Zimbabwe and the Politics of Demons and Angels

By Stephen Gowans

Soon after I wrote an article titled ?Mugabe gets the Milosevic 
Treatment,? posted at Counterpunch.org, I received an e-mail from a 
representative of SW Radio Africa, who said I should visit Zimbabwe 
before writing articles about the country. This was followed by a 
Patrick Bond reply to my article in Counterpunch, invoking the same 
argument, though in an indirect way. Gowans? views are nonsense, Bond 
fumed, at least, as he saw them, sitting across the Limpopo river, 
where, he said, he had managed to establish a pretty good handle on 
what was going in Zimbabwe.

Had I been writing a travelogue both of my critics would have made a 
good point, but inasmuch as I was writing about Washington and London 
having dragooned civil society ? and in some cases, having created it 
from the ground up ? for the purpose of ousting the government of 
Robert Mugabe, their criticism was wide of the mark. You don?t have to 
travel to Zimbabwe to figure out that Mugabe is getting the Milosevic 
treatment.

Even Bond, in his characteristically haughty way, acknowledged the US 
intrigues in Zimbabwe with a dismissive ?tell us something we don?t 
already know.?

For the record, the British newspaper The Guardian revealed as early 
as August 22, 2002 that, ?The United States government has said it 
wants to see President Robert Mugabe removed from power and that it is 
working with the Zimbabwean opposition? ?trade unions, pro-democracy 
groups and human rights organizations? ?to bring about a change of 
administration.?

Washington confirmed its own civil society-assisted regime change 
plans for Zimbabwe in an April 5, 2007 report, revealing that in 2006 
?The U.S. government continued to support the efforts of the political 
opposition, the media and civil society,? including providing training 
and assistance to the kind of grassroots ?pro-democracy? groups the US 
had used to bring down the government of Slobodan Milosevic, and that 
Bond had celebrated in his Counterpunch article as ?the independent 
left.?

There are three key reasons why the US is trying to oust the Zanu-PF 
government:

(1) The Zanu-PF government has expropriated land from white commercial 
farmers for redistribution to the rural poor.

(2) It has pursued economically nationalist policies at odds with IMF 
demands.

(3) It has been a rallying point for anti-imperialist sentiment in 
southern Africa.

SW Radio Africa is a UK-based radio station, funded by the USAID 
Office of Transition Initiatives to broadcast anti-government 
propaganda into Zimbabwe. Violet Gonda, one of the station?s 
interviewers, has been sending me transcripts of her interviews ever 
since my Milosevic Treatment article appeared on the Counterpunch site. 
In an April 10 interview with Zimbabwe?s Home Affairs Minister Kembo 
Mohadi, UK-based Gonda was challenged by Mohadi to ?come to Zimbabwe 
and witness this for yourself and don?t be talking about things that 
you don?t know,? turning the argument Gonda?s colleague had made to me 
against her. Mohadi was referring to Gonda?s allegations that MDC 
leader Morgan Tsvangirai had been beaten and that MDC supporters had 
been tortured.

Amusing as it was to see the same argument used against SW Radio 
Africa, the ?come to Zimbabwe before you say anything? demand is based 
on the startlingly naïve view that someone else?s perspective must 
align with your own if only he visits the same piece of real estate. 
The view of the rural poor in Zimbabwe, or of veterans of the guerilla 
war for national liberation, can hardly be expected to be the same as 
those of white commercial farmers, even though they live in the same 
country. It is experience, race, which side of colonialism you?ve been 
on, and what opportunities imperialist countries offer you, that 
account for why the views of Zimbabwe?s rural poor and of Zanu-PF 
supporters are different from those of comfortable white professors 
ensconced in foundation-supported positions across the Limpopo river, 
and of young black Africans from Harare who travel to the US on US 
State Department sponsored trips to study civil disobedience 
techniques.

If my article  resonated with anyone, it  resonated with black 
Africans, members of the African Diaspora and anti-imperialists. White 
commercial farmers and anyone linked to the civil society apparatus 
deployed to unseat Mugabe?s government angrily dismissed it. But why? 
Why would opponents of Mugabe ? including Bond, who acknowledges that 
the US is acting to drive Zanu-PF from power (that is, when he?s not 
arguing the exact opposite) ? take exception to someone drawing 
attention to something that is a matter of public record?

The reason, I think, has everything to do what different groups of 
people value more: the thwarting of imperialist designs (and the land 
reform, redress of colonial injustices, and national sovereignty that 
are thereby given space to come to fruition), or ousting Mugabe. If you 
want Mugabe to go, you?ll oppose anything that reveals efforts to 
unseat him as being illegitimate. It won?t be enough to say, ?Yes, you?
re right, Washington and London are engaged in intrigues to topple the 
Mugabe government, but all the same I dislike him and his program and 
here?s why.? Instead, you?ll fulminate, ?This is nonsense!?

You?ll probably also practice the politics of demons and angels ? the 
division of the world into two camps: bad guys and good guys, black 
hats and white hats. The objective is to describe leaders, governments, 
movements and programs you want to see the end of as demons, and those 
who are acting to achieve this end as angels. However, because those 
that lean to the left of the political spectrum are unlikely to regard 
imperialist governments as angels (although this is far from being 
invariably true) civil society groups are recruited as proxies. They 
appear to be independent, to do good works, and they have a ?socialism 
from below? feel that resonates with the Western left. Patrick Bond, 
who directs a center for civil society, is a master of invoking the 
kind of rhetoric about social movements being an ?independent left? 
operating in spaces between neo-liberal Third World governments and neo-
liberal First World governments that appeals to the Z-Net congregation.

The politics of demons and angels is terribly unsophisticated. That 
should be enough to keep 100 paces away from it. But it should also be 
eschewed for an even more compelling reason: because it?s used to build 
support for imperialist interventions in other countries ? 
interventions that have nothing whatever to do with promoting human 
rights, building democracy, and keeping the peace, and everything to do 
with opening up space for the intervening countries? corporations, 
banks and investors to make a profit.

Yugoslavia was transformed by Western intervention from a country with 
a large socially and publicly owned sector, whose government balked at 
IMF reforms, into a neo-liberal workshop of growing economic insecurity 
and domination by Western capital. Iraq, brutalized by sanctions, 
terrorized by war, and humiliated by occupation, may in time yield its 
prize of a bonanza of oil profits to British and US oil firms. These 
prizes could not have been won without campaigns of vilification to 
manufacture consent for intervention. The bases for these interventions 
? that Milosevic was orchestrating a genocide in Kosovo and that Saddam 
Hussein was hiding banned weapons ? were lies.

In the real world there are three kinds of views on the struggle in 
Zimbabwe: those that demonize Mugabe; those that angelize him; and 
those that do neither. In the Manichean world of the politics of demons 
and angels there are only two: those that demonize Mugabe and those 
that angelize him. Anyone who expresses a view that neither demonizes 
nor angelizes Mugabe is accused, by those who demonize him, of 
angelizing him.

A person who notes, quite accurately, and with the weight of evidence 
behind him, that Washington, London and the EU have built and enlisted 
civil society in Zimbabwe to oust Mugabe, will be called by those who 
demonize him, a pro-Mugger, Mugophile, or practitioner of the basest 
enemy of my enemy is my friend politics. And yet there is no 
justification for making these accusations. Repeating what has been 
said over and over by the US State Department and in newspaper reports 
about US and British intrigues in Zimbabwe is hardly the same as saying 
Mugabe is my friend, Mugabe is my hero, or Mugabe is a great guy, let?s 
organize a celebration in his honor.

When demonizers of Mugabe accuse those who point out that what 
Washington and London admit to openly, as being Mugabe-angelizers, we 
have to ask why? Is it because their Manichean worldview allows them to 
see the world in no other way (if you don?t call him a demon you must 
think he?s an angel, because there are only angels and demons in my 
world), or is it because they?re so embittered toward Mugabe that they 
don?t care who gets rid of him or how or what follows him, just so long 
as he goes, and therefore anyone who would regard him as something 
other than a demon must be stopped from doing so in case he persuades 
other people?

To be sure, these are not mutually exclusive alternatives. Both may be 
true. But what?s significant is that both mesh nicely with the openly 
admitted plans of Washington and London to oust Mugabe?s government. If 
Mugabe is universally understood to be a demon, we can hardly marshal 
the energy to stop plans to oust him. Why bother? You?ll only soil 
yourself by association. And who wants to back a demon?

The claim made by Z Magazine?s Michael Albert, that human psychology 
isn?t this simple ? that people recognize that a foreign leader?s being 
a demon doesn?t justify an intervention to remove him ? reveals Albert 
to be either disingenuous or the last person on earth you would want to 
invite into an advertising firm as a human relations expert. You don?t 
have to talk to too many people, including readers of Z Magazine 
(especially readers of Z Magazine?) to hear it said: ?Oh sure, maybe 
the bombing of Yugoslavia, the invasion of Afghanistan, and the war on 
Iraq, were done for the wrong reasons, but all the same, they served 
the useful function of ridding the world of monsters.?

Given a zeitgeist that favors a never-ending series of demons for 
people to vent their moral outrage on, it comes as no shock to find 
professed anti-imperialists combing their archives to dredge up 
whatever dirt they can find on Mugabe. One found an article that 
exposes Mugabe as a homophobe. But what have Mugabe?s views on 
homosexuals to do with the struggles in Zimbabwe that connect the rural 
poor, white commercial farmers, Zanu-PF, civil society, and the 
imperialist machinations of the US and the UK?

The answer, of course, is nothing. But there is a political function 
and also a psychological function to be served in good old-fashioned 
dirt-slinging. Politically, the object is to personify a movement to 
discredit it by drawing attention to the revolting features of the 
person the movement has been equated to. There?s a Pavlovian character 
to this. The pairing of the bell with food, eventually leads to the 
bell alone calling forth the dogs? salivation. Likewise, the pairing of 
the person with the movement, or class, or nation, eventually leads to 
the negative features of the person being transferred to what he has 
been equated to. Were one to dredge up articles on Castro and Che being 
homophobes, Cuba-supporters would immediately recognize the political 
nature of the act. They don?t, however, seem to recognize the political 
nature of the act of visibly parading one individual?s failings about, 
under the guise of a making a significant contribution to understanding 
the struggle in Zimbabwe ? or do, but go about doing it anyway because 
their commitment to anti-imperialism is fair-weather (strong when there?
s no danger of being demonized by association, absent otherwise.)

The psychological as opposed to political function of dirt-slinging is 
to socially affirm oneself as a decent human being by denouncing those 
who express indecent values. This is particularly attractive to people 
on the far left, who are already mistrusted by the larger community for 
holding dangerous and unsettling views. How better to affirm one?s 
place in decent society than by leading the chorus in denouncing those 
vilified by conservative forces as leftist and anti-imperialist 
?monsters.? See, not all of us are monsters. We hate the monsters just 
as much as the rest of you do.

Let?s be clear. The very fact that I?m questioning the practice of 
personifying groups of people in order to demonize the individuals 
equated to them will be used to denounce me as a thug-hugger, 
apologist, and lionizer of monsters. In other words, if you?re not with 
us in vilifying the latest Satan, you?re against us. The great irony is 
that people who rail against those who refuse to participate in 
campaigns of vilifying those calumniated as left and anti-imperialist 
?monsters? accuse people like me, of practicing a with-us-or-against-us 
politics of the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

?Unhappy is the land that needs heroes,? remarked Brecht. He might 
have added, unhappy is the land that needs demons (but then, the land 
that needs heroes, must, per force, need demons as their heroes? 
antithesis.) The movie The Motorcycle Diaries, about Che Guevera?s trip 
through South America with his friend Alberto Granado in the early 50s, 
has been justly criticized for angelizing the Argentine revolutionary. 
When those enchanted with Che the angel discover Che the human being, a 
man with warts ? though, as is true of all larger-than-life figures, 
uglier than those of the rest of us ? they become disillusioned, 
embittered and, if strongly committed to a Manichean view of the world, 
swing radically to the other pole, denouncing their fallen angel as 
Satan incarnate, rather than recognizing him as a human being.

The best that can be said about discussions of Zimbabwe, or north 
Korea, or Sudan, or Iran that reduce to a set of accusations about the 
demonic character of some leader is that they?re superficial and 
frivolous. What can also be said is that they?re products of 
manipulation by forces seeking to manufacture consent for interventions 
in other countries ? interventions that have nothing to do with human 
rights and democracy and have everything to do with securing advantages 
for the intervening countries? corporations, banks and investors. When 
we dissociate ourselves from ?unsavory? regimes ? and there?s not one 
government, Western or otherwise, free from unsavory features that 
would not allow any of them to be demonized ? we isolate really-
existing projects for national and class emancipation and thereby 
undermine the potential for the success of progressive struggles in the 
real world. It?s true that in behaving in this way we can avoid 
demonization by association and thereby splatter-proof our own vision ? 
a strategy that may serve the purpose of making our vision more 
saleable to a skeptical public ? but it cannot be safeguarded from 
vilification forever. The moment it too becomes a threat, it will be 
vilified as vigorously as all real-world threats to imperialism are. 
The idea that you can escape being vilified by those you oppose is true 
only so long as you don?t oppose them in any kind of serious or 
effective way. Utopian visions ? and those whose left politics amount 
to nothing more than pious expressions of benevolence and goodwill to 
men ? are no threat.

What?s more, the view that the success of the independent (which is to 
say, the US government and ruling class foundation supported) left in 
Zimbabwe in toppling the Zanu-PF government is something to be wished 
for, is naïve or (given the foundation-connections of those who express 
this view) disingenuous. A successful civil society-executed regime 
change operation will not produce a decentralized, participatory 
democracy committed to egalitarianism, but a neo-colonial regime headed 
by an Anglo-American puppet which will immediately handcuff land reform 
and abrogate every policy at odds with neo-liberalism and ownership of 
Zimbabwe?s assets by US and British capital.

The models are Poland and Yugoslavia (among others.) There, trade 
unions and civil society also managed to enchant the Western left while 
bringing down governments that were the only serious obstacle to the 
installation of comprador regimes ? regimes whose agenda was one of 
shutting down shipyards, selling off socially and publicly owned 
enterprises, and ushering in an era of growing inequality and 
subservience to Western capital. You don?t hear much about these places 
anymore. You should. They?re what Zimbabwe will become if civil society 
topples another anti-imperialist government.

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