The Anti-Sanctions Declaration: Disentangling Neo-Colonial Political thought

20 Oct, 2019 - 00:10 0 Views
The Anti-Sanctions Declaration: Disentangling Neo-Colonial Political thought President Mnangagwa

The Sunday News

Dr Obert Mpofu

The burden of history

Today the pan-African nationalist movement is bestowed with the mandate of tackling the ever-changing complexities and complexions of colonialism. 

This comes against an undeniable reality of how neo-colonialism has repackaged itself through the narrow Western anchored democracy and human-rights discourse in African politics. 

The neo-colonial manufacturing of conflict in post-independent Africa has been another chief instrument of instilling the legitimacy of cover-up humanitarian interventions in African affairs. 

Today we find sovereign capitals of the West having deliberate external affairs desks to facilitate an aggressive meddle in African politics. Western sectoral interests continue to aggressively penetrate in the domestic currencies of power in Africa. 

On the other hand, political-thought in Africa suffers dependency on colonial ideas and thus giving prominence to a superficial alternative to the nationalist/liberation movement. 

This gamut of structural and external forces affecting the political present and future of Africa attempt by all means to overshadow the role of history in framing the character of our self-determination. Far beyond these attempts, the psyche of African politics is inclined to be retrospective and the only point of introspection to the present can only be historical. 

This is informed by a political culture whose personality is solidified by a shared protracted memory of the anti-imperial fight. The liberation movement is best placed to account for this past and preserving it in the interest of defending the ideological artillery which warped colonialism. 

This explains why the subscription of liberation parties is inter-generational. In other words, the liberation party is the cog for inter-generational political concerns of the day. Zanu-PF is one such an institution which is founded on the premise of history in situating the perennial attainment of the aspirations of African dignity. 

Historically edging the present

The genesis of sanctions on Zimbabwe poses as a threat to the certainty of the entire region’s autonomy from the ugly meddling of neo-colonialism. Consequently, the Sadc Dare se Slaam Summit of 2019 must be extolled for its unwavering castigation of the Zidera and EU Sanctions. 

The declaration of 25 October as the day to which African countries of the South should register their displeasure against the imperial iron-fist on Zimbabwe should motivate a cross-sectional castigation on sanctions by every patriotic Zimbabwean.  

Sadc’s expression of discontentment on the Western world and the continued collective call for the immediate and unconditional removal of illegal sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe symbolises an intense detest towards colonial interference in Africa’s political issues. From the surface, the issue of historical human-rights violation will be raised to erase the real truth about sanctions. 

An ahistorical political rationale

The hyped propositions to Western dependent political thought facilitates the undermine of the credibility of our institutions in the continent. This crisis in African political thinking has been the major reason for the artificial morality of anti-nationalist inspired transitions across the continent. 

The prescriptive inclination of this democracy and human-rights ignores the existence of our regional protocols and municipal institutions which are predicated on the preservation of constitutionalism and good governance. We have also seen how sanctions have been deployed as a diplomatic missile to injure our self-confidence and subjecting us to unilateral terms of dictated democracy aimed at impelling regime-change and the consequent obliteration of the Former Liberation Movements. 

The stalemate on the Zimbabwean sanctions question is evident of the West’s relentless fight with the anti-colonial spirit which advanced the need to realign property rights. The imposition of sanctions on Zimbabwe cannot be assessed without high considerations of their origin as vengeance for the Fast-Track Land Reform Programme by the West. 

The subtle packaging of sanctions as a measure for redressing bad governance conceals the ego of White monopoly capital’s interests in the sovereign affairs of Zimbabwe. The Land Reform — without which our independence would be incomplete is the major source of our isolation in the global market. 

The Government’s unequivocal policy of pronouncing the irreversible position of the land redistribution is the major reason why Zimbabwe will continue to face the punitive diplomatic attack by the West. 

Truth be told, the resultant post-Land Reform political impasse championed by the anti-establishment forces was designed to create an ahistorical disconnect of the masses from the ruling Zanu-PF. Therefore, the region’s anti-sanctions intervention repositions Zanu-PF to its place in time and in history. 

A hypocritical-amnesia 

The buttressed position on the country’s one-sided representation of a political crisis expresses the fundamental misgiving on the political reforms which have been ushered through the New Dispensation and the Second Republic — which in itself represents the remodelling of political-culture in Zimbabwe under the leadership of President Emmerson Mnangagwa.  

There is a decisive effort towards a high upbeat for regime change furthered through the ambit of foreign-backed opposition political parties. Narrowly, this proposition melodramatises a quest and an aspiration for the delivery of good government. 

Not that there is any evil about political transitions. However, there is everything wrong when the change sought is influenced by external forces bent on incentivising self-preservation through designing and churning out political chaos. In our case, the sanctions represent the relentless contestation to Government’s affinity to respond to economic decolonisation.  

Validating the Zidera and EU instruments of forcing political change disparages the aspirations of our shared struggle and the very spirit of African resistance. Sanctions are a war to the livelihoods of our people. 

Those calling for the continued imposition of sanctions on Zimbabwe are beneficiaries of the chaotic impulse of the Zidera and the EU trade restrictions on Zimbabwe. Sanctions are an antithesis of the socio-economic and political prosperity envisaged by the policy ambitions of the Second Republic. 

The Future

The 25 October, 2019 Anti-Sadc proclamation is a symbolic of a broad-based unity of purpose against neo-colonialism by the region in sharp pursuit of anti-colonial aspirations.  The move is indicative of a shared African position which transcends the Zimbabwean political geometry. 

The day, 25 October must pose as a point of recollection and at the same time mark a reclaiming of African states’ dignity in the international system. Zimbabwe as an actor in African political interest must maintain a defiant position in challenging colonial monopoly. 

To strengthen this position, Sadc must device counter measures against similar potential threats on member-states. 

All necessary initiatives and processes opposed to neo-colonial penetration including, but not limited to legislative and administrative frameworks must be taken to disfigure the neo-colonialism in its totality. 

It is clear that Africa is now speaking together in one corner and thus reigniting the “Injury to one and is Injuring to all” principle. 

We are optimistic that the Sadc Anti-Sanctions resolution of setting 25 October, 2019 as the day with which Southern-Africa will express its displeasure on the continued imposition of sanctions against Zimbabwe will also become a historical subject of reference to the African Union.   

– The author, Dr Obert Mpofu is Zanu-PF’s Secretary for Administration. He is also a member  of the Politburo.

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