NIGERIA, ZIMBABWE AND HER MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT
Ndubisi Obiorah
Abuja, Nigeria
June 29, 2008
Nigeria, Zimbabwe And Her Majesty's Government
Sam Nda-Isaiah
Once upon a time Africa had two leading heroes. Nelson Mandela was
from South Africa and Robert Mugabe was the fighter in Zimbabwe, also
called Rhodesia at the time. Both men were of the same generation and
both were very well educated. They did not compromise on justice
because their people and the world, with the exception of their
colonial masters led by the British, supported them. They were both in
prison for several years for the sake of what they believed in.
Eventually, both defeated their oppressors and taskmasters. First, it
was Robert Mugabe that became the president of a free Zimbabwe. That
was in 1980. Mandela was eventually released from prison and he too
went on, like Mugabe, to become the first president of a truly
democratic South Africa.
There is a well-known African aphorism which says that "you don't
really know a man until he gets money or power". That adage played out
clearly to differentiate Mugabe from Mandela. With power, Mandela
proved to be all that the world cherished but lacked. Mandela served
only one term as president even though, after spending 27 years in
jail for his nation, he could have decided to stay as long as he
wished. He had earned the right. His sense of forgiveness humbled the
world to the extent that even the Western world, which feared his
ascension to power most, became his greatest admirers and cheer
leaders. To them, he has become something of an avatar. Nelson Mandela
remains, without doubt, the greatest man alive today. His weighty
voice has the force of a veto and he panders to no one. When George W.
Bush and Tony Blair started their adventure in Iraq, when no world
leader, including Arab leaders, were courageous enough to condemn the
warmongers, Mandela was that lone voice who angrily spoke against it.
He addressed both Bush and Blair like little kids who needed guidance.
And when George W paid an official visit to South Africa a few months
later, Mandela left the country in protest. With the outcome in Iraq
today, Mandela has largely been vindicated. He was respectful to all
but subservient to none, as Prime Minister Gordon Brown said of him a
few days ago.
On the other hand, there is a Mugabe who had the same opportunities
but has decided to employ blackmail to stick to power. Granted, the
British government made a mess of the Lancaster House Agreement in
which the Conservative British government of Margaret Thatcher agreed
that the British would pay compensation to white farmers who had
unreasonably, if not preposterously, expropriated the most fertile
land of the country (some of them even had millions of acres of such
land) to the detriment of the aboriginal population, Mugabe only took
advantage of the lapse. The British government tacitly agreed that
injustice had been done during the negotiations leading to majority
rule. Mugabe's group which had insisted on redistributing the land,
because the white population had taken almost all of the fecund land
for itself, also asserted that it was totally implausible to expect
the incoming government to pay compensation to a group which, to all
intents and purposes, had extorted the land in the first place.
Thatcher's government, which could not argue against the compelling
logic of land redistribution, then agreed that the British government
would pay the compensation. Mugabe eventually got elected president,
defeating Joshua Nkomo fair and square in the first real election in
Zimbabwe. Mugabe waited but only very small help came from the
British. And even with this little help, he was accused by the same
British of redistributing the land only among his cronies. But would
Tony Blair or Margaret Thatcher or even George Bush distribute big
contracts among their opponents in the other parties?
In between, Mandela also got released from prison and talks of South
African majority rule started in earnest. When Mugabe wanted to move
against the white farmers when it had become obvious that Her
Majesty's Government, which by then had been taken over by Tony
Blair's New Labour, had reneged on its freely made commitment, he was
restrained by the black leaders of South Africa, who thought – and
rightly too – that if he (Mugabe) moved against the white farmers at
that time, their counterparts in South Africa would become too
frightened to give up power. Mugabe acquiesced, and only moved against
the white farmers after Mandela had been safely elected president.
This should partly explain why President Thabo Mbeki is reluctant to
condemn Mugabe's excesses.
But Mugabe has only been using the sentiments against the whites to
his advantage. He has used the British government's lapse to further
his own sit-tight passion. And, the matter is not helped by the double
standard of the British government, nay, the West. The West's fuss
against Mugabe is with the elections that he keeps winning. They want
him to lose, and since he has been winning it means the elections were
"flawed". Mugabe, of course, is being helped a great deal by the
perception of his opposition rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, as the toady of
Western governments. And that makes it a lot easier for Mugabe to keep
the issue of the "hate against the whites" alive. And Tsvangirai can
also sometimes be wooden-headed. Not too long ago, he came to Nigeria,
not to enlist President Yar'Adua's friendship but Obasanjo's support
against Mugabe. Was it that nobody ever told him Nigeria has a new
president? Mugabe's other advantage is that he has a fool as an
opponent.
The truth, however, is that the only election that Mugabe has lost in
his almost three decades as president was the last one, even though
the opposition candidate didn't garner the required vote to take over
power. And at least Mugabe has been honourable enough to have a
run-off election. Obasanjo, who behaved like Mugabe and Yar'Adua,
never allowed a run-off. But while the Queen was stripping Mugabe of
his knighthood last week – even though Mugabe insists his supporters
will continue to address him as "Sir" – Her Majesty's Government was
inviting the Nigerian president Umaru Yar'Adua to pay a historic
official visit to Britain. This is the kind of attitude that makes it
difficult for many African onlookers to respect the views and opinions
of the West when it comes to democracy in developing countries. The
election observers of the last Nigerian general elections declared in
unison that the elections they witnessed were the worst they had ever
seen anywhere in the world – that is, including all the elections that
Mugabe had conducted in the 28 years he has been president. When a
similar election ushered in Olusegun Obasanjo for a second term in
2003, in another record-breaking election rigging, a few months later,
the Queen of England and all the Commonwealth heads of government
trooped to Nigeria to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government
Meeting (CHOGM), endorsing the elections in the process. That was also
clearly an endorsement of the rigging. But something most ridiculous
also happened before and during the meeting. Nigeria was pressured not
to allow Mugabe to attend that same meeting on the grounds that his
election was rigged. Again, not too long after that, George W. Bush
also paid a visit to Obasanjo to endorse the rigging. And even in
terms of government-sponsored electoral violence, Mugabe did not come
close to beating Obasanjo's record. At least, as we know, nobody of
the status of Bola Ige, Harry Marshall and Aminosoari Dikibo (all of
whom, according to Obasanjo, were killed by armed robbers, only that
he didn't say whether they were Aso Rock armed robbers) were ever
killed in Zimbabwe.
The time has come for the West to allow Zimbabwe to solve its internal
problems itself. The multiple standard it shows when it comes to
issues of elections and democracy (depending on where their bread is
buttered) has greatly affected their credibility and most Africans
only get cheesed off when they talk about Zimbabwe and Mugabe. Yes,
Mugabe may be a worthless, good-for-nothing leader who represents all
that is bad with Africa, but the more Her Majesty's Government and its
allies show desperation to get him out, the more difficult it gets.
Besides, in this struggle for the soul of Zimbabwe, neither Mugabe nor
Tsvangirai and his Western supporters will win.
There are only two ways Mugabe will vacate power. Either by a cardiac
coup organised by God, fulfilling even Mugabe's prophesy that only God
can remove him or via a military coup involving middle or lower
ranking officers. By the way, why are Zimbabwe's junior military
officers so unpatriotic?
Pius Adesanmi
Great piece by Sam Nda Isaiah. If Mugabe had oil instead of mealie, Condi Rice would have been in Harare, grinning from ear to ear at the 'inauguration'.
Pius
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Biko Agozino
IN CLASS WITH HANCOCK
By Biko Agozino
I have just seen the box office hit movie, Hancock, with my two teenage sons and their 12 year old cousin. As usual, after seeing a movie with the kids, we engaged in debates about the representations and subtle messages in the movie. I asked the young men if they liked the film and they all agreed that it was a great film. I asked them what they liked about it and they said that Will Smith was the greatest superhero ever. Then they asked me if I liked the movie and I said no that I did not. Why not? They all asked in unison.
I asked the children to compare Will Smith’s character with other super heroes played by white actors. They said that all super heroes have their nemeses because people are suspicious of those who have superhuman powers. Many people dislike Superman and Batman and Spiderman especially when they are slow to beat the bad guys or when the bad guys impersonate them and make it look like the bad things were being done by the superheroes. Sometimes people dislike the superhero because they envy the superpower or because they fear that he may use the same power to defeat them if they did anything naughty by themselves. So they were not surprised that people were complaining about John Hancock in the movie, it comes with being a superhero.
I asked the young men if they knew of any superhero who was unemployed, or an alcoholic, or who slept rough on the streets, or used foul language, or tried to pinch the bum of women on the streets or called them bitches, or bullied children who were bullies, or had no girlfriend or family or went to prison just to learn how to say ‘good job’, or chased another man’s wife?
I told them that I suspected that Hollywood used these stereotypes to send the wrong messages to young black men and help to continue leading them astray. Some young black men may see the movie and believe that abusing large bottles of whiskey might give them superpowers. These are common stereotypes of the black man: unemployed, drunk addict, homeless, no family responsibility, cursing, ex-convict, childish, ignorant of his true identity and doing more harm than good.
Moreover, while he slept rough, it was a white boy who kicked him to wake him up by the side of the street to tell him that there were bad guys that he needed to fight and when he could not be bothered, the boy called him an asshole, an insult that almost everyone called him for his trouble of saving the world from dangerous criminals who were represented predominantly as foreigners or as black people while the criminal bosses were white men.
The young black men who saw the movie with me protested that Hancock gave up drinking in the movie. Yes, I agreed, but guess who made him give up drinking for a while? It was a white man who did so as if he had no mind of his own. Moreover, Hancock did not even know who he was, it was a white woman who defined him for himself the way white people like to be the ones defining black people’s identity. I Asked them if they have ever seen a superhero played by a white man who did not know who he was until a black woman revealed the true identity.
Why was Hancock persuaded to accept a prison term as the only way to win respect when it is easier to improve the image of anyone by sending him to the university? In the prison where black men were over-represented, Hancock had to prove his superpower status by pushing a man’s head up the ass of another man (a metaphor for male rape in prison), by dumbly saying ‘pass’ in the group therapy sessions, and by magically scoring baskets from incredible distance as if that was all black men could do in a world dominated by ideas of white supremacy.
Why was Hancock not given his own family or girlfriend in the movie instead of setting him up to appear as if he was after the white woman who was married to the white man who pretended to be his boss and who told him how to dress for work? He later claimed that the white woman kissed him after he had tucked her husband into bed as if he was the nanny or ‘manny’ but that was no kiss, it was a beating that he got from the white woman who simply told him that they were different because she was stronger, blah blah blah.
Finally, Hancock was persuaded to go to a different planet to avoid tempting the white woman who claimed to be his mystical wife as if getting rid of the black man was the only way to resolve the sexual desire of white women for the forbidden fruits of black masculinity. By some kind of coincidence, John Hancock was the name of one of the Founding Fathers of America who was a slave trader, tax dodger and smuggler.
Films like Hancock are rated PG with the expectation that parents would guide their children in reading the codes in the movies but not all parents have the time, skill or interest to do so adequately. As a result, schools may have to fill this void by having seminars and workshops in which popular films will be closely read and analysed by a students’ film club to guide students against the negative messages encoded in films. So PG films should also be rated SG for School Guidance.
Biko Agozino is a Professor of Sociology at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine. His documentary film, CLR James: The Black Jacobins Sociology Series is being serialized by NCC Channels 4 ND 11, Trinidad and Tobago.
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