Hour of reckoning for AU
Posted: Monday, June 30, 2008By Stephen Mpofu
June 30, 2008
THERE are few men in this world, if any at all, divorced by their wives on account of cruelty who are to see their former spouses leading a happy and successful life by themselves.
Brave and courageous gentlemen who say prayers for the women to grow even more prosperous and render all possible assistance in that regard, as atonement for their own failures in the collapsed relationship.
However, history is replete with accounts of cruel divorcees who have stalked their ex-wives, abused them, even committed murder or driven by jealous especially on discovering that the former wife has stuck up a relationship, however, innocuous with other men of goodwill.
If they had their way, these men would even dictate the style and colour of the clothing their ex-spouses should wear.
They would also tell the kind of perfume they should wear – only the type that muffles body odour, not the sort that lives on aromatic trail causing other men to sniff the air after the woman had passed by.
Africa's former European colonial powers, supported by such former colonies in Australia and in the USA, behave like divorced men cited above towards independent African states. In a bizarre political manoeuvre, they even attempted recently to have a Zimbabwean leader of their choice installed as president of this country.
Zimbabwe's case has exposed these divorces monumental, satanic machinations. And, tragically enough, their evil designs against this country and other black states are abated, rather than abetted, by some African leaders who either seek to curry favour for money – with some of them already constipated with obscene foreign funding – or for protection in their tenuous leadership position.
These men with inverted political visions boast no freedom struggle track record of their own or had one but have now forgotten themselves. Instead, they tramp surreptitiously and cling tenaciously to the coattails of the dark shadows of their imperialist handlers. These African leaders, found in Southern Africa, East Africa and even West Africa are a potential threat to both regional and African unity.
The nefarious political conduct, if not checked, might reduce "African unity" to a merely theoretical concept forming a basis for study by university students.
In light of the presence of such men on the African political arena, this pen bemoans a glorious past populated on some African soil by political heavyweights who put their hearts and feet firmly on the ground for the independence and sovereignty of both their own peoples and those in sister states still under subjugation by imperial powers that now return to Africa slyly to their erstwhile "spouses".
But, regrettably the vacant space left behind by those illustrious sons of the soil is now trodden by political midgets – lightweights who dangle on strings held between two hands in the minds of their foreign masters who make the puppets swing or dance according to the master's voice. In African tradition, parents provide cooking and other utensils to young children playing house as a way of socialising them about running their own home when they grow up.
Then they keep a keen eye on these kids to make sure they do not mess themselves up or the place badly, and will withdraw the more important items if the kids appear about to damage them.
Similarly, the former imperial rulers of Africa seem to regard blacks governing their countries as "kids" merely playing house. And their paternalistic and racist attitudes towards independent African states – witness what is going on around Zimbabwe – strongly suggests that at independence colonial powers tied a long rope round the necks of black leaders with a view of pulling the leash once in their estimation the former rulers believe the "children" playing house are "messing" themselves and threatening the "utensils" – their countries.
When people decide to destroy a strong building structure, they either dynamite it and sink it into the ground in a heap of rubble, or knock it down brick by brick. Africa is a vast structure that is impossible to erase using the first method cited above, so the second option becomes a feasible alternative for contemporary western imperialism to use in order to destroy African unity.
Zimbabwe is a full brick of both the Southern African Development Community and the African Union. Those forces ganging up against Zimbabwe right now are threatening the solidarity of the Sadc edifices as a first step towards dividing and weakening the African continent with some of the enemies eager to turn Africa into a foreign military barrack. Should Zimbabwe be wrenched, huge fissures will appear on that important regional structure through which the enemy will step inside then tear down the shaky walls even with bare hands before leaping over the debris to hammer away at other regional economic and political bodies that together with Sadc form the pillars of the AU. When the supports of an institution are crippled it is anyone's guess what is likely to happen to the body.
Therefore, if Zimbabwe falls at the hands of those now baying for its political leaver, who have already savaged its other vital economic organ, a freeway will have been blazed open for the enemy to race after any other country in this region governed by a revolutionary party that, like Zimbabwe's, was, and is no doubt still quietly, condemned by Western countries as a terrorist organisation.
A false excuse will be created, as in the case of Zimbabwe and the enemy will again be added in its agenda by the same African political novices hoping to lick their fingers one by one for the blood.
The noises from Washington DC condemning Zimbabwe's presidential run-off election as being "illegal" are a simple demonstration of how inconsequential African governments are regarded by imperialist powers. Zimbabwe, like all other independent African states, is not governed by American laws.
And so it does not follow at that what George Bush thinks is "illegal" automatically becomes so in Zimbabwe, which is not America's province.
The same mentality is demonstrated by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown who still imagines that Zimbabwe is still Rhodesia, a subject country of the British Crown and a member of the Commonwealth club.
The angry rumblings from the White House and from Whitehall stand as litmus test of the unity and solidarity of African leaders under the umbrella of the AU which holds its summit in Cairo this week. Will the African heads of the state and governments preside at the disintegration of the continental body over the Zimbabwean case as this pen cannot see some store wards of independence and sovereignty kow-towing to imperialists who are determined to divide and weaken African leaders and their countries for an open sesame on the continent's massive, rich, natural resources?
The thesis of this article is that Africa's independence in no ways guarantees the continents unlimited security as the vindictive divorced "husbands" continue to hover overhead, like hungry and angry hawks poised to swoop down on their chosen chicken prey.
The leaders meeting in the Egyptian capital this week should disabuse themselves of complacency in policing their solidarity with one another for their own political protection and the survival of their states because a house divided against itself cannot withstand the wild political winds that constantly and violently lash the AU as they did its predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity.
Africa is for Africans and any problems on the continent – and they are many and diverse – should be solved by Africans themselves and not by any hiring their own individual imperialist "consultants" to do so. Thus, the AU should guard its gates to prevent these lost African Trojan horses entering the continent to offload the enemy.
This discourse does not suggest that the AU or any regional body, for that matter, should condone any activity by member countries that are deemed to be violating the rights and freedom of their peoples, far from it. In fact, such contradictions should be averted through close co-ordination of the activities of the regional as well as the continental bodies with appropriate sanctions, designed by Africans themselves, being meted out to delinquent member states.
Today Africa's economic development initiatives are hamstrung by political upheavals in several countries and these are mainly inspired or engineered by external forces that view Africa's unity and solidarity as threats to their political and commercial interests on the continent.
The saying that "united we stand, divided we fall", is instructive enough and should inform the final resolutions of the African leaders meeting in Cairo.
They should blow the whistle to signal the end of the game for those of their members who run with the hares and hunt with the hounds.Printer friendly version
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