For last past decade there had been speculations that Zimbabwe is under sanctions. This is as a result of Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZDERA) of 2001. According to Wikipedia "It is the policy of the United States to support the people of Zimbabwe in their struggle to effect peaceful, democratic change, achieve broad-based and equitable economic growth, and restore the rule of law.” The act proceeds to state that it holds the leadership of Zimbabwe accountable and any other country that chooses to provide any form of assistance to the leadership of Zimbabwe; will face the wrath of the U.S. Government. That is why, it is not surprising, not long ago last year when the Presidential Team was scheduled to be in Sweden for the UN Summit, President Robert Mugabe, the Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and a few selected Cabinet Ministers where refused entry by the Swedish Government to attend the Summit hosted by the U.N., a non-political organization.
I am not a politician, nor a political analyst, however, it does not take a political scientist to figure out that the U.S. wants some piece of action from the economic resource-rich country under the guise of transition to democracy Act. The U.S has allowed De facto one-party government such as Libya and Iraq for such a long time without such sanctions against them. Perhaps, that is because both countries have oil so it make common sense for the U.S. to have U.S. military bases in those countries to physically protect their interest. What makes the story of Zimbabwe interesting is that, it does not have oil so we should not expect any U.S. troops landing into the country under the guise of protecting the people of Zimbabwe. In addition, it doesn’t help that since President Barak Obama was elected into the Presidential office since 2008, he has neither acted nor said anything with respect to removing this Bill. After all, most would expect a first generation African American to be more in touch with the plight of the Zimbabwean people just by the virtue of the color of his skin. Think again. In fact, in 2001 when the Bill was passed wasn’t Obama a Senate in the House of Representatives? So, he already has his signature on the Bill prior to being the most powerful man in the World….
But all is not lost, thanks to the African Commission founded in 2008 and headed up by the Danish Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen, Zimbabwe has an ally to assist in restoring it socio-economic health in spite of the complex nature of the Political environment. What I like about the African Commission is that it leaves the politics to the politicians, and instead becomes a goodwill ambassador in the development of human capacity in Sub-Saharan Africa through its initiatives. It seeks to revisit and relook the poverty alleviation framework of Development Aid for the region and replace it with a private sector-led framework that empowers the region to be less dependent on Development Aid. It offers solutions to the region where it makes the individuals and private sector the recipients and custodians of financial assistance and not the Government as per the original Development Aid model. The African Commission follows the same ethos as the International Finance Cooperation (IFC). So, why are they so special? Because IFC has the U.S as a major partner and remember any influence the U.S. has on an international organization, ZDERA is in full force. Thank goodness for DANIDA for coming up with the African Commission and encouraging the participants of influential Sub-Saharan leaders.
Whilst this offers some form of peace of the mind, in the minds of Zimbabweans, it is important that the leaders of the tomorrow i.e. the African Youth adopt ‘the Jewish Phenomenon’ approach in protecting Africa from opportunists who come with an olive branch. Steven Silbiger, the Author of THE JEWISH PHENOMENON came up with 7 points of why the Jews in America and worldwide continue to endure wealth. Point 2: Take Care of Your Own and They Will Take Care of You resonated with me the most. You see, according to the author who is also Jewish, he states that Jews understand that when the community serves itself, it also controls its own destiny. That means, as long as we are not willing to sacrifice our personal luxuries and direct some of our funds in building our nation; as opposed to receiving it from outsiders; we will continue to suffer as we become subordinates to the funding group. As the Jewish proverb states: He who pays has the say.
So RISE UP Zimbabwe, let’s get rid of ‘the damsel-in-distress’ syndrome and start supporting our own communities by patronizing Zimbabwean Businesses only.
Copyright @ 22 January 2012. BlogSpot by Tambudzai Ndoro, Strategist at Hanga Consulting and Principal Director of Ndoro Resources (PVT) Ltd, (2011)
It is in the interest of the U.S. especially if they hold the Lingua Franca dollar as the denominator for all currencies and international trade. This Capitalistic greediness is the motive behind their interest in staying in power. Irregardless of their cultural classification every culture has a power relationship dominance ratio.(Hofstede) This of course is on the basis of how much resources a nation has. Unfortunately, too much power equals this corruption, and in order to keep this balance of Ying and Yang they do not expose themselves in countries that have no mineral reserves. Zimbabwe has many traditions and tourist sites like the Victoria falls which is classified as one of the 7 wonders of the world. But what stands at the end of all this is the people inhabiting these places and what they make use of it, how they sell it or cherish it. So at the end of the day we get down to the weakest link and we see a bunch of politician and governments from around the world make a fool of themselves. In the end there is a Bulgarian saying that goes like this..." Do you know why the bees as a colony have no government...because their duty is to make honey and not SHIT!"
ReplyDeleteInteresting euphemism. Keep them coming. The point is irrespective who has the power. We as Africans should strive to be independent from that. But our African market systems has become so interconnected just shedding of link could bring dire consequences to our fight against poverty alleviation. So, we must take it in strides. One community at a time. :-)
DeleteI totally agree with you. Rule number one is to take care of number one. The real problem with Zimbabwe, and most of Africa is that we do not look after each other. There is nothing different between Europeans and Africans - the only thing that is different is that Europeans look after themselves first, and everybody later. This is why it was so easy to colonise Africa, because we didn't care if our neighbours had "xxxx" happen to them, as long as we were fine.
ReplyDeleteThis is still being perpetuated today, with people making their USAs, getting boreholes, solar power, and buying Bentley's. As long as they are fine, they don't care about anyone else and that is what is killing us. This spills into politics, and leads to corruption as the next person wants to make sure they take care of their family and so on....
As a result, we have become a damsel-in-distress because those without anyone to hand down some £££ or $$$$ suffer, and they can only look outside for help, because it is not coming from within. This extends to us adopting foreign values and principles that we do not understand = we cannot control our destiny.
Take religion for example, would we really have cared if we were never colonised that Jesus Christ existed??? It is evident that religion has been and still is the source of conflict across the world, yet we embrace it without understanding its origins. In Africa, religion is a money maker and just about everyone goes to church, yet in Europe (some parts) Sunday is no longer a holy day, in fact we go shopping and do all sorts of things. Why you may ask? This religion is theirs and they can control and adapt it to suit their destiny, just like they justified slavery by saying we were descendents of Noah's cursed son; or the Mormons who used to believe that black skin was the mark of the devil. The only reason the Mormons stopped believing this was because they realised they could make more from tithes by having a larger congregation.
I would like to think that rational minded individuals can see everything that is wrong with this. Why is it OK to pray to the same God who made it OK to kill us. This is not religion bashing at all, I am making the point that if we want to control our destiny, we need to understand where we came from and our beliefs and values. Because we take on others beliefs and values, we have disabled ourselves from changing our beliefs and values to yield more positive outcomes. As long as there is a God, it is OK to pray for deliverance from evil, and yet we actively do nothing and wait for God to rescue us......damsel-in-distress cropping up again.
If we are to rise up and do better things, we need to make the psychological shift first. Money won't fix it, our mindset is. This is the task for the leaders of tomorrow, and the goodwill ambassadors......the real new consciousness is releasing ourselves from the prisons of the mind, that we have maintained from colonialisation, and realising that that we have nowhere else to go, so we better start looking after number 1.
Vee, you are definitely on point especially about religion argument...the new consciousness I speak about is understanding that just because I am free does not mean that I am free to the extent that I infringe on the rights of other people. That is why the sustainability concept seeks to show us that we are just as part of the problem as we are also part of the solution.
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