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Martin Luther King’s nightmare
By
Gugulethu
Moyo
FOOLISH. They must be or they would not have done
this otherwise: for its annual Martin Luther King Day event on Monday,
the Washington-based Social Action and Leadership School for Activists
(SALSA) invited Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to the United States, Machivanyika
Mapuranga, to be a keynote speaker.
The event, held each year, focuses on ‘some aspect of social justice’ and, the organisation said, the Zimbabwean Ambassador was ‘the best person we could think of to talk about these things’.
But, it seems – at least from the ignorant statements of their spokesperson, Nefta Freeman – that thinking is not something that happens a lot in this organisation. According to an interview Freeman gave, Zimbabwe is the target of sanctions and other ‘destabilsation methods’ by the United Kingdom, European Union and United States. That, he says, is something that Martin Luther King would oppose. The civil rights leader ‘was against the Vietnam War and other kinds of social injustice,’ says Freeman. ‘What [the United Kingdom, European Union and United States] are doing really hurts the average, everyday people in Zimbabwe.’
Just as there is no obvious logical link between the Luther King’s opposition to the Vietnam War and this organisation’s opposition to sanctions against Zimbabwe, SALSA’s other attempts at linking the ideals of Martin Luther King to the policies of Robert Mugabe are a fool’s errand. SALSA appears to be an empty vessel, ready to soak up and spew out the lies of the Zimbabwean government about the nature of the problem in the country.
So, the leaders of the United Kingdom, European Union and United States don’t want to see Robert Mugabe and his henchman in their countries and they impose travel bans to ensure this. What’s wrong with that? A lot of Zimbabweans, if they had the option, would banish these guys from their country, too. Such is the misery caused by the policies of President Robert Mugabe and some of those who are subject to UK, EU and US travel bans that many Zimbabweans would gladly see the back of them.
And, what evidence does SALSA have that the travel bans and restrictions on the sale of arms (which, if sold to the government of Zimbabwe, would most likely be used to cower political dissidents into submission) and the suspension of government-to-government development assistance (which would probably be siphoned off by corrupt government officials) hurts the average Zimbabwean?
The time that SALSA spent considering who to invite to its commemorative event, judging from what it decided, might have been better spent calculating how much, in fact, the United Kingdom, European Union and United States are giving to help mitigate the suffering caused to the people of Zimbabwe by the failures, not of the UK, EU or US governments, but of the Zimbabwean government. For instance, how might the jesters at SALSA explain that ten months ago, the European Commission and the government of Zimbabwe signed an agreement for a three-year EU-funded health programme? The programme supports vulnerable groups in Zimbabwe. It provides essential drugs, vaccines, medical supplies, training for human resources and measures aimed to fix staff in remote rural public and mission health facilities. In a country where poor health care contributes to women, on average, dying by the age of 34 and men by 37, the people who benefit from this project would probably say that this, and other such assistance, is quite a helpful intervention by the European Union. But what would SALSA think? Destabilisation, hey?
In 2006, the United Kingdom, the former colonial power that Mugabe blames for everything that is wrong in Zimbabwe today, spent £40,171,341 on humanitarian relief, food, health HIV/Aids , child welfare, governance and human rights, and business and private sector programmes in Zimbabwe. Just this week, the Zimbabwean government announced that it had received £3 million, for food aid, from the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development. SALSA should work out how much the aid amounts to in greenbacks.
Perhaps the policies of governments across the Atlantic are inaccessible to SALSA (although it seems to have little trouble understanding the policies in the more distant Zimbabwe). But, a simple search of USAID’s public database and a little arithmetic will show that while the US government does not give aid directly to Robert Mugabe’s government, it gives some of the most generous funding to public-interested Zimbabwean non-governmental organisations to help them meet the shortfalls of Mugabe’s government.
SALSA has its own programme for Zimbabwe. Being a small non-governmental outfit, their programme does not quite match that of a government, but it’s very ambitious. Their programme is named the Ujjama Youth Farming Project (UYFP) and outlining the thinking that informs this venture SALSA says:
Nowhere is pan-africanism being more severely tested in Africa than in Zimbabwe. The current tidal wave of global pessimism and sanctions against the people of Zimbabwe has made life excruciatingly challenging for the common folk. Unemployment is reported to be over 70%. The government of Zimbabwe sought to unlock the value of its people by freeing land to most of the people in an exercised dubbed “The Third Chimurenga – Our Land Is Our Economy” which was a code for the Land Redistribution Exercise.
Resistance to this exercise has been fierce as both the former colonial settlers (who happen to be whites) and their sympathisers sought to discredit it as illegal and not consistent with human rights. Undaunted by this criticism and isolation, the Zimbabwe government successfully resettled many people and preached the gospel of self-sustenance and nation building.
The UYFP, said to be situated in Gweru, Zimbabwe, was established in June 2005, as an ‘African youth-led farming cooperative’. It secured a 100-acre plot in the city of Gweru under the Zimbabwe government’s A1 resettlement program and is registered under the Ministry of Youth, Gender and Employment Creation. Readers are told that the project is ‘assured success’.
‘The many risks associated with this project, as we have shown in this document, are well under the management grasp, and their adverse impact on the project will be minimal. The agrarian reforms are one of the fastest growing initiatives by the government of Zimbabwe. UYFP is set to grow with it. The financial rewards to be derived from the in this project cannot be ignored by any discerning investor.’
Apart from this
hot air, there is not much of substance: if you click on the link to
the business plan, it takes you nowhere. There are a lot of pictures
and juvenile graphics on the site, though, all of which look remarkably
like the propaganda materials regularly produced by Zimbabwe’s
Ministry of Information and Publicity.
Despite that, SALSA eggs people on to part with their cash to fund its
scheme:
With your support comrades and friends, we swear to defend our Land Revolution as the bulwark and the heritage of all the revolutionaries who will fight for the full sovereignty and freedom of the people of the world as the African fathers did in this continent. The colonial forces have the money to buy loyalty of these reactionary forces and let us be united to fight their evil intentions.
SALSA should count itself lucky that it operates in a free society. Here SALSA is free to say what it wants to raise money for its hare-brained schemes. In Zimbabwe, non governmental organisations that speak truth to government are threatened with closure; if these organisations were to lie about their government, as SALSA are doing, well, there are few limits to the retaliatory action that could be taken against them.
Which brings us to the subject of freedom. Freedom for all. Freedom is the ideal that Dr Martin Luther King stood for; the thing that Robert Mugabe seems to want for only himself and his close associates.
No two people could represent more opposing visions than Robert Mugabe and Martin Luther King. Martin Luther King stood for equality among people of all races and creeds; Robert Mugabe stands for racism and bigotry. Martin Luther King stood for non-violent social change; Mugabe celebrates violence and boasts of having ‘degrees in violence’. Martin Luther King fought to undo unjust laws that stifled civil and political rights; Robert Mugabe puts his seal on laws that bind freedom. Martin Luther King appealed to the good in people; Robert Mugabe appeals to base instincts. Martin Luther King spoke a message of hope, peace, liberty and justice. Where Robert Mugabe speaks there is bitterness, hopelesness and conflict. Martin Luther King believed in human rights for all; Robert Mugabe is the Grim Reaper of human rights.
Martin Luther King would turn in his grave if he heard that his beautiful dream is being invoked by some in order to defend Mugabe’s oppressive policies.
If SALSA trully wishes to explore the link between the legacy of Martin Luther King and the struggle for social justice in present day Zimbabwe, they should, instead of abusing the freedoms that Martin Luther King fought and died for, ask themselves this : ‘What would Dr Martin Luther King say to Robert Mugabe today?’
The answer may lie in the message of hope that Martin Luther King delivered 44 years ago. A message repeated here (with apologies):
Let freedom ring from the ancient walls of Great Zimbabwe!
Let freedom ring from the thundering smoke of the Victoria Falls!
But not only that; let freedom ring from the Jacaranda-lined streets of the City of Kings!
Let freedom ring from the Mountains of Vumba!
Let freedom ring from every granite hill and caves of Matopo. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every province and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
Gugulethu Moyo is a Zimbabwean lawyer currently working for the International Bar Association. She is writing in her personal capacity
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