Racism behind US varsities' campaign
Posted: Tuesday, May 8, 2007From Obi Egbuna in WASHINGTON DC
The Herald
May 08, 2007
WHILE all institutions of higher learning present themselves as marketplaces of ideas, a people's collective history and culture are far more influential in determining what values they embrace or reject, and this determines how young minds are influenced, both positively and negatively.
In the academic world, students are encouraged to be objective and honest. This is why the efforts by some at the University of Massachusetts and Michigan State University to rescind the honorary degrees presented to President Mugabe during the first decade of independence are not only suspicious but hypocritical.
Cde Mugabe was awarded the degree from UMass-Amherst in 1986, while Michigan State University honoured him in 1990. At the ceremony in Massachusetts, Cde Mugabe received his hood from Maki Mandela, the daughter of South Africa's founding president, Nelson Mandela.
The efforts at UMass-Amherst are being spearheaded by the Student Senate, which passed a resolution that they submitted to the board of trustees for review through Alexander Kulenvic who is a student representative on the board along with a campus-based organisation called the Non-Aligned Group.
Ironically, the Non-Aligned Group's goals on paper are to educate UMass-Boston's diverse community through music and an awareness of world politics devoid of political ideology.
The African community within US borders has a saying that goes, "if you live in a glass house don't throw no stones."
While the UMass-Amherst is recognised as the flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts system, it must never be forgotten that the school is named after the war criminal — Lord Jeffrey Amherst — a man guilty of injecting smallpox into the blankets of Native Americans.
If the students at U-Mass want to make a strong political statement in connection with human rights, they should petition their board of trustees to remove Lord Amherst's name from the building named after him and issue a public apology to all Native Americans.
If the students at Michigan State want to see their university play a role in correcting the wrongs of the past; they must question this prestigious institution's involvement in the Vietnam War.
In an article titled "University Of The Make" written by Stanley Sheinbaum, Warren Kinckel, Robert Scheer and Sol Stern in 1966 for Ramparts Magazine, the school developed a Vietnam Project spearheaded by an associate professor called Wesley Fishel.
Sheinbaum called this project a CIA front and Kinkel, Scheer and Stern revealed that through this project South Vietnam's government was assisted in the following areas fingerprinting techniques, bookkeeping, governmental budgeting and lastly the drafting of their constitution.
The article also reveals that Fishel had a bigger villa in South Vietnam than the US Ambassador and had more access to President Diem than the Washington Bureau Chief Leland Burrows. He also advised Diem on how to train his city police and the Surete, South Vietnam's version of the FBI.
The people of Zimbabwe and Africa as a whole should thank U-Mass and Michigan State for showing their true colours and commitment to the legacy of colonialism and imperialism.
While the effort at UMass was presented mainly as a student effort, an influential professor also made his feelings public.
Dr Ekuwele Michael Thelwell, the founder of the Afro-American Studies Department at UMass in 1970, had this scandalous remark; "Mugabe has become a scourge of his people and a scourge of Africa, he has degenerated as a political leader and human being."
Yet Thelwell was one of the professors who encouraged the school to present Cde Mugabe with the honorary degree in 1986. Thewell was also a field secretary of the Student Non Violent Co-ordinating Committee and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in the 1960's.
He gained international recognition for assisting the late Pan Africanist Revolutionary Kwame Ture (formerly Stokely Carmichael) to complete his autobiography "Ready for the Revolution" before he made his transition in 1998.
Based on his recent comments about Cde Mugabe, Thelwell's views on the Zimbabwe question, are compatible with those of another former member of SNCC Congressman John Lewis, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus that endorses the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act, the anti-Zimbabwe sanctions law passed by the Bush Administration in 2001.
The academic circles in the United States should realise that the tactic of using activists from the 1960's to demonise African revolutionaries like Cde Mugabe is an outdated strategy that has become predictable and laughable.
The late Dr Phillip Melanson who directed U-Massachusetts Public Policy programme was considered a first class expert on filing freedom of information act requests to governmental agencies and co-ordinated, since 1984, the Robert F. Kennedy assassination archives.
In his memory, U-Mass students concerned about Zimbabwe, should research how much money Tony Blair and George W. Bush have given Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change since its inception on September 11 1999.
The timing of the anti-Mugabe crusade also has to be critically analysed, UMass-Boston is awarding Senator and 2004 Presidential candidate John Kerry with an honorary degree, and last year also gave 2008 presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama an honorary degree.
It is poignant to note that at the end of March, Obama submitted a resolution on behalf of the US Senate, complicit with the US Congress' anti-Mugabe stance, through Congressman Tom Lantos condemning Cde Mugabe and Zanu-PF for alleged state-sponsored violence and fundamental human rights violations.
Obama had his part of the resolution endorsed by Senator Kerry.
The students should take their administration to task over why Kerry has been selected as their commencement speaker.
This is the man who emerged as the Democratic party's frontrunner in the last presidential election by gloating about his silver star, bronze star with combat v and three purple hearts that he won in the Vietnam War as he slaughtered a proud people who had just liberated themselves from the yoke of French colonialism.
The students at UMass and Michigan State and the hidden hands driving them towards such repugnant efforts are smart enough to understand that President Mugabe's role in the struggle by African people for total liberation and human dignity is totally secure.
It is the height of deceit for academic institutions in the western world to give the impression that they speak for the whole planet by demonising our brother and comrade.
When the University of Edinburgh in Scotland went public with its plans to rescind Cde Mugabe's honorary degree, it was evident that they did not want to do this alone and wanted other schools to follow their lead.
As his spokesman, Cde George Charamba, pointed out, President Mugabe does not suffer from a crisis of academic achievement as he boasts of seven earned degrees from various universities.
More so, he does not suffer from want of honours as he is the only African head of state to receive the Jose Marti Award, Cuba's most prestigious honour and the Simon Bolivar Award, Venezuela's most prestigious honour.
If Commandante Fidel Castro and Cde Hugo Chavez were to rescind those honours, then Africa's daughters and sons would be concerned, this is an African head of state who courageously withdrew from the Commonwealth which shows Harriet Tubman's underground railroad lives on.
President Mugabe also received an honorary degree from the University of Peking in 2005 and had Malawi's biggest highway named after him by President Bingu wa Mutharika in 2006.
The Zimbabwe Solidarity and Support effort inside the US must intensify its work to encourage academic institutions inside our community i.e. historically black colleges and universities, African independent schools, public charter schools to develop and maintain educational projects with Zimbabwe.
In the final analysis, predominantly white institutions' assumptions that because of the integrationist tradition of the civil rights struggle, we will parrot their words and actions will be proven wrong.
The writer is a member of the Pan African Liberation Organisation, and Zimbabwe Cuba Friendship Association.Printer friendly version
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