The Sunday News
Tedious Ncube
A number of major and minor myths have grown during the last two decades about Zimbabwe and the craft of her governance. These myths are in part the creation of hostile propaganda of western origin. More often; they are the product of imagination or guesswork, thriving on a lack of public enlightenment. Sometimes these myths grow out of news stories purposely launched to “flush” out the facts.
Of interest today is the “sanctions are meant for democracy” myth; and how it has been deployed to foreground the continued victimisation of Zimbabwe. At the Zenith of this myth, are claims purporting that, “. . . the imposition of sanctions is a good thing since it will facilitate the birth of democracy in Zimbabwe . . .” (ZIDERA, 2001).
I maintain that there is no tangible link between sanctions and the realisation of democracy in Zimbabwe or anywhere in the world to say the least. In fact, sanctions are just an instrument meant to advance the imposer’s interests. I submit that, the democracy and human rights narrative is just but a gimmick meant to dissuade the public from seeing sanctions for what they truly are.
Firstly, sanctions are an instrument aimed at weakening any state that dares to challenge the west’s hegemony.
Zimbabwe’s choice to pursue the land reform programme unsettled the west and allowing Zimbabwe to be a success was deemed to be a threat to the west’s foreign policy. By the way, the foreign policy in question is that of siphoning resources from the global-south and maintaining the legacy of colonialism which makes it impossible for natives to own and control their resources.
Many do not want to understand that the land reform programme pursued by Zimbabwe was a direct threat to the legacy of colonialism which is still idealised in some parts of the world today. One does not need a degree in rocket science, to see that the simple objective of sanctions is to reverse the gains of Zimbabwe’s land reform programme.
One needs no PHD to see the neo-colonial nuance of sanctions and how it is a political tool meant to pressure Zimbabwe into rethinking the land reform programme and in the process restoring the colonial order.
Moreover, allowing Zimbabwe to successfully implement the land reform programme is a threat to the West’s foreign policy. Somehow, Zimbabwe’s revolutionary prowess has been interpreted along margins of the cold war between the neoliberal-west and the communist-east. Zimbabwe’s victory is somehow viewed as victory for the communist-East.
The imposition of sanctions on Zimbabwe is therefore, a mechanism meant to disrupt progress in a bid to assert the west’s hegemony.
The continued imposition of sanctions on Zimbabwe is also a counter-revolutionary message to Africa and other countries; aimed at discouraging them from challenging the West. I am forced to think that with or without the Land Reform Programme; Zimbabwe was still going to be tormented for its ideological position as with the case of Cuba, Iran, Russia and China. All these countries are being tormented because of the West’s failure to adhere to principles of democratic tolerance in international politics; they are tormented because of the west’s failure to understand that it is not the big brother and other sovereign countries are also entitled to implement policies that benefit their local citizens not some imperialist institutions which are still at the centre of the west’s backward interests of primitive accumulation.
By way of clarification let me point out that sanctions against Zimbabwe are real and they have a devastating effect on the economy. They affect the poor, the weak and the children. In fact, sanctions violate international law. They violate free trade; they violate human growth and development. When you sanction a bank of a country, the meaning of it is quite clear.
You are sanctioning medicine for the people. Economic sanctions are therefore, questionable ethically because they impose disproportionate harm on innocent civilians. Although sanctions are intended to pressure states into changing their policies, they lead to predictable outcomes such as economic inefficiency, inequitable distribution of goods, civil conflicts and population movements.
“ . . . Economic sanctions cause a significant disruption in the distribution of food, pharmaceutical and sanitation supplies, it jeopardises the quality of food and the availability of clean drinking water, it severely interferes with the functioning of basic health and education systems and undermines the right to work . . .” (Nyoni, 2019). It is therefore, logical for every progressive mind to problematise the continued imposition of illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe.
-Tedious Teddy Ncube is a political scientist and a public policy analyst.
