*Africa must fight alongside Zimbabwe*
* *
Posted: Thursday, July 26, 2007

*By Reason Wafawarova*
*
July 26, 2007*

ON September 3, 1986, a 36-year-old revolutionary by the name Thomas
Sankara, representative and head of state for the West African state of
Burkina Faso, spoke at the 8th Summit Conference of the then vibrant
Non-Aligned Movement held in Harare, Zimbabwe. His speech was titled "Ours
Is a Seething Anti-Apartheid, Anti-Zionist Dream."

This writer was a mere 19-year-old then, busy preparing for Cambridge
O-Level examinations at Zimuto Secondary School in rural Masvingo.

Yes, O-Level at 19, thanks to Ian Douglas Smith who, because of pressure
from the escalating war for independence, had ordered the closure of our
rural schools in 1976, effectively dumping some of us out of school for a
long two years.

The speech by Sankara did not escape the attention of this writer then and
today it has reignited precious memories and influenced this article.
Sankara's speech was so inspirational then that when Samora Machel was
killed by imperialist forces on October 19, just over a month after Sankara
delivered his great speech, this writer and 15 other students, abandoned a
Cambridge Ordinary Level Shona paper due to be written at 8:30am on October
20, 1986, and embarked on an emotionally charged 20km walk from the mission
school into the town centre of Masvingo.

No amount of persuasion from friends and school authorities could dissuade
us from the march and we were in such an uncompromising mood that we stopped
every motorist we came across and demanded that they unequivocally denounce
Pieter Botha, apartheid, imperialism and racism.

The night of October 20, 1986, was to be the first time this writer ever
appeared on television and I remember telling one Norman Tirivavi of ZBC
that we cared nothing about the Shona paper and subsequent papers because
all we wanted was to be given guns and allowed to walk to South Africa and
teach Botha the lesson of his life.

We were actually gathered at Zimuto Camp, an army barracks complex and many
adults who had come to see what was going on just wept like we were all
doing with rage.

Of course, no one granted our teenage plight, choosing rather to persuade us
to go back to school in a military truck and making sure that we sat for our
paper in a special room at 8:00pm.

This writer got an "A" grade in that Shona paper after writing with tears of
bitterness over the death of that gallant son of Africa — Samora Machel —
and today he revisits the inspirational memories from Thomas Sankara's
speech.

The context in which Sankara delivered his speech was the Cold War era
scenario, a situation that made the Non-Aligned Movement so significant to
the awakening that brought a refusal by the weaker developing states to be
the grass that fighting elephants trample with impunity. Sankara was
speaking about a force the imperialist forces were obliged to respect and to
take into account, a force meant to recover the dignity of the oppressed.

It was a context reminiscent of what we just saw in Accra, Ghana at the
beginning of this month. Two prominent speakers at the 1986, Harare NAM
summit were there at the 2007 African Union summit in Accra, Ghana namely
Colonel Muammar Gadaffi of Libya and Cde Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

In 1986, young Sankara cried out saying, "Tito, Nehru, Nasser, Kwame
Nkrumah, wake up, the Non-Aligned Movement is dying. Help us.

"Namibia is still occupied, the Palestinian people are still searching for a
home, and we are still being traumatised by foreign debt."

Today, Namibia is 17 years old and Palestinians are still looking for a home
and the Non-Aligned Movement is all but dead. Fifty-three African countries
gather in Accra, Ghana and alas, it's still a seething anti-imperialist
dream. The Soviet Union is 18 years down under, the US is pushing forward
with its selfish and brutal imperial agenda with unmitigated impunity.

If Sankara had not been killed in that brutal imperialist sponsored
anti-revolutionary assassination on that fateful October 15, 1987, maybe he
would have been part of the 2007 Accra AU Summit. If this had been the case,
the firebrand Burkinabe would have no doubt lamented more the departed of
our African heroes.

This writer can hear his voice crying out, "Tito, Nehru, Nasser, Kwame
Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Julius Nyerere, Samora Machel, Joshua Nkomo, wake
up, the African Union, born out of your Organisation of African Unity is
dying! Help us. Zimbabwe is under imperial siege.

The imperialistic forces isolate Mugabe! They want an Africa without him at
their summit in Portugal. They have put his economy under brutal siege.

They are trying to force independent South Africa to join them as a pawn in
their shameless attack on the people of Zimbabwe.

The seething dream against imperialism is to see a day when the forces of
oppression, manipulation and imperial military supremacy all brought down.

The justice in the philosophy that right is might — replaces a day when the
philosophy that might is right — is the driving force behind the suffering
of Iraqis and Afghans.

This is the dream in the camp of the silent majority of this planet who have
watched the vocal minority from the North plundering the God given resources
of this planet with reckless greed.

This is the dream for which Hugo Chavez is termed "a reckless populist", it
is the dream for which Fidel Castro is labelled "an intolerant
authoritarian", the dream for which Mammoud Ahmadinejad is dubbed "an overly
confident dissident Arab leader", it is the dream for which Robert Mugabe is
labelled an "African dictator" and it is the dream for which Lumumba, Machel
and Sankara himself were killed.

In Accra, someone is reported to have endlessly played Bob Marley's
Redemption song, especially the lyrics "How long shall they kill our
prophets; while we stand aside and look?" It's a good question given the
attitude of some in the African Union as well as some in our African
community.

Many regard Cde Mugabe as a hero just as much as onlookers who dine and wine
with the enemy.

What is the point in expressing solidarity with a fellow comrade through the
megaphone and from the galleries while one's hands are folded in the comfort
of crumbs provided by the very enemy one cheers his brother to stand up to?

Sankara expressed similar concerns about the attitude of the same African
leaders during the apartheid era in South Africa.

He questioned, "Will we continue to whip up our brothers in South Africa
with our fiery speeches and deceive them as to our determination, thus
rashly throwing up against the racist hordes, knowing very well that we have
done nothing to create a relationship of forces favourable to blacks?"

He further questioned: "Is it not criminal to exacerbate struggles in which
we do not participate?"

Africa adores the Zimbabwean struggle for land rights but hands are largely
folded when it comes to participation.

They love every bit of Cde Mugabe's pan-Africanist principles but they would
rather have the struggle for those noble principles exacerbated without the
remotest of participation.

Just imagine if the Americans merely lauded the Israeli unjustifiable
onslaughts on Lebanon and Palestine without active participation through
arming the Israelites.

If they did that today, Palestine would be back to its rightful owners and
Lebanon would not have been bombed last year.

Africa must take a pragmatic resolve to win its struggles; a resolve beyond
conference rage; a resolve beyond merely shunning the imperialistic enemy by
diplomatic means.

As Ngugi wa Thiongo would put it, men should talk and act like people "with
something between their legs".

It is commendable that both Sadc and the AU have refused to be the pawns of
Western imperialistic forces but that refusal should be backed by tangible
action in fighting alongside Zimbabwe as opposed to cheering Cde Mugabe from
the touchline.

During, the Apartheid era, many delivered fiery speeches against the racist
regime in South Africa, but the onslaught and backlash was on the Frontline
States, especially Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

We prolonged the Swapo war for independence in Namibia by endlessly cheering
Sam Njuoma from the sidelines while giving calculated and cautious support.

Zimbabwe came through 15 slow years of a war of attrition while we left most
of the support work to come from Russia and China, although countries like
Mozambique did put up a good fight.

When Zimbabwe went to help end the nonsense the US sponsored Jonasi Savimbi
was wrecking in Angola, some western oriented intellectuals among us
reminded us about the cost of war and the importance of maintaining "cordial
relations".

Similar warnings were given when Zimbabwe went to put an end to the madness
Alfonso Dhlakama was unleashing in Mozambique and today many are falling
over each other writing articles that remind us that the economic problems
of Zimbabwe are a direct result of the country's participation in stopping
the US sponsored Jean Pierre Bemba of DRC from capturing Kinshasa in a
regional war that pitted six African countries.

Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia were the anti-imperialist forces repelling
Bemba who enjoyed unfortunate support from Uganda and Rwanda.

These pieces of history do make bad reading. Africa should stop displaying
individual docility through its member states.

We must stop this habit of negotiating with our exploiters by betraying our
brothers, secretly hoping that in this way we will be awarded some bonuses.
Such bonuses are the wages of indignity, of shame and of betrayal.

These are futile sacrifices offered at the altar of political expediency,
greed and quick-fix solutions.

These are the futile sacrifices characterising the Zimbabwean opposition; an
opposition made up of political upstarts who believe more in sympathy than
victory.

They wine and dine with the very enemy of Africa; all for the fuzzy feeling
derived from sweet media coverage from the bases of their imperial masters.

They even have the audacity, temerity and face to disown the AU and Sadc in
line with the thinking of their masters who like master, like puppet,
somehow believe that their imperialistic club makes up the international
community.

The dream against imperialism is collective resistance.

The Empire fronting the imperialist agenda knows pretty well that there is
no victory against collective resistance and that is why they keep attacking
threatening power centres like Venezuela in Latin America, Cuba in the
Caribbean, Zimbabwe in Africa, Iran and Syria in the Middle East and Russia
in Eastern Europe.

They know as much as all of us do that, a successful socialist project in
Venezuela will dismantle their capitalist hold in Latin America, a
successful land reform programme in Zimbabwe will lead a revolution in Sub
Saharan Africa, a prosperous Iran in the Middle East will tame the
bandit-like Israelites, an uncontrolled North Korea will strengthen the
Chinese influence and an undefeated Cuba is bad news to the myth of imperial
authority.

Is it not a shame that today the developing world stands divided by aid,
which in all cases is at most 10 percent of the total wealth looted by the
imperialistic machinery?

We even stand divided by the sweet rhetoric of freedom and democracy, the
American type of exported democracy, delivered as a shiny package of
limitless liberties and individual self-rule.

We all aspire for this freedom to do as each pleases and we even plead for
arms to fight each other in the name of this fictitious kind of freedom
which does not exist even in heartland America.

This is the folly of deception and I am surprised that the vision of Sankara
is dying; the vision of Machel is now ridiculed.

The treachery of Tshombe, Muzorewa and Mangusuthu Buthelezi is what some of
us now believe in. The treachery rooted in the politics of silver.

Like Sankara and Machel; is it not more noble that we die fighting on our
feet instead of dying with stomachs full of the crumbs from the ill-gotten
fruit of the tree of repression and exploitation? This writer rests his
case.

*Reason Wafawarova is a Zimbabwean writer leaving in Sydney, Australia and
can be contacted on [log in to unmask]*

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