| The Herald |  |  |  |
| Wednesday, 14 September 2011 02:00 |
 President Barack Obama (left) and former US president George W Bush By Caesar Zvayi A decade after the 9/11 bombings of the World Trade Centre and Pentagon; the symbols of America's capitalist dominance and military destabilisation, Uncle Sam once again played great victim at the site on which once stood the monstrous twin towers. Uncle Sam's hallowed ground which he has come to call ‘‘Ground Zero,'' his rallying point for the so-called War on Terror, which is infact a War of Terror. Uncle Sam wept for the 2 977 people who died in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania (excluding the 19 hijackers of course). The place where the two towers of Babel stood until 9.59am and 10.28am respectively on September 11, 2001 has become the theatre for the absurd over the years, a shrine where Uncle Sam perennially seeks to magnify a grief that pales in comparison to the disasters he has wrought on innocent people the world over. The 2 977 who perished on 9/11 are just a drop in the ocean compared to the hundreds of thousands who have been target practice for Uncle Sam's forces the world over. I must give it to Uncle Sam, he sure knows how to grieve and play great victim, how to whip national emotions. The crowd that gathered at Ground Zero gave moving tributes. Quite a number wore T-shirts emblazoned with photos of their loved ones, or held aloft placards with pictures of their dear departed with endearing words. Media reports say it took four and half-hours to read out, in alphabetical order, all the names of the victims. Obama and Bush could not be outdone. The former reading from Psalm 46 - ‘‘God is our refuge and strength'' while the latter borrowed from Abraham Lincoln espousing ‘‘the grief of a loss so overwhelming.'' Interestingly, both men spoke from behind bullet-proof glass screens, a sharp reminder of their own insecurity despite pretensions of might. I was almost moved but then I asked myself who grieves for the millions who have fallen under the might of the American war machine the world over? Do they have a hallowed ground like Ground Zero where they can converge in collective grief? Do they even have the freedom to congregate or will they be pulverised by tons of bombs or fall victim to the notorious American drones, the unmanned, efficient killing machines. It was quite ironic to see Uncle Sam masquerading as a great victim when he is busy trampling on the toes of the innocent the world over spawning severe disenchantment, the very reason that so aggrieved the forces behind the 9/11 bombings. I refuse to call them terrorist bombings but retaliatory attacks. As we speak, Uncle Sam is engaged in several wars of destabilisation in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. As if that is not enough he is also busy threatening Iran and North Korea oblivious to the fact that the more he does that, the more the enemies. This partly explains why Obama and Bush were so insecure that they could only deliver their speeches behind fortified glass screens. Closer to home, MDC-T supporters converged at Gwanzura Stadium in Harare to mark the 12th anniversary of the launch of the MDC, where again a party that brought so much suffering to the innocent not only played great victim but also great saviour. The man who, at his party's launch threatened to ‘‘violently remove'' President Mugabe and his government masqueraded as the great victim of violence. Tsvangirai made his utterances as MDC supporters burnt and tore copies of the Herald on the grandstands heralding the arrival of politics of brawn not brains. MDC-T was launched on a ZCTU platform at Rufaro Stadium on September 11, 1999 following a meeting of minds between the three main British political parties; Labour, Tories and Liberal Democrats. These three parties came together under the Westminster Foundation to launch the MDC on the back of misguided economics that it was better to fund an opposition party to unseat Zanu-PF than fund the land reform programme as agreed to by the Tory administration in 1979. The MDC launch, which was suspiciously timed to coincide with the 111th anniversary of the hoisting of the Union Jack at Fort Salisbury, raised eyebrows. It was not long before people's fears were confirmed when the party began acting like a latter-day Rhodesian Front or its successor the Conservative Alliance of Zimbabwe by not only having ex-Rhodesian Front and security forces personnel in its structures but also pursuing a patently foreign agenda aimed at safe-guarding the interests of white former commercial farmers and big business, all predominantly British owned. From his party's inception, Tsvangirai did not make his contempt for the land reform programme a secret. Infact his secretary for education Fidelis Mhashu told the BBC's HardTalk programme that MDC would return all land to white former farmers should it assume power. Mhashu's sentiments dovetailed with the US sanctions law, the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act that says, in part, that sanctions against Zimbabwe can only be repealed once land tenure is returned to pre-2000 levels. From inception, MDC leaders called for the imposition of economic sanctions on Zimbabwe, pursuant to visiting unprecedented suffering on Zimbabwe in the hope that people would revolt against Zanu-PF and President Mugabe in favour of the MDC. This is what the then US assistant secretary of state for African affairs Chester Crocker meant when he asked US senators if they had the stomach for what they were about to do to Zimbabweans during a Senate hearing on the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Bill. ‘‘To separate the Zimbabwean people from Zanu-PF we are going to have to make their economy scream, and I hope you senators have the stomach for what you have to do,'' Crocker quipped. And as it turned out the senators had the stomach for it, and Tsvangirai had the zeal for it as well as he asked villagers during one of his rallies in Manicaland, ‘‘mati mune nzara? Hamuna chekudya? Zvino muchanyatsoshaisisa chaizvo-izvo,'' and indeed people really suffered to the extent that I saw the unthinkable when I attended an uncle's wedding in Njanja, Chief Mutekedza's area in 2008 where I was shown a stunted maize field whose cobs hungry dogs ate. Yes, dogs! That which is proverbially impossible I saw with my own eyes in Njanja simply because villagers had no morsels to leave for their mangy dogs. The economy did scream as thousands lost their jobs and livelihoods, with many dying of preventable diseases like Aids-related illnesses as the Global Fund for HIV and Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria was politicised to deny Zimbabwe assistance and where it came it came in negligible amounts. Thousands more died of cholera in Harare and other cities and towns. Hardest hit were senior citizens who saw their pensions and savings wiped out by sanctions-induced hyperinflation that prompted the British government to airlift its pensioners resident in Zimbabwe to the safety of Albion. This is what all those who gathered at the MDC-T celebrations in Gwanzura Stadium were celebrating, self immolation. The MDC-T's 12th anniversary should have been a sombre moment to reflect on the ravages wrought on Africa by its sons and daughters who chose to be used by the West against their own people. Moise Tshombe's escapades in what is now the DRC account for the sorry state the country is in today, the same goes for Afonso Dhlakama's Renamo in Mozambique and Jonas Savimbi's Unita in Angola. Nothing good has ever come out of puppet politics because askaris are put in place to serve empire. There you have it. The past 12 years have shown us MDC-T or MDC constitutes our own 9/11 and we are duty-bound to fight to defend what this party and those behind it seek to undo. It was not coincidental that MDC-T was launched on the eve of the 111th anniversary of the arrival of the Pioneer Column that was a strong message the party's handlers were sending; that Rhodesia shall never die was not just an idle turn of phrase. President Mugabe captured it well in his book, Inside the Third Chimurenga where he said, among other things: ‘‘The MDC should never be judged or characterised by its black trade union face; by its youthful student face; by its salaried black suburban junior professionals; never by its rough and violent high-density lumpen elements. "It is much deeper than these human superficies; for it is immovably and implacably moored in the colonial yesteryear and embraces wittingly or unwittingly the repulsive ideology of return to white settler rule. The MDC is as old and as strong as the forces that control it; that converges on it and control it, that drive and direct, indeed that support, sponsor and spot it. "It is a counter-revolutionary Trojan horse contrived and nurtured by the very inimical forces that enslaved and oppressed our people yesterday.'' To this day, MDC-T leaders are still to prove that President Mugabe got it all wrong in this characterisation. The Westerners have not made it a secret that they not only played a big role in the formation of the MDC, but that they actually bankroll its activities. Former British prime minister, Tony Blair confirmed to the whole world on June 14 2004 that he worked closely with the MDC in his quest to effect illegal regime change in Zimbabwe. While the US State Department has revealed in successive annual reports that it was in bed with the MDC in efforts to unseat the Government. To us, 9/11 should be a day for introspection on the part of all those who have chosen to be ahistorical to the extent of walking on the wrong side of history, running with the hares, and hunting with the hounds so to speak. This land and all the blood that soaked it during the liberation struggle will not forgive you. |
