Sickened by Australia’s child cruelty

Sickened by Australia’s child cruelty

• Zimbabwe welcomes Portugal's decision on Mugabe

• Australia cancels visas of students linked to Zanu PF

• Gideon Gono: How sanctions are ruining Zimbabwe

• Portugal says Mugabe not welcome

• Bloch's deception, lies about economic sanctions

• Masiiwa Chisango: MDC must renounce sanctions

• EU adds 5 deputy ministers to sanctions list

• 'Mugabe to be allowed at EU/Africa summit'

• Belgium grants visa to banned ex-minister

• Bush extends sanctions on Zimbabwe

• EU renews Zimbabwe sanctions

• Tawanda Hondora: Zim sanctions, are they political or economic

• Khanyisela Moyo: US sanctions futile

• Dr Alex T Magaisa: On sanctions, Mugabe and the economy

• Nobuhle Nyathi: It's Zanu PF not sanctions, stupid!

• Tawanda Hondora: Sanctions undermine economy

By Rodgers Svovah

THE decision by the Australian government to cancel eight Zimbabwean students’ study visas merely because their parents happen to belong to a political party whose ideology the Australians do not subscribe to should alarm everyone who loves freedom.

What is most shocking is Alexander Downer’s admission that he was indeed punishing these innocent children for their parents' errors, by unashamedly stating: "Yes, I am. I mean, I accept that”.

He further justified his silly actions by mumbling something to the effect that “the fact is that the sins of the fathers, the sins of the parents are egregious sins”. Shame on him!

These are the very people whose actions are causing the perpetuation of the suffering of Zimbabweans. Does he think that Zimbabweans are fools? Is he forgetting that only recently the British have been arguing that they cannot be held responsible for Zimbabwe’s land problems since it was not the present generation that was involved in expropriating the African land in Zimbabwe, but their forefathers?

Why did Australia not spring up with this same argument and remind the British that the sins of their parents were egregious, or does that only apply to Africans? Does this not give credence to Robert Mugabe’s arguments that the West’s actions are selective according to the skin colour of the person they are dealing with?

Children should never be punished because of their parents’ faults.

Downer’s argument is just as good as saying a drug dealer’s child should be locked up to pay for the food he was fed on as it was bought from the proceeds of crime! God forgive us!

This hypocrisy is becoming too much to bear. It was the same Australia who rendered the Commonwealth toothless by advocating for the expulsion of Zimbabwe from the group. What result did that achieve except giving Mugabe free reign to do what he wants while the so-called Commonwealth watched helplessly after shooting itself in the foot?

Had Mugabe been kept in the Commonwealth, and been allowed to attend all the meetings to be told in his face of all the wrongs he is accused of, I am sure he would have either buckled to pressure or simply done something to impress whenever he was required to attend the next meeting.

Who told the Western governments that the policy of exclusion works? This policy does not work. It is self defeating. Look what happened to Tony Blair in the UK – he cut all forms of communication between the UK and Mugabe – what did he achieve by that? Nothing! Now he is gone leaving an insurmountable burden for his successors who now have to devise new methods of confronting Mugabe with the option of dialogue almost rendered impossible.

Now ask any fool whether anyone can be able to solve a problem without any dialogue and you will surely be told to go back to school to increase your reasoning capacity. It is time that all progressive Zimbabweans demand meaningful action from Westerners and their allies in confronting the Zimbabwe crisis, or ask them to shut up.

It is time for us to call an end to these useless double-standards which only help to portray the Zimbabwean opposition as if they are stooges of the West – indeed the internet is now awash with fellow Africans and even Westerners accusing us, who are opposed to Mugabe’s policies, of being puppets of the West.

And for sure if one compares Downer’s statement and those statements by the UK through Clare Short, then surely one would question the sincerity in their support for Zimbabwe. Are these people really for all Zimbabweans or just a select few Zimbabweans?

Our humble request as the Zimbabwean people fighting for real democracy is for these European and American folks to stop their antics and pretensions of helping us when they are in fact making things even more difficult for us. Australia should just come out in the open and state boldly that they have their own axe to grind with Mugabe, without using the Zimbabwean people’s struggles to score cheap points for themselves.

After all, where was Australia when Ian Smith was unleashing his reign of terror in Rhodesia? Enough is enough. We Zimbabweans are not fools. We know what we want. Our aim is to remove Zanu PF from power, not to dabble in double-standards.

For the record Zimbabwe is very different from Iraqi – it has a highly educated populace who have the ability to digest anyone’s actions and question anyone’s sincerity whenever they notice any unexplained inconsistencies.

In this regard, the opposition in Zimbabwe should be bold enough and distance itself from Australia’s child cruelty. Anything involving the welfare and future of children should be handled with due care. These children did not choose to be born by Zanu parents. Indeed if there was such a choice, I believe most of us, probably including Downer himself, would have chosen a different set of people for parents.

We value very much the international community’s help in finding a solution to our problems but any help should be seen to be well-meaning and pro-Zimbabwean, and not self self-serving on the part of the international community. Zimbabwe has been in turmoil now for more than seven years largely because the international community shunned common sense in favour of double-standards in their approach to the Zimbabwean cause.

Rodgers Svovah is a computer engineer and writes from Leeds. He can be contacted on e-mail: rodgers.svovah@btinternet.com

JOIN THE DEBATE ON THIS ARTICLE ON THE NEWZIMBABWE.COM FORUMS
newsdesk@newzimbabwe.com