Of democracy, deception and dictators
By Bernard Bwoni
December 19, 2013
Is it just the great western hype or the only way out of the African accretive and development delay? A camouflage which serves only to shroud the African reconstruction and reformulation with that unique raison d’être to eternally update and upgrade the existence of those historically dispossessed and disadvantaged. A ‘democratic’ process that remains bogged down in a polarised quagmire, an anomalous and disconcertingly confused and confusing quicksand. Zimbabwe does uphold the principles of ‘democracy’ in its entire entirety and a signatory to conventions that adhere to democratic principles of civil liberties, universal suffrage, human rights, due process, equality and freedom. A pre-condition that the west assert when prescribing and inflicting ‘democracy’ on African countries in particular to become more ‘democratic’ is democracy promotion through elections and multi party political participation. All eligible citizens are accorded the right to vote. If we are to go by the standards set by the ‘bearers of democracy’ then Zimbabwe is Africa’s supreme democracy. However to those stakeholders resolved on subverting national sovereignty, those with peculiar concerns on Zimbabwe it definitely is not.
Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy where the king is both head of state and head of government, where the Qur’an is the constitution and the country is governed on the basis of Islamic Sharia law and elections are as rare as hen’s teeth. The same duplicitous and clandestinely hostile hype that applies to Zimbabwe does not apply in Saudi Arabia a regime which brazenly violates human rights but enjoys cordial relations with the same players who chastise democratic Zimbabwe for illusory allegations which in Saudi Arabia are paltry preschool pastimes. China is another example of a country that does not adhere to the western notions of democracy yet it is set be the world’s largest economy and even Great Britain has been looking east as well.
Democracy is just too vague a term so easy to misunderstand, misrepresent or misinterpret whether deliberately or not. A concept that is clear as mud when applied to African context. Deliberately misinterpreted and misrepresented by those with a delitescent inducement and ingenuously misunderstood by those who obliviously front the cause of those who deliberately misinterpreted the process as a means to their own end. It is very easy to invent and contrive allegations of human rights violations, lack of rule of law and civil liberties. The fabrication used as a means to an end the deceitful forgery as justification to disparage Mugabe and the devious concoction as an excuse to interfere and intervene. It is a foreign inception that has inevitably continued to disconnect with the African establishment. It is a system as opposed to individual failure whose aetiology is multifactoral and multiplex. In fact in the African context it is an abstract conception that is synonymous with stagnation and in some cases retrogression. Take a look around the continent and the trend is repeated country after country. The problem with constant change in young civilisations is lack of continuity and consistency. There is no specific focus or joint traction and those are ideal conditions for retrogradation which is a perfect case scenario for the exploitation and manipulation of the African continent.
That democracy the term is a demented alien set of country-specific principles that cannot be all-embracing and universally prescribed and inflicted is fact. It is a means to an end with no end. Sanctions are also a means to an end but not the end itself. The west imposed excessively and harshly hellish sanctions on Zimbabwe to ‘propel the country towards the democratic end’ and that cannot be disputed; democracy on the western scene with local minders and keepers. All people have a right to existence. There is no smooth side to killing, there is no painless side to violence, travel restrictions or targeted sanctions do not cause a whole nation to suffer, there is no excuse for acts of violence; there is no better or worse violence and all perpetrators walk the same line in the eyes of the recipients of the acts. Violence in politics must never be understated; there are innocent victims and misguided perpetrators. A machete’s slicing affliction bares the same repugnance as sanctions. It is only degree that discerns the two pernicious immoralities.
In Zimbabwe the opposition believe that they are denied their freedoms to associate, their freedom to ‘subvert’ the nation for the purpose of their ‘democracy’; their freedom to change the current system which they see and believe is unjust. The only issue that is of concern is that whilst the motive behind is laudable, the method and the players seem to have Machiavellian machinations and portentous persistence. The government believes and rightly so that the political playing field has been made uneven by extraneous forces, the unlawful sanctions, the covert and overt external intersession. The opposition vehemently deny this even when the attestation is crushingly and nakedly there to the contrary. Do people genuinely believe those who liberated this country would wilfully engineer the suffering of those they liberated from the crooked clutch of colonisation, imperialism and apartheid? And for what purpose, why undo all the hard-work? Hubris versus purity, purity always triumphs. A tug of war between defenders national sovereignty versus democratic stakeholders of outlandish and ominous attributes. What is it going to be, a dictatorship that corrects and redress an unequal system and promotes people-orientated policies such as a redistributive land reform and empowerment policies or a democracy that safeguards the interests of the perpetually privileged minority?.
Bernard Bwoni can be contacted on bernardbwn@aol.com
No comments:
Post a Comment