Propaganda in quest to conquer history

From Reason Wafawarova in SYDNEY, Australia (04/03/10)

IT is rather a surprise that each problem with the MDC-T is viewed by the party’s admirers as a corroboration of the shortcomings of the party’s political opponents, and we are told that the calcareous plague of corruption bedevilling the party now is all a creation of Zanu-PF, simply because it is comforting for those involved to speak like that, or it serves as a cosmetic cover to the fading fortunes of the Western-backed political outfit.

This attitude has created in the MDC-T a leadership made up of characters that trifle in politics, all the time trying to excite admiration from vanity. These political flirts coquette in the comfort of the knowledge that they have unwavering backing from a consortium of a grossly unrefined para-media publishing nothing but hostilities against not only Zanu-PF, but any group of Zimbabweans seen as standing in the way of Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC-T.

Of course the MDC-T enjoys the full and unconditional backing of Western elites and their mainstream media for as long as the party continues to advance the cause of Western- directed politics of puppetry.

The history that is being written by the West on Zimbabwe right now is a conquered history — a history shaped by falsehoods and gross propaganda at the expense of reality. The documentary "Mugabe and the White African" is one such adulterated propaganda designed to create a history favourable to the character of remnants of the colonial legacy — portraying white Zimbabweans as defenceless victims of the vindictiveness of black independence in Africa.

The documentary is moulded alongside such documentaries like "The Last King of Scotland", a one-sided demonisation piece of act that was directed at Uganda’s Idi Amin.

Of course Idi Amin was a nasty piece of work, but that alone does not make falsehoods and exaggerations against him acceptable. Unfounded and baseless assertions of cannibalism against the man are irremissible acts of mischief in history making, just like the misrepresentation that only Adolf Hitler’s Nazis committed war crimes during World War II, when in fact the Allied forces carried out similar acts but were spared repercussions by a victors’ justice system.

The Nuremberg trials selectively applied the law to such an extent that only acts carried out by Hitler’s forces were deemed war crimes; with similar or worse atrocities from the Allied forces totally ignored or even condoned.

This is why Trudy Stevenson will never have a Western filmmaker approaching her for a role in a documentary outlining the violent nature of the MDC-T hoodlums who just fell short of chopping her head off in 2006.

That piece of history has to be conquered out of the records of Zimbabwean history in line with the doctrine of the inviolability of the MDC-T, a party we are all supposed to revere for its "democratic principles".

About five dozen rowdy MDC-T characters were arrested for beating the crap out of each other at an unsanctioned political gathering in Beitbridge recently and there was deafening silence from the many MDC-T Western-based mouthpieces. This is the kind of history that needs to be conquered out of the records. These are facts that need silencing.

If this violence had occurred between Zanu-PF members, there is no doubt that the whole world was going to be bombarded with headlines of how Mugabe’s party was imploding.

The June 2008 pre-election violence has been recorded in the West as a one-sided affair where Zanu-PF supporters are portrayed as villain savages that preyed on defenceless and civilised MDC-T supporters. This is despite well-documented evidence that the violence was inter-party and that both sides were on the receiving end of arsonist attacks and other forms of inter-party violence.

The inveterate doctrine of conquering history is so powerful that we have a concocted version that says the illegal economic sanctions on Zimbabwe were invited by Zanu-PF. This means Zanu-PF must be taken as the cause of the illegal sanctions against Zimbabwe and against the Government the same party led.

The well documented utterances by Western leaders and by Tsvangirai when they mobilised sanctions in retaliation to the land reform programme are all supposed to be suppressed and conquered into oblivion and the unbelievable and nonsensical assertion that Zanu-PF campaigned for its own isolation and that of the country it led must be promoted in the hope that future generations will believe it.

The whole idea of imposing unilateral coercive economic sanctions on another state, as was done by the US-led Western alliance is just illegal in every sense of the word. Many people from the MDC-T leadership and their Western masters are incensed by the use of the phrase "illegal sanctions". But do they have a case?

A report prepared by Somehwar Singh on December 21 1999 in Geneva, in respect to UN General Assembly Resolution 52/181 of December 18 1997 noted the following:

"The group (of UN experts) agreed that the unilateral imposition of coercive economic measures is inconsistent with core principles and norms of international economic law, such as (a) freedom of international trade, investment and navigation, (b) non-discrimination, including the so-called most favoured nation (MFN) clause and concept of national or equal treatment; and (c) sovereignty over natural resources and the right to regulate foreign investment and economic activities."

In another report prepared by Gustavo Capdevila on April 9 1998, in respect to a UN Human Rights Commission Resolution sponsored by the Non Aligned Movement, a vote was carried out on the issue of unilateral coercive economic sanctions.

The 53 member Commission voted on "non-use of unilateral coercive economic sanctions" with 37 votes voting for a stop to the use of such sanctions, seven voting against such a stop and eight abstaining.

This is besides the fact that the US-EU sanctions on Zimbabwe are in violation of Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter and many experts have pointed this out, not only in relation to Zimbabwe, but also Cuba, Libya, Iran and other countries that have been targeted this way before.

These are the kind of facts that must be conquered out of history, and one argues this way they go down in record as dissidents to the imperial world system.

We have a history in the making that says Cde Robert Mugabe has become a liberator-turned-dictator just because the MDC failed to win elections ahead of him and his party. These conquering history makers have even publicly offered that President Mugabe could spare himself such a terrible record if he stepped aside and allowed the Western-favoured politicians to preside over Zimbabwe.

There have been suggestions from the West and from the MDC-T that if President Mugabe did that he would "be honoured as a founding father of Zimbabwe’s independence". Real history will never change. Robert Gabriel Mugabe is a founding father of the post-independent nation of Zimbabwe regardless of when, how and why he will vacate the presidency of the country. His legacy cannot be shaped by an exit plan or package from the West. It is already in place and cannot be taken away by fraudulent posturing.

His record cannot be obliterated by history makers whose pre-occupation is to glorify the imperial interest in world affairs.

There is no way whatsoever; just no way the legacy of President Mugabe as the liberator can rest in the hands or the fate of Morgan Tsvangirai, of all people.

Tsvangirai can rescue that legacy from the bondage of Western propaganda and slander if he so wishes, but that history is indelible in the memories of all Zimbabweans, and for these, this is history written on hearts and souls, not only on paper.

The treatment of the diplomatic record in the prevailing doctrine in international relations today is all based on the triumph of propaganda. It is all based on subordination to corporate power — a subordination that underlies the strength of Western hegemony over world affairs today.

The reason Israel won the affection it commands among Western intellectuals today was not the attractiveness of the facts around their 1967 military prowess. In fact this matter is rarely discussed in the West today because the facts around it are grossly unattractive. The Western intellectual community is in reality expressing its affection for state-private power through lapdog support for Israel.

They have to accept this much more useful image that says supporters of Israel are an embattled few, desperately trying to stem the assault on Israel by its armies of enemies from the Arab world, by the press and the non-Western international community.

Those Westerners who rightly criticise Israel are amplified as an insurmountable threat and they are often labelled friends of Israel’s enemies.

Thomas Friedman wrote that the PLO had become "the darling of many Western liberals", meaning, presumably, that some Western liberals regarded the PLO as perhaps semi-human, at least. Even that was a gross fabrication so extreme that it was not even comical.

The Australian government is currently embroiled in a harsh diplomatic exchange with Israel for Mossad’s use of fraudulent Australian passports bearing names of real Australians in assassinations of Palestinian political opponents. It is revealing to note that Australia has not expressed any concern on the act of murdering itself, no condemnation of the assassinations themselves, but only on the use of Australian passports.

Maybe it is because Palestinians or Hamas officials deserve to be killed, they have no rights, just like Zanu-PF politicians — their fate is of no consequence.

It is all about how a conquered history is made.

It is like saying today those Westerners who are opposed to the Iraq and Afghani war are darlings of Iraqis or the Afghan people. Some commentators even accused them of being darlings of Osama bin Laden. Nothing can be further from the truth of course.

When Barack Obama was launching his presidential campaign in 2007, he announced that he would withdraw US troops from Iraq if elected because he was opposed to that war. John Howard of Australia immediately labelled him an ally of Osama bin Laden.

This kind of thinking is baseless and unfounded but it is very functional for power, therefore quite admissible in Western records of manufactured consent. Obama survived Howard’s onslaught mainly because it was a feeble kick from a Bush ally who was already lying hopelessly on the ground and ready for political oblivion. At a better time the label could have stuck permanently.

The reality of what Obama calls "wrong side of history" is often the right side of history.

The right side of Zimbabwean history is that land was stolen by European settlers between 1890 and 1980, and that Robert Mugabe led the repossession of that land between 2000 and today.

The fact that the process is demonised only confirms the bitterness of the losers.

The wrong side of that history is that Cde Mugabe is a ruthless dictator for allowing his people to take back what belongs to them.

The wrong side of history is to say the British-formed and Western-sponsored MDC-T should be allowed to fight from the corner of the dispossessed Rhodesians who lost the land they held at the expense of Zimbabwean landless masses.

We have seen vocabulary being changed to disguise reality. Democracy does not refer to the process of the people’s rule anymore.

Rather it now refers to whatever the US-led Western alliance happens to be doing, often blocking the people’s will and aspirations in many nations.

This is why we hear Zimbabwe’s Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act is an undemocratic legislation.

This is purely because the law stands in the way of Western investment interests — nothing else. It is therefore considered democratic to repeal it, and by so doing surrender the control of Zimbabwe’s natural resources and wealth into the hands of Western investors. That is the new idea of democracy, and once that is done Zimbabwe will officially be considered to have "returned to democracy". This is a law that democratically passed through Parliament with unanimous endorsement, by the way.

Western media tell us that the coalition Government in Zimbabwe is "troubled" when in reality it is the West that is troubled by the presence of President Mugabe. So Tendai Biti, Tsvangirai and Nelson Chamisa are often pushed hard to corroborate this "trouble" by confirming the unworkability of the whole set up.

Tsvangirai has largely been reticent over this matter while Chamisa has been the West’s favourite hoopla boy for this misguided propaganda. Biti just recently refused to be manipulated this way when he openly declared his positive working relationship with President Mugabe.

We hear the GPA is threatened by "extremists", "hardliners", or "radicals" from Zanu-PF, while some people have been labelled "moderates". Moderates are those who conform to Western plans on Zimbabwe, and extremists are those who have their own ideas.

The "moderates" can also be called "pragmatists" and it is therefore considered pragmatic to repeal the Indigenisation Act in the name of attracting investors. It is considered pragmatic by the West to support Tsvangirai ahead of President Mugabe, or MDC-T ahead of Zanu-PF. In fact it is not only considered pragmatic, but also a measure of modernity and civilisation.

The other way is extremist, radical or even primitive. The reality we are meant to accept is that Western views are the mainstream views for this world. Our way or any other way is a way of confrontation, we are told. Perhaps this is right; only when one considers that the confrontation is with racial supremacy and the imperial authority.

When the USSR adopted the Baker plan over the Middle East in 1989, Alan Cowell announced that the USSR had "moved away from a policy of confrontation" with the United States.

He said this brought the Russians "closer to the mainstream of Middle East policy".

South Africa is being pressured daily to move closer to the West’s policy on Zimbabwe, and this would be considered the "mainstream of Zimbabwe policy".

This is why the lips of Mandela, Jacob Zuma and any other high profile South African are watched attentively each time they talk.

Any of the slightest sign of difference with President Mugabe in particular is seized with awesome zeal and it is amplified to mislead the public.

This is how the concept of mainstream opinion is built. Any little bit of information that can be considered harmful to the targeted enemy is amplified and magnified so much that it begins to look like mainstream, not the peripheral comment that it may in reality be.

Zimbabweans are the sole custodians of the country’s history and future and we must not allow this history to be conquered by propaganda and slander as my be happening right now, many times with tacit support from fellow Zimbabweans often lured by the power of the dollar.

We have thousands of these mercenary propaganda peddlers in the civic society, some in the media fraternity, and Wilf Mbanga comes to mind pretty fast, and we also have some from the political community; the infamous puppets in our midst.

These people must consider a public apology to Zimbabweans and most certainly they must cease being willing tools for the destruction of our country.

Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!

l Reason Wafawarova is a political writer and can be contacted on wafawarova@yahoo.co.uk or reason@ rwafawarova. com or visit www.rwafawarova.com