Manipulation: Bane of the West

Herbert Chitepo, former leader of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). He was the first qualified African lawyer in Rhodesia., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Manipulation: Bane of the West

December 17, 2013 Opinion & Analysis
Panganai Kahuni
Zimbabwe Herald

THE West wants the world to believe it is the home of freedom, democracy and good governance. It takes a true revolutionary icon to see through this strategy used by the West to neo-colonise the world. Herbert Chitepo argued that freedom is a natural faculty by which people are called free to do what is open to one unless forbidden by law.

He further stated that “slavery was an institution of law of Western nations (juris gentium)”.

Chitepo observed that “slaves were made by law of Western nations, their conduct and condition fell under the civil law.

Neither the law of Western nations nor civil law had anything to do with their human status under natural law”.

In African context, freedom means controlling the levers of power, land and capital. Any law that does not recognise this should be regarded as frivolous and demonic.

Aristotle, the so-called great Greek philosopher, often contradicted himself differentiating at least twice between “slave qua slave” and “slave qua human”.

Speaking of friendship as between equally virtuous humans, he said that if master and slave could not be friends insofar as one was a tool and property of the other, as humans they could.

Asked whether a slave could enjoy a happy life, he again said “no one assigns to a slave a share in happiness, except as he grants him also a share in human life (et me’ kai biou)”.

African philosophy defines slavery as inhuman and anyone who practises it as unethical and satanic in nature.

At the burial of one of the illustrious sons of the soil, the late Brigadier General Misheck Tanyanyiwa, President Mugabe reminded people about “zvitototo”.

As he talked of zvitototo, it liberated many from the sombre mood, from the absorbing atmosphere that befits a funeral gathering, and indeed many shared with him the light moments of the day as they laughed in acknowledgement of how bad those referred to as zvitototo were to humanity.

Zvitototo refers to those individuals or groups of people who alienate themselves from fellow Africans and align themselves to the white commonwealth in order to receive Western recognition and to be regarded as civilised.

Zvitototo defines all African neo-liberal thinkers, who by virtue of either their education or their affiliation to whites, sell their heritage in search of being idolised by the Anglo-Saxons as they are given Nobel Peace Prizes. Kwame Nkrumah argued that imperialists know no law other than their interests and that a good imperialist was a dead one.

When Chitepo argued that freedom is a natural faculty by which people are called free to do what is open to one, unless forbidden by law, the question that arises is how do organisations such as the Law Society of Zimbabwe (LSZ) and the Lawyers for Human Rights in Zimbabwe (LHRZ) legally interpret this legal statement from one of the finest legal minds in Zimbabwe?

Are they not being manipulated by the West which funds their organisations to interpret Chitepo’s argument in a manner that makes Africans lose their heritage?

Was Chitepo a legal mediocre who did not understand the legal difference between civil law and natural law insofar as the human status of slaves was concerned?

Immanuel Kant and Stuart Charles Mills argue that “Africans are barbarous regardless of how educated they could be”.

The two Western racial theorists observed that the good thing about most Africans is that they can easily be educated and civilised to respect their erstwhile colonisers.

If one looks at the capacities and abilities of most civil society organisations in Africa, one is struck by the level of education most of them have.

However, when one licences to them talk bad about Africa one wonders whether they were born out of a European mother and American father.

Instead of them criticising what they seem to observe as bad practices with an objective of creating a better environment, they always paint a horrendous picture that only God knows how to better the environment.

One wonders why most civil societies easily fall into the Kantian African characterisation that most Africans regardless of how educated they may be, are barbarous and can easily be cultured to respect former colonial masters as they seek to get money.

Sometimes Africa blames the West for its hypocrisy and duplicity when it is fellow Africans who create space for the West to give Africans concessions whose benefits reside in Western capitals.

Imagine the legion of neo-liberal thinkers such as the highly educated professors in the mould of Welshman Ncube, Ibbo Mandaza, George Kahari and others whose intellect does not benefit Zimbabwe.

In their academic work they prefer to create scenarios that make Africans receive the crown while the crown jewels remain in the hands of the whites. The West is happy in that their kith and kin in Africa are helped by the evil works of civil societies to keep their economic interests.

Imagine the demonology that civil societies and NGOs include in their reports knowing that they will be lying through the altar of their teeth.

It is time Government confronts civil societies and NGOs to account for their human rights lies which they report in search of recognition by the West.

Imagine the hypocrisy of the legion of former American presidents trooping down to SA to attend the funeral of Tata Mandela whom they never trooped down to release.

People must understand the manipulative nonsense with which the West treats Africans.

When the British wanted Cde Mugabe to allow them to remain in control of the economy they knighted him and splashed him with many accolades.

At that time, our President observed the Lancaster House Constitution and the West, particularly the British and Americans, were in hyper-celebratory moods.

In the eyes of the British, Mugabe and his cabinet were viewed in an Aristotlean manner as tools and properties that were to be used to maintain the West’s economic foothold in Zimbabwe.

In that period the Anglo-Saxons saw no need for deploying and funding the legion of evil civil societies to demonise Mugabe and Zanu-PF.

In the immediate post-independence period when Mugabe and Zanu-PF observed the principle of reconciliation and the African philosophy of Ubuthu/Unhu by respecting what was agreed at Lancaster House, the West saw no need for imposing illegal economic sanctions since they remained in control of the economy and land.

It must be noted here that during this period it was the West that abrogated on reconciliation and respect of agreements which they now manipulatively blame on Mugabe and his comrades.

The once charismatic Mugabe is now in the eyes of the West a tyrant, a dictator and undemocratic.

This shows that the West has no permanent friends but only permanent interests.

The West wittingly uses manipulation to sway anyone to support them blindly and then later dump them as is happening to some civil societies.

Panganai Kahuni is a political socio-economic commentator.