Let any one point a finger at me - Mugabe
- Posted on Friday 11 July 2008 - 11:16Olivier Nyirubugara, AfricaNewsThe last month has been really traumatizing for African leaders. On the one hand, president Robert Mugabe challenged them to stand up and 'point a finger at him', while on the other hand media repeated most African leaders have come to power under dubious conditions. Have your say.
In a clip to be seen on Youtube, Mugabe challenged his peers: “we have never interfered in their domestic affairs. Never ever. And now we want a country which wants to point a finger at us and say ‘you have done wrong’. I want to see that finger and see whether it’s clean or dirty.”
You certainly have thoughts about this. Which fingers are clean enough to point at Mugabe? Is that perhaps that the reason why almost no African leader has dared condemn Mugabe?
See previous discussions
Reactions
- Posted on Friday 11 July 2008 15:33A close look at the leaders of the african continent indicates that no one leader will have the guts to say that Mister Robert Gabe Mugabe, what you are doing is wrong. Mugabe is not new in the front line of power in the african continent. he's been at the helm of zimbabwean power for 28 years and before that, he was actively and in the heart of the liberation war before grabbing independence in 1980.
Bob knows his peers so well and even in their bed rooms. he knows they (african presidents) all have skeletons in their respective cupboards. some are in power thanks to bob who not only gave them ideas but supplied troops, mercenaries who aided his peers to maintain their illegally stay in power.
Remember, also the african tradition that an elder is not shouted at in the public scene, even if he does a wrong thing. You do shout at the elder in private, not to the hearing of those who are younger than him.
at the Southern African Development Council meeting in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, when the Zimbabwean palavar started, the leaders in the region were cautioned not talk to Bob any how because of his age. Not because we're all leaders today in our small countries, we've to jibe at old bob, one of the leaders said.
bob has done what mandela left undone; touching the heart of the whiteman in africa, which is the economy. if bob had done all in zimbabwe and not take land from the white zimbabweans, their cousins in england, holland, US and more wouldn't have said any thing.
look at this; which western leader or european country made an open statement on the xenophobia that took away some lives of zimbabweans and south africans recently? the white interest was not affected, so what's their business in raising eye-brows about it?
bob wants what belongs to africans to be theirs. if africans are discussing with the west, it should be a parity discussion and not a master and boy relationship.
mandela did all the politics in south africa but did not touch the economy, which is in the hands of 5 million white south africans, the south african technology is in the hands of the white south africans, they, white south africans got the media.
i fervently assert that if mandela touched the economy; that's taking it from the whites, he wouldn't have been here to celebrate 90 in body and soul.
my only worry is that, bob took the land from the white zimbabweans and gave it out to his cronies, who were rather excited and already rich from the booties they made during the gorilla warfare and could not farm adequately and professionaly on the farms. the street zimbabwean who wants to farm wasn't given the right opportunity to challenge their white counterpart farmers. hope this reason will prevail soonest to bob before the natural sun sets on him. - Posted on Monday 14 July 2008 16:22Mugabe may know a lot about African leaders, but what he forgets is that there is always a limit to tyranny.
If lets say one president went into power through ‘illegitimate’ ways, it’s not a pass port to say, that president has no right to tell Mugabe when he is wrong. The truth is the truth, whether told by the Devil or an Angel it’s still the truth.
For instance Zambia’s president Levy Mwanawasa once likened Mugabe’s government to a ‘Sinking Titanic’. Those who have read about the Titanic or watched a film depicting this ship will tell you that it was an Olympic-class passenger liner owned by the White Star Line which on the night of 14 April 1912, during her maiden voyage, struck an iceberg, and sank two hours and forty minutes later killing 1, 517 people on board. At the time of her launching in 1912, she was the largest passenger steamship in the world.
The Titanic used some of the most advanced technology available at the time and was popularly believed to be “unsinkable”, but the death toll has been recorded as one of the worst peacetime maritime disasters in history and by far the most infamous.
Under this background Mwanawasa’s likening of the Mugabe’s regime to this once famous ship, talks volumes of how Zimbabwe’s economy and its leadership used to be. Those who have been to Zimbabwe in the late 80s will give testimony of a country which flowed with ‘honey and milk. But some how Mugabe’s government lost its way, but conceitedly refuses to admit this.
To me it’s a pure show of arrogance and some sort of circus in politics at the expense of the suffering Zimbabweans. Many presidents in Africa may have skeleton in their closets, but most of these leaders have handled their problems maturely and sensitively bearing in mind the people they are leading. Letting thousands and thousands of people exposed to beatings, killings, torture, starvation and fleeing their own mother land just because they detest your leadership doesn’t justify for ‘clean or dirty’ hands challenge.
Yes we are Africans, but should we ‘African’ ourselves and blame the British and the Americans for Zimbabwe’s problems? If Zimbabwe agrees that the US and British are responsible for its suffering, then Mugabe is agreeing that in this global world no country is an Island. We are all dependent of each other and Mugabe’s challenges to see an African president who will point a finger at him is tantamount to losing touch with reality and the way things are done in modern times.
To me his advisors have done their best to lie to him out rightly on what is happening in his country. It’s true that in Mugabe’s lounge in his Office there is a placard on the wall which reads: ‘Mugabe is right’, reminiscent of Hitler’s motto. Such ideas coming from a democratically elected president; calls for a lot questions and serious reflection. Botswana and Zambia spoke out against him not because they hate him I believe, but because they feel the spill over effects on their economies of his people who are running away from his county.
That’s why sometimes I wonder why Mbeki cared less when Zimbabweans were being beaten and burnt in South Africa’s infamous xenophobia attacks. Was it because he knew most of these were opposition sympathizers whom he didn’t have anything to do with, bearing in mind that he is an ally of Mugabe? Or may be Mugabe knows a lot about Mbeki’s hidden secrets which he Mbeki fears, should he betray Mugabe; Mugabe may peal the beans?
The other African countries don’t care whether Mugabe stays on and on thinking that the media pictures are just animations because it doesn’t affect their economies at all. There is what we call a neighbor and a next door neighbor; and they are just neighbors who don’t even hear the cries of their friends.
If anything they are using him against white supremacy for their own internal strategies hence increasing his arrogance and tyranny. Let’s not give excuses and accept that Mugabe has run down his own country. He is just a big headed hero who wants to leave a legacy of a ‘leader who collapsed his own country as a show to America and Britain that he is in charge’. The Zimbabwe issue is more than just Land invasion. Mugabe is forming a Kingdom.
We may not have presidents with clean hands per se but we definitely have ones with cleaner hands than that of Mugabe. But even if they speak against him, what do they gain or lose? Absolutely nothing! - Posted on Friday 18 July 2008 19:07The fact many African leaders may have come to power through dubious ways such as military coup-d'e-tats and rigging of elections like Mugabe, it does not mean that African leaders cannot transform. The United States was not a country of the present day American citizens. It belonged to the native Americans the majority of whom were massacred by immigrants from Europe. Today it is a different story in America since the inauguration of the country's Declaration of Independence. Things have changed slowly but steadily there.
The idea that "once a thief always a thief" is a primitive way of thinking and judging the dynamics of human life. Human life and personalities change, improve and transform for the better. Sinners have become saints. Street gang members have become social and community leaders. Rebels have become useful leaders. Prostitutes have become faithful loyal wives.
If Robert Mugabe today wishes to remain in the filth in which he was as a baby defecating iand urinating n his bedsheets and pants, it is his choice. Modern Africans know and want that African leadership improves and transforms for the benefit of all. Leaders who are so weak as to fear pointing out human rights violations and dictatorial murderous regimes in Africa must quit and give way to those who see the need for transformation and change.
Human life and indeed all life on earth is generally a progression. Hence we are born babies, toddlers, teens, young adults, middle age and the aged. Wisdom comes with age they say. Is this different with Robert Mugabe? Has he deteriorated so much that he cannot any more see what is good for Zimbabwe and Africa? It appears to me unfortunately that he wants to remain in the dirty wash-waters he was in as a baby. May be that dirty wash-water feels good for him but I know for sure that he enjoys the goodies the life of a president brings and he should wish Zimbabweans to enjoy better fruits of his liberation struggle in a better way than what he is offering them now.
What kind of a legacy is he leaving behind? A liberation fighter who liberated his nation but who dumped it into filth or garbage? I hope really that he admires te good example of Africa's best statesman, Nelson Mandela.
Those African leaders who live by the premise that since Africa has been infested with poverty, ignorance and disease for centuries, she (Africa) should remain in the same conditions are sick and bakward looking. No modern African wants an African future of dictators and military coup-d'e-tats, genocides and tribal conflicts and political instabilities as has been. We want all of these negatives to remain in the past where Robert Mugabe and his cronies belong. If any African leader wants to keep African in the past, we say, quit! For, we want growth, development and positive transformation in all fields or areas of endeavor. And we are not going to stand by and watch those revolutionary past drag Africa into the past. we seek a constructuive future for the continent. We seek avant-garde leaders who see a unified transformed African Nation taking her leadership position in world matters. Backward looking and pointing fingers to what wrongs another leader di ten or thirty years ago will not work in modern Africa. African minds are capable of transformation.
The excuse of not pointing an accusing finger at elders is a thing of past traditions and need not be upheld especially when an elder commits evils. When an elder commits incest it is alright to denounce him. One is not bound by a vow of loyalty when the one to whom such loyalty is given violates the principles for that loyalty. Robert Mugabe has betrayed us all and therefore looses out on his past liberation status and can no longer be trusted as a statesman of honor and dignity. However, there's always room for transformation.
The spirit within is a divine force of positive progression. We must resist retrogressive forces Mugabe wants us to focus upon in order to justify his filthy actions. - Posted on Wednesday 06 August 2008 19:30African leaders need to have the political will to enforce their own rules - African Peer Review Mechanism. We need to walk the talk and stop the talk-shops. I'm sure there are more than 15 African presidents now who came to power through legitimate means but are afraid to speak out because of lack of support from the others. There is strength in numbers.
AU must be bold enough to point a finger at Big Brother Mugabe that his actions are not in the best interest of the continent. - Posted on Wednesday 13 August 2008 18:01Wide spread condemnation of Robert Mugabes actions are unbalanced.
If we look at the majority of African countries their economies are controlled by the west. Even when Zimbabwe's economy was much better, the majority of the wealth and economic control was in the hands of Westerners or non africans.
It is because of this why Africa is under-developed even though the majority of the worlds wealth is in Africa.
If Africa is to catch up with the rest of the world it has to take back control of all its resources which are in the hands of a few colonialists.
Once you have broken away from the colonial Umbilical cord it will be difficult at first, because the colonial powers will make it dificult by using sanctions, political / media condemnation, try to de-stabilise or overthrow the government, Africans keep falling for the same tricks.
But you have to realise that the rest of the world needs the natural resources in Africa in order to survive. So although there are sanctions, they cant last forever because they will soon run out and will come back begging for more.
The real question is who will give in first.
I understand that the average Zimbabwe citizen is having a very difficult time, however so is the rest of the world, across Europe and America there is a food shortage, banks are going under and economies are failing, these problems are not unique to Zimbabwe.
If Zimbabwe has the strength to hold on a little longer they will soon rise up and be better than before, because this time they will control their own wealth, and it wont end up in the hands of non Zimbaweans or Non africans.
I agreen with Walter, South Africa has African leadership, but the real power is the economy, and that is still in the hands of a white minority. As long as this is the case South Africa wil never have true freedom to govern their own destiny.
Another example is the Island of Jamaica, it got its independance in the 1960's, but even though the government is black, all the natural resources are owned by Europeans, and its own curency is worthless. Jamaicans use US dollors to buy food with. THIS IS NOT REAL INDEPENDENCE.
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