Years of Hope and Despair: Reflecting on the authenticity of the West’s centuries of hate to Zimbabwe
The publication perpetuates the common anti-Zanu narrative which presents the ruling party’s disassociation from England as an illogical foreign policy measure. As a result Britain had to pursue the mandate of facilitating and monitoring the upholding of
THERE is a common truism that Zimbabwe’s detachment from Britain was solely a result of the ineptitude of the ruling Zanu-PF as far as delivery of good governance was concerned. The frontiers of this propaganda hand-pick other historical truths which led to the current Zimbabwe-England diplomatic break-out. In an attempt to rethink this particular exposition I found it worthy to analyse the Zimbabwe-England from a more intimate point of view. The read for this series is Philip Barclay’s Zimbabwe: Years of Hope and Despair (2011). Philip Barclay is a British diplomat who was deployed in Zimbabwe between 2006 and 2009. The publication is described as a half memoir and half reportage of the famously dubbed “Zimbabwean Crisis”. However, Barclay’s key focus of the memoir is the 2008 election. The main idea that book presents is that in contrast to the probabilities, Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) won at both the parliamentary and presidential levels. As a result Zanu-PF was forced into forging a coalition with the MDC factional formations. As a result, I think, this is a book far too short on history but long on the deconstructivist account of President Mugabe’s legacy.
The publication perpetuates the common anti-Zanu narrative which presents the ruling party’s disassociation from England as an illogical foreign policy measure. As a result Britain had to pursue the mandate of facilitating and monitoring the upholding of democracy in Zimbabwe.
The publication draws its subject matter from the reckless notion which exalts the view that Zanu-PF’s love for oligarchy — if not kleptocracy catalysed the break-away of Zimbabwe from the British system of dramatised development affinity to its former colonies. This misrepresentation of the country’s relationship with Britain ignores the realty of latter’s contribution to Zimbabwe’s political-economy shortcomings and political culture dilemmas. I will not mention the more than a century coloniality side of things as this angle is wildly considered as an emergency exit for Zanu-PF apologists (which I am not) when challenged to account for the Government’s failures under the ruling since independence. As it stands — this opposition popularised discourse lambasts the Government for catalysing the elasticity break-out of the cordial diplomatic links between Zimbabwe and England in the early years of the country’s attainment of independence.
Proponents of this anti-establishment position advance the view that Zimbabwe was supposed to stick to England for governance tutorials to implement development models. To be blunt, this submission is equivalent to endorsing Zimbabwe’s past as a subservient neo-colony. Such retrogressive views represents the stitching of a disjointed umbilical cord between a sovereign state and the “good mother” of globalisation and in this case — Zimbabwe’s former coloniser. This reminds me of some black Professor’s pleasant reminiscences of Rhodesia and the country’s early post-independence economic stability which were a result of Zimbabwe’s good ties with the Margaret Thatcher regime.
This narrow comprehension — if not a deliberate ignorance to Zimbabwe’s erstwhile horse and a rider relationship with England asserts that England has no interest whatsoever in Zimbabwe’s political issues. This view has led to the misinformed belief that the anti-West attitude of Zanu-PF is a mere compensation for the party’s political inadequacy and economic failure since independence right up to the launch of the fast track Land Reform Programme. It is against this particular background that it becomes imperative to demystify the myth of England’s concern about Zimbabwe being solely centred on promoting democracy, good governance, economic growth and enhancing the human capital for the nation’s development. The regime change agenda and ballot
fraud in Zimbabwe It is only misleading to assert that England has no interest in Zimbabwe which most critics of the country refer to as a “ruin”. It is also false to argue that England has no scores to settle with the ruling Government following the Land Reform Programme which concluded the project of decolonisation in Zimbabwe. The imposition of sanctions further indicates that there was a politically rooted conflict between Zimbabwe and England. As a consequence the sanctions beleaguered Zanu-PF Government officials. The major reason for the conflict being the country’s new radical turn from colonial subjection and failure to keep up with the arm-twisting economic structural adjustment terms exerted to perpetuate coloniality by the West. This is the major reason for President Mugabe’s stubborn ideological consistency as articulated in the previous five weeks series review of the publication: Our War of Liberation (1983). The book is a collection of President Mugabe’s speeches, articles and interviews captured between 1976 and 1979. This publication is still relevant to this day as it indicates that the anti-colonial and decolonial battlefield is still gun-blazing as it was during the country’s founding Chimurengas. This is why it becomes imperative to reconsider the view that the regime change agenda is not an imagery rival of the country’s ruling government. Regime change is a reality and it is not a mere Zanu-PF narrative for ballot fraud.
The grudge which England holds against Zimbabwe and mainly the ruling party is rooted on the collapse of the colonial system of the country. As Barclay argues in his book — colonialism was meant to create a system of white privilege at the price of African dehumanisation — human and resource exploitation. Therefore the transition to independence was supposed to create policies that would further subjugate the African — policies which were going to inflate Zimbabwe’s dependency syndrome. As it is the case with almost all neo-colonies; Zimbabwe fell into the benevolence debt trap of the West soon after independence. On the other hand, the albatross mandate of being a loyal colony remained stuck in the neck of Zimbabwe’s political economy; political culture and governance craftsmanship.
When this failed Zimbabwe had to face the big brother’s whip and as a result the publication under review offers an insider’s perspective of this discreet account. Barclay argues that the then four million Zimbabweans in the diaspora namely; South Africa, Botswana, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Australia to mention but a few countries were supposed to vote that year. That way President Mugabe would have been sent to the dustbin of history. This opinion is a naked suggestion of how much the West has a conflict of interest when it comes to Zimbabwean politics.
Defining ‘hope’ and ‘despair’ Barclay sums his arrival in Zimbabwe as a revelation moment which contradicted with what polarised media had taught him about his new country of diplomatic deployment (Zimbabwe) in 2006:
“I felt a passion for Zimbabwe from the moment I arrived at the British embassy in Harare in January 2006. I had read everything I could about the country. According to some of the livelier newspaper stories — I was going into a warzone . . . I was braced for violence, the chaos of hyper-inflation and food shortages” (Barclay 2011:1).
Barclay was also awakened to the realty of ordinary people’s dwelling in mansions which he assumed belonged to state officials. In his warehouse of assumptions informed by sponsored misrepresentations; he concluded that operation Murambatsvina had left entirely a majority urban dweller homeless. Zimbabwe’s metropolitans including Harare were awash with opposition supporters. Therefore Barclay had concluded that Zanu-PF avenged the urban electorate through Operation Murambatsvina for their support to MDC since the time of its formation:
“What l found was a temperate paradise . . . orderly and organised — filled with happy people . . . The roads were smooth and wide despite the warnings of expat Zimbabwean friends that they can be cratered with deep potholes.” (Barclay 2011: 1).
The fast-forward of the account by Barclay exposes the reader to matters of the mass homicide, agony and thrashings inflicted on Zanu-PF opponents. There’s no attempt to critically consider the possibility of MDC’s involvement in stirring political violence. All the blame-game leads to the presentation of the Zanu-PF system as irrationally violent. On the other hand Zanu-PF is burdened with the blame of proliferating demonisation warfare against England as if the demonisation discourse from Zimbabwe was not reciprocated.
The West’s attack to Zimbabwe was more intense as even proved by Barclay who accounts in his book that he had only exposed a polarised misrepresentation of Zimbabwe’s political situation. He was only surprised to encounter the opposite of the myths which were warehoused in his memory. His acquired knowledge of Zimbabwe only informed his narrow view of Zimbabwe. Unfortunately Barclay represents the multitudes who hold a Western manufactured false consciousness of Zimbabwe and being Zimbabwean.
Barclay’s narrative of hope is contained in the reality he encountered in 2006 and the doom he started noticing during the dying moments of his diplomatic deployment in Zimbabwe in 2009. Could this be a coincidence or it was a strategic construction of his publication’s plot? To be continued.
Richard Runyararo Mahomva is an independent academic researcher, Founder of Leaders for Africa Network — LAN. Convener of the Back to Pan-Africanism Conference and the Reading Pan-Africa Symposium (REPS) and can be contacted on rasmkhonto@gmail.com