on Sunday.
Then comes the documentary that defied all intellectual rules on mass media and mass communication on Sunday 12th January 2003 by Channel 4 news that bought it for £100.000and beamed it across the European Continent. The Zimbabwean people who take part in this media sexual bonanza should know that their lives are being used as monetary conduits by the so called gay and lesbian journalists who flock Zimbabwe under Golf rituals in the best fields in the world.
On Monday 13th January 2003 the BBC reported as Breaking News "Mugabe's Party wants him to go" and this story was flashed on the front pages of the British newspapers. Those who like Zimbabwe condemn the faked story by the gay gangsters about the most loyal men in ZANU-PF and founders of the struggle against imperialism allegedly being against the founder father of the nation of Zimbabwe.
Many people who have telephoned Africa Strategy in London have wondered why only the known British gay journalists and lesbians have launched a campaign on Zimbabwe. There are concerns that President Mugabe's Public Relations PR machinery abroad has not done enough especially in Britain to change and reshape the image of the President and it appears that there is a "wait and see scenario" and a dirty syndrome of avoiding head on target with the foreign press that has not been hit so hard by the government abroad. The President's name has been damaged in Britain and yet his High Commission in London, which is near the media houses, like the BBC CNN, SKY NEWS, keeps a low profile and does not even issue or answer any of the accusations labelled on the same hand that feeds it. There is also the question of those turncoats who are feeding the yellow journalists in the Independent press of Zimbabwe to write stories about those who defend Mugabe in Europe and fill the gap. These are the most dangerous political toxins the President should get rid of quickly. There are worse than the MDC sellouts and could destroy the government of the SON of Africa.
Those whose culture is to use the media to kill the same plate that feeds them are conducting the political strangulation of the government of Zimbabwe in a coherent manner. A source very close to Africa Strategy's research team in London has revealed that the High Commission in London does not deny some of the stories appearing in the press. This goes to show how besieged the High Commission in London is or how confused the staff are or worse still one wonders whose side these sons and daughters of soil belong? One independent white PR officer in London who helped to return Libyan leader Gadaffi to the world order told Africa Strategy that it seems the staff are MDC followers because "he has never seen such an act of treachery and betrayal" he said. There are illegal demonstrators around the High Commission's premises near a British police Station and no charges or protest note has been sent out to the government of Britain about the behaviour of these narrow-minded zygotes of ZDT and MDC who want to sell their country to gay and lesbians. Our researchers went to the police near the premises to ask why they have allowed the illegal protests to take place every day near the building and to see whether those members of ZDT and MDC who gather near Zimbabwe House every evening in London have a permit to do so. Guess the answer: NO COMPLAINT LODGED by the time we went to press.
We discovered that not a single permit had been issued and the police told us that there was no complaint from the High Commission as regards that issue. How will President Mugabe defend himself when he can't travel to London to do so? Even those given the responsibility have no idea on what to do in UK? Many Observers on the Zimbabwe politics have expressed their surprise on the silence of the officials in London who are supposed to defend their President in this country of the Queen. The whole year has ended without Zimbabwe's officials in London openly defending their President in Britain like what other officials from African countries do in Britain.
Africa Strategy has decided to bring this matter to public because it seems we are entering a crucial stage of our defence of President Mugabe as such we shall be very intellectually brutal and factual in our attack on those who want to fail the President of Zimbabwe who has spearheaded an African dream. Let those who have hidden ambitions come out openly and fight some of us supporters of Mugabe in London morally or intellectually instead of strangulating the government of Zimbabwe and President Mugabe. Many people have feared to say this to the world and to the government but let Africa Strategy go on record for alerting the President and ZANU-PF that there is dubious silence in London. Africa Strategy is prepared for such a war to defend President Mugabe with the contribution of people like Mr.Mararaike, Prof George Shire and others who have filled the gap of the game of the "lost sheep". Africa Strategy has refused calls by Baroness Amos for a meeting and we are no interested in any future meetings until Zimbabwe is left alone. This the bottom line in politics and those who are armatures must quit. But in defence of President Mugabe against the bunch of gay gangsters in Britain we shall not surrender.
This brings us to the next phase of our struggle for the nation of Zimbabwe. The lesbian and Gay journalists have opened a Pandora box of death and skeletons, which we shall from now onwards, attack on the question of MORALITY and we have decided that until they stop meddling in the internal affairs of Zimbabwe we shall not rest. The whole strategy is to scare monger the cricket team from going to Zimbabwe next month as was used in Yugoslavia in the overthrow of President Melosvic. The so-called imaginary house coup in Zimbabwe is a design of the British MI6 that ZANU-PF should not listen to. BUT the party must find out those who are spreading these false reports to the Zimbabwe's so called yellow journalism? This reminds me of one Kenyan politician who kept on switching sides while President Moi was being strangled. This hand of death in Zimbabwe politics that goes on peddling malice and hatred against Hon. E D Mnangagwa and General Vitalis Zvinavashe has to be exposed soon to avoid costly remedies in future and for us who love our African Martin Luther King we are not going to hesitate to do so if the hand does not stop the Strangulation of the President of Zimbabwe. The direction of the onslaught on President Mugabe's enemies abroad must be decided now. We stand to lose an African statesman who has stopped madness in Congo, has given his people the pride by giving them back their land which the same criminals stole 200 years ago Where will you find a Castro of Africa like the one we have in Zimbabwe? The story of accusing the most honest and loyal men in ZANU-PF for plotting to remove their leader is not absurd but very idiotic in terms of those who imagine and produce such gutter journalism. Soon the people of Zimbabwe will see the true colours of the agents of British imperialism in Zimbabwe. The recent donation of £46.000 by Annabelle Hughes to the MDC boss and the payment made by Mr. Peter Oborne to the MDC officials for the fake story must be investigated by the government of Zimbabwe. Highly placed Sources have told us that ZDT official Annabele Hughes through an undercover journalist called Peter Oborne sent money to disrupt the cricket matches of next month from Account 42182002 0f Lloyds Bank of London. This is a clear testimony to the world that ZDT wants to fight the people of Zimbabwe and cause political infighting in ZANU-PF and create an imaginary power struggle.
President Mugabe and the Zimbabwean nation we thank you for your tenacity and steadfastness and assure you that the road to Jerusalem is full of temptations and trials but this is the time of UNITY of purpose for those who cherish peace. Africa Strategy will continue with its fight and we shall deal with these gangs of gays and lesbian idiots who have defied GOD'S Commandments and have brought the subject of JOURNALISM to disrepute.
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White Privilege Shapes The U.S.
Posted: Thursday, January 9, 2003
by Robert Jensen
Here's what white privilege sounds like:
I am sitting in my University of Texas office, talking to a very bright and very conservative white student about affirmative action in college admissions, which he opposes and I support.
The student says he wants a level playing field with no unearned advantages for anyone. I ask him whether he thinks that in the United States being white has advantages. Have either of us, I ask, ever benefited from being white in a world run mostly by white people? Yes, he concedes, there is something real and tangible we could call white privilege.
So, if we live in a world of white privilege--unearned white privilege--how does that affect your notion of a level playing field? I ask.
He paused for a moment and said, "That really doesn't matter."
That statement, I suggested to him, reveals the ultimate white privilege: the privilege to acknowledge you have unearned privilege but ignore what it means.
That exchange led me to rethink the way I talk about race and racism with students. It drove home to me the importance of confronting the dirty secret that we white people carry around with us everyday: In a world of white privilege, some of what we have is unearned. I think much of both the fear and anger that comes up around discussions of affirmative action has its roots in that secret. So these days, my goal is to talk openly and honestly about white supremacy and white privilege.
White privilege, like any social phenomenon, is complex. In a white supremacist culture, all white people have privilege, whether or not they are overtly racist themselves. There are general patterns, but such privilege plays out differently depending on context and other aspects of one's identity (in my case, being male gives me other kinds of privilege). Rather than try to tell others how white privilege has played out in their lives, I talk about how it has affected me.
I am as white as white gets in this country. I am of northern European heritage and I was raised in North Dakota, one of the whitest states in the country. I grew up in a virtually all-white world surrounded by racism, both personal and institutional. Because I didn't live near a reservation, I didn't even have exposure to the state's only numerically significant non-white population, American Indians.
I have struggled to resist that racist training and the ongoing racism of my culture. I like to think I have changed, even though I routinely trip over the lingering effects of that internalized racism and the institutional racism around me. But no matter how much I "fix" myself, one thing never changes--I walk through the world with white privilege.
What does that mean? Perhaps most importantly, when I seek admission to a university, apply for a job, or hunt for an apartment, I don't look threatening. Almost all of the people evaluating me for those things look like me--they are white. They see in me a reflection of themselves, and in a racist world that is an advantage. I smile. I am white. I am one of them. I am not dangerous. Even when I voice critical opinions, I am cut some slack. After all, I'm white.
My flaws also are more easily forgiven because I am white. Some complain that affirmative action has meant the university is saddled with mediocre minority professors. I have no doubt there are minority faculty who are mediocre, though I don't know very many. As Henry Louis Gates Jr. once pointed out, if affirmative action policies were in place for the next hundred years, it's possible that at the end of that time the university could have as many mediocre minority professors as it has mediocre white professors. That isn't meant as an insult to anyone, but is a simple observation that white privilege has meant that scores of second-rate white professors have slid through the system because their flaws were overlooked out of solidarity based on race, as well as on gender, class and ideology.
Some people resist the assertions that the United States is still a bitterly racist society and that the racism has real effects on real people. But white folks have long cut other white folks a break. I know, because I am one of them.
I am not a genius--as I like to say, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I have been teaching full-time for six years, and I've published a reasonable amount of scholarship. Some of it is the unexceptional stuff one churns out to get tenure, and some of it, I would argue, actually is worth reading. I work hard, and I like to think that I'm a fairly decent teacher. Every once in awhile, I leave my office at the end of the day feeling like I really accomplished something. When I cash my paycheck, I don't feel guilty.
But, all that said, I know I did not get where I am by merit alone. I benefited from, among other things, white privilege. That doesn't mean that I don't deserve my job, or that if I weren't white I would never have gotten the job. It means simply that all through my life, I have soaked up benefits for being white. I grew up in fertile farm country taken by force from non-white indigenous people. I was educated in a well-funded, virtually all-white public school system in which I learned that white people like me made this country great. There I also was taught a variety of skills, including how to take standardized tests written by and for white people.
All my life I have been hired for jobs by white people. I was accepted for graduate school by white people. And I was hired for a teaching position at the predominantly white University of Texas, which had a white president, in a college headed by a white dean and in a department with a white chairman that at the time had one non-white tenured professor.
There certainly is individual variation in experience. Some white people have had it easier than me, probably because they came from wealthy families that gave them even more privilege. Some white people have had it tougher than me because they came from poorer families. White women face discrimination I will never know. But, in the end, white people all have drawn on white privilege somewhere in their lives.
Like anyone, I have overcome certain hardships in my life. I have worked hard to get where I am, and I work hard to stay there. But to feel good about myself and my work, I do not have to believe that "merit," as defined by white people in a white country, alone got me here. I can acknowledge that in addition to all that hard work, I got a significant boost from white privilege, which continues to protect me every day of my life from certain hardships.
At one time in my life, I would not have been able to say that, because I needed to believe that my success in life was due solely to my individual talent and effort. I saw myself as the heroic American, the rugged individualist. I was so deeply seduced by the culture's mythology that I couldn't see the fear that was binding me to those myths. Like all white Americans, I was living with the fear that maybe I didn't really deserve my success, that maybe luck and privilege had more to do with it than brains and hard work. I was afraid I wasn't heroic or rugged, that I wasn't special.
I let go of some of that fear when I realized that, indeed, I wasn't special, but that I was still me. What I do well, I still can take pride in, even when I know that the rules under which I work in are stacked in my benefit. I believe that until we let go of the fiction that people have complete control over their fate--that we can will ourselves to be anything we choose--then we will live with that fear. Yes, we should all dream big and pursue our dreams and not let anyone or anything stop us. But we all are the product both of what we will ourselves to be and what the society in which we live lets us be.
White privilege is not something I get to decide whether or not I want to keep. Every time I walk into a store at the same time as a black man and the security guard follows him and leaves me alone to shop, I am benefiting from white privilege. There is not space here to list all the ways in which white privilege plays out in our daily lives, but it is clear that I will carry this privilege with me until the day white supremacy is erased from this society.
Frankly, I don't think I will live to see that day; I am realistic about the scope of the task. However, I continue to have hope, to believe in the creative power of human beings to engage the world honestly and act morally. A first step for white people, I think, is to not be afraid to admit that we have benefited from white privilege. It doesn't mean we are frauds who have no claim to our success. It means we face a choice about what we do with our success.
Jensen is a professor in the Department of Journalism in the University of Texas at Austin. He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu
copyright Robert William Jensen 1998
first appeared in the Baltimore Sun, July 19, 1998
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