Rejecting distractions, embracing meaningful causes

We would like to see the organisers of the Millions Women’s March challenge the Sisters March on Washington to organise a joint delegation to Zimbabwe, for the purpose of examining the impact that US-EU sanctions have on women and children in particular.

WHILE Africans all over the world were commemorating the assassination of our most beloved Pan-African and revolutionary icon Amilcar Cabral, who was assassinated by imperialist forces on January 20, 1973, the inauguration of US President Donald Trump was taking place in Washington DC — referred to by so-called African-Americans as Banneker City in honour of the African architect and astronomer who helped with the city’s layout on January, 22 1793 — the incomparable Benjamin Banneker.

What became the story of the weekend was how President Trump’s inauguration was eclipsed and overshadowed by the women’s March on Washington, who according to their website, were responsible for 673 marches with 4 876 700 participants worldwide. The African nations on their list included Algeria, Botswana, the Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The fundamental question is did the marches that occurred on African soil address US-EU policy on Africa, or was the objective to create an atmosphere for the US-EU regime change agenda to prevail in each and every African nation that was strategically targeted by the march and its brain trust?

Among the organisational sponsors of the march were the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Campaign, 1199 SEIU, the American Federation of Teachers/ AFL-CIO and MoveOn. Org

hen we examine the historical relationship of ACLU and Human Rights Campaign to Amnesty International, the connection of AFL-CIO to the International Labour Solidarity Centre that now gives the appearance of autonomy from the AFL-CIO, and MoveOn.Org’s ties to George Soros wallet and bankroll, it would be highly unlikely that whoever represents this agenda in Zimbabwe should be campaigning for the lifting of US-EU sanctions on Zimbabwe.

Because of the circus-like atmosphere synonymous with US presidential politics, it was humorous to see former US Secretary of State and US Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and her loving husband attend President Trump’s inauguration, as her opponent in the Democratic primary, Bernie Sanders, while speaking at one of the marches in Vermont, called President Trump a fraud. A few days prior to the march, Mrs Clinton stated that the women’s march gave her joy and thanked the marchers for standing, speaking and marching for our values.

Based on Mrs Clinton’s actions and history, those sentiments would be textbook manipulation of the English language, did the marches make her feel more joyous than the images of dead children and women in Libya? A question we are historically obligated to pose since Mrs Clinton evoked the spirit of Julius Caesar when discussing the cowardly assassination of the late Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gadaffi by stating, “We came, We Saw, He Died”.

It would be criminal for Africans to let Mr Sanders get away with showboating and insulting President Trump, when in 2001 as a liberal Congressman with a sweet tooth for Socialist theory, voted in favour of the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001, which Mrs Clinton and former US Vice President Joseph Biden, who also spoke at the women’s march, co-sponsored as US Senators. When Africans became smitten with Mr Sanders liberal and socialist masquerade and decided to ask him about reparations, he made it emphatically known that a demand that was militant and unapologetic was too divisive for him to embrace.

If President Trump, Mrs Clinton and Mr Sanders were on a forum discussing President Mugabe and the question of Zimbabwe, which one of them would say the US compromised the country’s future by not honouring the Lancaster House agreement negotiated by former US President Jimmy Carter and that posing US-EU sanctions on Zimbabwe wreaks of the racism and white supremacy that Mrs Clinton and Mr Sanders feel best defines the agenda of President Trump.

This raises a crucial point about the platform of the march and the sisters of African ancestry who were granted the opportunity to say a few words, the list includes Angela Davis, Rosyln Brock, chair of the NAACP Board of Directors, Maryum Ali and Dr Ilyashah Shabazz, the daughters of Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X, Tamika Mallory, co-chair women’s march on Washington, the mothers of Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis and Dontre Hamilton and Melissa Harris Perry, founding director of the Anna Julia Cooper Centre.

Since any significant assembling in Washington regardless of its concentration and focus, gains its strategic focus from the march on Washington in 1963, which had no women speakers at all, in 2017 a more pressing issue is using African women as window dressing at marches, conferences and symposiums, while the agenda was dictated by those external to our community.

The historical irony is that Dr Dorothy Height of the National Council of Negro Women who sat on the stage in 1963 opened a women’s support and relief centre in Zimbabwe in 1983 that was followed by other centres throughout the African continent.

A sterling example of this dynamic was when the march was announced, there was a deliberate attempt to hijack the slogan Million Woman March as this year the 20th anniversary of that historic gathering. It was only when the primary organisers informed the organisers of the Sisters March on Washington that this was not intellectually, morally or politically acceptable was a tactful compromise reached.

The organisers of the Millions Women’s March which will be taking place later this year not only plan to raise the issue of lifting US-EU sanctions on Zimbabwe but plan to extend an opportunity to First Lady Amai Grace Mugabe to address the march via satellite.

This sounds like a continuation of the ideological battle between that great daughter of Africa Ida B. Wells and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union whose President, Frances Willard, blamed African people’s behavior for temperance legislation not being passed. .

Ms Willard said,W“The coloured race multiplies like the locusts in Egypt and the grog shop is their centre of power and the safety of women of childhood of the home is menaced in a thousand localities”. Ms Willard’s biggest fear was Sister Ida raising the question of lynching hurt the cause of the suffrage movement. It appears when it comes to the voice and agenda of African people inside US borders, the paternalistic and racist tendencies of Caucasian women and men like Mrs Clinton, Mr Sanders and devious grass roots organisers with the same disposition, remains a problem we will have to guard against when working in broader coalitions.

Sister Ida also decided not to remain in the NAACP which she helped found because of the influence exhibited by Caucasian liberals calling the shots behind the scenes, this led to Kwame Ture expelling Caucasians from SNCC when he became the chairman.

It will be Africans who work with the Millions Women’s March who remind the world that 68 percent of the farming done on the land we reclaimed in Zimbabwe is being done by women, these sisters will also champion Zimbabwe’s commitment to education which has resulted in a 97 percent literacy rate.

We would like to see the organisers of the Millions Women’s March challenge the Sisters March on Washington to organise a joint delegation to Zimbabwe, for the purpose of examining the impact that US-EU sanctions have on women and children in particular.

This will let women the world over know that Mrs Clinton, Madeline Albright, Condoleeza and Susan Rice are never allowed to have the last word on Zimbabwe or anywhere else in Africa.