Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe was interviewed on the Cable News Network during his visit to New York to address the United Nations General Assembly on September 25, 2009.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
By Tendai Hildegarde Manzvanzvike
Zimbabwe Herald
IT WAS an exclusive interview where CNN International’s Christiane Amanpour naively hoped to lecture President Mugabe on some democratic tenets; and be a mouthpiece for Western governments, and what they consider to be the crucial issues in the inclusive Government.
Amanpour was supposed to be in the driving seat, but one wonders whether she managed to do that.
Who ended up being lectured to, and why? In fact, why did Amanpour make such a poor show of herself? Was it ignorance of the Zimbabwe issue, or was she taking President Mugabe for granted? Did she base her script on the lies and propaganda peddled by the Western media? Has Amanpour ever been to Zimbabwe, or bothered to learn the truth?
Amanpour’s interview with President Mugabe on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly was characteristic of the Western media’s attitude towards Africa and its leaders.
When President Mugabe told Amanpour, "The inclusive Government is a real power-sharing arrangement. Don’t denigrate it," it was a summation of the intricate issues that define relations between Africa and the West.
He further told her: "We have 14 countries in Sadc, which are responsible for assisting us in bringing that about and for assisting us also in making it run . . . And read what they say. Listen to what they say."
In this statement, President Mugabe made it very clear that Africa could hold its own, and time for being dictated to was over.
The Amanpour interview also saw a redefinition of the North-South power dynamics, and was a call on the West to stop interfering in Africa’s domestic issues.
The time for being treated as "good boys" or "good Africans" was over, as Amanpour tried to unsuccessfully rope in the likes of former South African president Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu to indict President Mugabe’s leadership.
The interview revealed the West’s politics of patronage and paternalism towards Africans, where they want to display Africans as people who cannot think, and who should accept anything and everything coming from the Anglo-Saxon world as the best.
Otherwise, how could viewers interpret Amanpour’s multiple interjections? Was she scared about the warning given by the BBC’s anchor, Owen Bennett Jones, when President Mugabe addressed the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome, that once the Zimbabwean leader was given a platform, he would use it to best advantage?
The interview not only smacked of Amanpour’s racist and supremacist attitude, but it also displayed a mindset that wants to make Africans believe that without the West, they are nothing, and that their rightful place is at the bottom of the heap.
Despite the spirited attempts to put down President Mugabe, Amanpour failed dismally. The ‘‘top-billed’’ journalist was no match for Zimbabwe’s veteran nationalist leader, who upstaged her every effort to sway the interview in her favour.
Wrote Wenjere on an online discussion forum: "This is the Great Hero of Africa, our own pride and every Zimbabwean MUST be proud of this man. Historical imbalances need to be addressed and yes the land reclamation is the best thing that could ever happen to any African country."
President Mugabe remained focused, while Amanpour interjected his every response, and put across the message that he wanted the whole world to know: Zimbabwe and Zimbabweans.
Why hold an interview if you as the journalist want your viewpoints to be projected more than those of the person you are interviewing? Would Amanpour point a finger at President Barack Obama the way she did to President Mugabe, something that even decent mothers do not do to their children?
Why also have an interview, if all you want is to endorse your preconceived opinions? For it was quite clear that Amanpour had issues that she wanted to lecture President Mugabe on, and a content analysis of the interview revealed that this was an advocacy attempt by CNN to make Roy Bennett and land reform outstanding issues.
Although the Bennett issue was initially grouped together with other MDC-T Members of Parliament, Amanpour raised Bennett’s case more than five times.
Remarked Amanpour: "The problem, though, is, Mr President, that many people are saying that you’re still — and your party — is trying to sort of reduce the MDC majority or their officials in Parliament. There are MPs who are being arrested. They’re being charged with alleged crimes to prevent them from being able to take office. Why is this still happening?"
This was a clear reference to Bennett because he is the only one who is still to be sworn in. So for Amanpour to claim that MDC-T MPs are being "charged with alleged crimes to prevent them from being able to take office", was a clear attempt to deliberately misinform viewers about the current status of the inclusive Government.
At another point she asked: "Has Roy Bennett committed a crime? Why is he not being sworn in?" When President Mugabe responded, she further questioned: "So charged with what? . . . Do you think that he will – do you think that he will be appointed? . . . But charged with what?"
It was her final remark on Bennett that made it all very clear that the race card was being used with undue abandon, "Well, we’ll obviously have to ask him about that, but . . ."
What did this mean and what are the implications? Amanpour did not believe President Mugabe, and she wanted her viewers to do the same. In her own words, Bennett was a more credible source than the Zimbabwean leader, despite the fact that they want him sworn in by President Mugabe. What hypocrisy!
When she verifies with Bennett, will the confirmation be for public consumption?
Amanpour also revealed her other credible sources: "Mr Mugabe, that’s certainly the first I’m hearing of it, and we will, obviously, put that to them. But can I say this? There are a lot of people — and you heard in that report — who considered you an African hero back in 1980, that you came and — some of my own friends, Rhodesians, some of the people I’ve worked with who were in the Rhodesian army, then became journalists in Rhodesia were stunned by the conciliatory nature and the addresses that you gave back in 1980. . . ."
Need we say more? Zimbabweans must think that this is a badge of honour because President Mugabe was called a hero by Rhodesians, just because of the policy of reconciliation, which they spurned and ended up being a one-sided affair? He was their hero when they continued to believe that the land issue would remain skewed in their favour?
For a journalist who reports on international issues, we wonder which era Amanpour lives.
She must be told in no uncertain terms that Rhodesia is dead, though some claimed it never dies. Rhodesia only lives in mindsets that lull themselves with the notion that Rhodesians never die.
That Rhodesia is finished is summed up with the statements that the land reform programme is irreversible, and that Zimbabwe will never be a colony again. It was also evident that Amanpour was not in charge of the interview process, as she probably would have wanted.
In some cases President Mugabe ended up being the interviewer: "But haven’t you heard of the Lancaster House discussions and the agreement with the British government? Because they are British settlers, originally they have been British settlers. And we agreed at Lancaster House that there would be land reform.
"Haven’t you heard of the regime change programme by Britain and the United States, which is aimed at getting not just Robert Mugabe out of power, but Robert Mugabe and his party out of power?"
There was an elaborate summary after the interview, but was CNN accurately reflecting on the tone, mood and feeling of the interview? Does the summary accurately capture what Amanpour got from the Zimbabwean leader?
"In President Mugabe’s first interview with a major Western media outlet in years, Amanpour explored the historic power-sharing agreement with the inclusive Government there, and got the President’s thoughts on the highly-emotive issue of land redistribution.
"As Mugabe prepares to take centre stage at the United Nations on Friday, 25 September, Amanpour took the opportunity to ask if the power-sharing agreement is really working; if international sanctions are responsible for his country’s economic and political turmoil; and what kind of engagement he is looking for from the international community.
"In this rare interview, Amanpour also addressed signs of optimism emerging in Zimbabwe; sky-rocketing inflation stabilising, basic goods returning to store shelves; and a loosening of restrictive media laws."
It was interesting to note that CNN International’s live global interview programme "Amanpour", which airs Mondays to Fridays was only launched on Monday, September 21, 2009.
The daily "Amanpour" series is expected to catapult her career where she will be the undisputed American queen of "international news".
President Mugabe who was interviewed on Thursday, September 24, was among the first guests in the pioneering programme. Will the interview be one of Amanpour’s most memorable moments?
The write-up on Amanpour reads: "Combining her experience in the field, sharp intelligence and extraordinary depth of knowledge, the show will set the agenda for a new global conversation with global leaders, heads of state, cultural icons and uncommon voices."
Did she succeed, and did it raise her profile, and the programme’s profile?
It is also important to understand where, ideologically, Christiane is anchored. Who exactly is Amanpour?
According to sources, Amanpour was born in London in 1958 to a British mother and an Iranian father, who was an airline executive. The family moved back to Iran soon after her birth.
One source also said: "The Amanpours led a privileged life under the government of the Shah of Iran. She returned to England in 1969 and her family fled Iran after the Islamic Revolution."
Amanpour speaks English, French and Persian. In 1989 CNN deployed her to Frankfurt, West Germany, where she reported about the changes in Eastern Europe at that period.
In the 1990s she covered the Persian Gulf War and also the Bosnian War and other conflict zones. In 1992 she was in Mogadishu, Somalia, when US troops launched Operation Restore Hope, which was a failure.
CNN has reported about some of her memorable moments in her career. During the siege on Chairman Yasser Arafat’s compound in March 2002, the Palestinian leader hung up on her during a telephone interview.
Why? What had she said? And, what does this say about her ideological inclinations towards revolutionaries and countries that do not accept the West’s perception on international issues?
How much of her family background colours her perceptions about issues, especially the Zimbabwe question, especially when one considers that her mother is British, and she has been honoured by the Queen with a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE)?
Is it a background that makes her give balanced and objective reports, especially on countries that have a close relationship with Iran?
A New York Times report also says that Amanpour’s "emotional delivery from Sarajevo during the siege of Sarajevo led some viewers and critics to question her professional objectivity, claiming that many of her reports were unjustified and favoured the Bosnian Muslims, to which she replied, ‘There are some situations one simply cannot be neutral about, because when you are neutral you are an accomplice. Objectivity doesn’t mean treating all sides equally. It means giving each side a hearing’."
Was Zimbabwe and President Mugabe one of these many situations?
Put simply, the 51-year-old journalist’s attitude can be summed up as arrogant, biased and subjective. In an industry where fame and rankings matter, getting an exclusive interview with the Zimbabwean leader could have been a scoop, but to what end?
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