Mugabe and the White African" is in essence a David and Goliath story. Appalled by the state-orchestrated crimes against humanity on a massive scale countrywide, with horrific violence perpetrated against white commercial farmers, their farm workers and the rural population, a farming family takes on President Mugabe's government in a landmark court case heard by the Sadc Tribunal in Windhoek, Namibia. They know the risks, but they believe it is what God requires of them.

Set on Mount Carmel farm in the Chegutu district of Zimbabwe, this deeply moving book is the chronicle of a Christian family's struggle to survive, to protect the land it purchased legally from the government, and to protect the lives and livelihoods of all those working on the farm.

The British State in Devotion

The past week has been a significant one for the Anglican Church, itself a schismatic offshoot of the Catholic Church, and the official Church of the State in the United Kingdom.
The last point, including the consequential role of the British Queen as the Head of that Church, is often overlooked in discussions of church, state and unfolding politics in and of Zimbabwe. We need to keep that dimension in mind, in which case we can soundly understand why in spite of the fact that Lambeth is not a State, the way that the Vatican is, its foremost official - the Archbishop - carries the aura of a head of state when on visits abroad, especially in countries with which Britain has had colonial links in the past.

The Anglican Church has evolved as the British State in worship or devotion. A cursory reading of the evolution of the British political and governmental system will clearly show its crucial near-ethereal role as the earthly agent for God's benediction on the British Monarch, the State, its apparatus and its minions.
The past week had seen the head of the Anglican Church, Archbishop Rowan Williams, paying a visit to Southern Africa, including Zimbabwe. The visit, particularly its Zimbabwean leg, was almost engulfed in controversy, something that guaranteed it maximum publicity.

The man who turned 80
A great week for the Anglican Church in another sense. One of its shepherds - now retired - hit 80, to great ululation, joy and fanfare. This was Archbishop Desmond Tutu who, alongside well-wishers, organised a great "bhavhadeyi". It still remains to be explained to me how the same age zone that invites deep obloquy for Robert Mugabe, triggers jingle bells for Desmond Tutu.

The day Tibet divided South Africa
But much more than jingle bells. The event also generated lots of bile and brickbats, this time against President Zuma's government. The good archbishop had decided, apparently without any reference to his Government, to invite the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader who has been a thorn in the flesh of the Chinese Government, so the spiritual leader could be part of the party. The South African Government would have none of that and they simply played a dilatory game with the protocol of visa granting, creating a situation where the bhavhadeyi passed before the Lama's papers were in place for his travel.

The Archbishop was furious, as was the Western world which has heavily invested in the spiritual leader to keep the sides of the rising dragon needled all the time by uncomfortable questions, uncomfortable situations. The script abroad was the Zuma Government had succumbed to pressure from the Chinese Government which would look dimly at any profile-raising concessions to it's spiritually suffused opponent.
The script went further. South Africa would not risk billions-worth of trade with the giant Chinese economy for the sake of a mere birth-marking ritual involving some old man, albeit spotting a collar on his shirtfront.

This was condemnable in the extreme, went the Western script and its multiple echoes in our subcontinent. Zuma, added these magisterial voices, had yet again fumbled on foreign policy, with Zimbabwe, Libya and many other areas being cited in accusatory illustration.

Seeking an expensive Birthday gift

This attack on Zuma, much of it quite gratuitous, should be deposed of with the swiftness it deserves. From flashes of anger which the media recorded from Archbishop Tutu, it is clear the cleric expected an expensive gift from the South African government, all to mark the occasion. He expected the South African government to indulge him, all to the value of billion upon billions of dollars in Chinese trade which South Africa was sure to forego in consequence.

That was going to be the dollar value of the gift Tutu expected from the South African Government. Turn that into jobs, or some other welfare index, and you graphically quantify the sacrifice Tutu hoped from South Africa's poor, never mind that the link between trade with China and benefits to the poor should never be posited as obviously given.

I have not yet mentioned the fact that South Africa and China both belong to Brics, an alliance which we all hope can be nurtured into a meaningful counterpoise to arrogant American and European global dominance.

What was being asked of Zuma was that Tutu's birthday soar above the foreign policy of South Africa, indeed play first fiddle to South Africa's strategic interests in Asia. No one cared to explain how and why a matter between China and the West, a matter between China and her religiously recalcitrant citizen, should excise South Africa. Or why a citizen of South Africa, simply on the strength of worn-out Anglican robes, should found and consecrate friendship outside of, insensitive to, and defiant of the foreign policy concerns of his government and State. Or why he should piously remonstrate with that offended State for not bending low to wipe clean his dirty feet and sandals, so entangled in a worthless of ecumenical friendship.

Bad for the gander
The argument goes deeper. This year alone we saw Western leaders, including American and British leaders beat the road to China, begging bowl beneath the robes of haughty Caucasian pride.
The China they were now visiting was far, far different from the China of servile urchins in the days of the Opium Wars, and the subsequent triple occupation of Shanghai. To this day Shanghai bears its triple disfigurement: a third of it British, another third French and the last third American. They were now paying visits to a new, roaring China with trillions of American dollars in reserves, a mighty China playing donor to virtually all western economies, so buffeted, so much in financial turmoil.

However much their liberal media howled - and howl they did - all the leaders steered clean of any controversies, indeed punctiliously ensured great China was not, would not be, offended by extraneous issues, including human rights and the rights of the Tibetan people as led by their spiritual leader.
Were they leaving this very sensitive matter to South Africa to raise at her own expense in the month of October, towards the end of the year of our Lord two thousand and eleven? They, and only they, have the right to shelve larger matters in deference to their immediate needs and strategic interests. We don't. We do not have that latitude to pass over matters which injure the pursuit of our interests? We are obligated to raise such touchy issues for the sake of Europe, America and the idealisms of western liberalism?

Above all, how come the Queen never invites the Dalai Lama on the occasion of her birthday? Or Robert Mugabe? Or wa Mutharika? Or Ahmadinejad? Or Chavez? Or Castro? Or better still the spiritual leader in Iran?
When will our own people realise the value of harmonising their pursuits with the larger interests of their nation, rather than generating valueless dilemmas and controversies for their Governments, all for personal fame and glory?