MDCT Breaking the Myth

MDC-T: Breaking the Myth

March 15, 2014 Nathaniel Manheru, Opinion & Analysis

Nathaniel Manheru The Other Side

“We don’t want to build parties that have no future and that will die with me. If I lose the next
election I will step down and pass the baton. That is democracy and continuity.” The year was
2012; the month was November. The place was Mkoba, right in the middle of this land of rock.
The interlocutors were the MDC-T provincial heavies of Midlands. And the speaker? Yes, you
guess right, the speaker was Morgan Richard Tsvangirai, the man from Buhera, and for whom
much always happens in November, the month of goats. Speaking from the heart of the country,
we all thought his words issued from within his deep, democratic heart. Then, we were a good
six-plus months away from the July 31 polls that would decide his political day, that would hold
him up to his rather gratuitous pledge.

When the bolt gets rusty

Of course July 31 came, with it a whirlwind defeat that sat the MDC-T leader on his twos, never
to stand, that left his mouth parched white, as if licked by a cold harmattan. Always an orphan,
defeat stirred subversive thoughts and questions among his restless followers. In no time, the hiss
of dissatisfaction turned into a yell of open dissent. The leader had failed the party. Not once, not
twice, but on three consecutive occasions.
A rusty bolt, intoned Ian Kay, drawing his metaphor from his Rhodesian farming tradition. More
caustic judgements from unhappy whites, themselves always a voice that matters and decides in
MDC-T politics.

For they are the purse and thus owners of the pipe and piper. Or where they don’t have the purse,
they are the third party that endorses the flow of resources. We all wondered where all this was
building towards.
Mr mangoma

But not for long. Then came Mangoma’s blistering letter, taking on a false tone of profound
advice from one so loyal, from one so well-meaning. Time to call quits, Mister President!
Ordinarily, this would have been a very gentle reminder, what with what the leader had promised
he would do in 2012, in the event of another defeat. Or so we all thought! How wrong!

You are free to leave!

The naked king would not take advice, roaringly telling Mangoma not to stand between a
charging bear and its anger. Events became nimble, very fast paced and soon February 2014
arrived, with it new words from the same mouth. The leader had had a change of heart. The
venue was Huruyadzo Shopping Centre (Remember Bishop Abel Tendekayi Muzorewa?),
Chitungwiza: “Kana pane asingade kuita fall in line, be out of line . . . I have not run out of
manpower but ndiri kuti kana muchida struggle yekuti uyai tiite change ngatibvisei Zanu-PF,
let’s work together. But if you do not want to work with me, you are free to leave.” He went
much further.

He asked his followers if they understood “democracy”, adding, “munezera nayo”? He left
nothing in doubt. He was the god, the only one. The MDC-T supporters were there to dutifully
follow, while he exercised his prerogative to lead. What would be MDC-T without Tsvangirai,
he quipped, before breaking into a song of self-assurance, teaching violence always ready to be
unleashed against dissent. The MDC-T’s much-vaunted values had gone up in smoke!

The votary goes wrong

When dissent comes from acolytes, the gods are always known to be swift and ruthless. And this
is Mangoma’s mortal sin. He is an archangel that fell, an archangel that has deigned query the
wisdom of the gods, that has dared measure the extent of their power. He shall be punished
severely, flung into bottomless pit. Before this recklessness, he was the chief priest, magosva, the
keeper of the secrets of the rites to MDC-T power.
We all knew that if you wanted to reach Tsvangirai’s mind, all you needed to do was to prod
Mangoma. Before long, you would have it all, unadorned. This is the man who has now upset the
applecart. There cannot be any forgiveness. Except Mangoma is just that, a mere drum whose
song and tone depends on who beats it. Let us get to the hand that beats the drum.

Crystallising simmering white dissent

Everyone in the political world knows Mangoma as the “Hotspur” of MDC-T politics, the
reckless tong that touches the hottest embers. Tsvangirai used him to good measure, including
exposing him to reckless ministerial decisions during the inclusive Government. He suffered for
it, all the time with ever mounting, amazing self-satisfaction. In him there has always been a
strange will to self-flagellate. The MDC-T’s white supporters knew that, the same way they are
also aware they will always need a bold, black face on which to plant their latest political
calculations.

Mangoma’s letter is a crystallisation of simmering white dissent within the MDC-T, simmering
dissent that needed a bold if not reckless actor. That white dissent could have used Biti, but knew
quite well Biti is a thoughtful coward that Mangoma is not. In any case Biti would always come
in with legal justification, after Hotspur would have acted impetuously. But Mangoma had to be
backed by more reckless hands, possibly violent ones, which is where the young Madzore came
in, eyes set on the equally impetuous youth wing of the MDC-T.

The demos versus elite reasoning

What the media have lost is the recognition that there is something inorganic about the Biti-
Mangoma high-flown politics of dissent. They can’t unmake Morgan. As already stated, these
are white politics relying on an elitist grasp of the tenets of democracy and legalism. They
resonate with the thinking side of politics, which is why their proponents are lawyers, MDC-T’s
white supporters, ambassadors and diplomats, never the average MDC-T supporter in Budiriro or
Chitungwiza, himself the real mover and shaker of MDC-T politics.

Welshman benefited from the sheer ethnic resonance of his breakaway politics, the same way
Mangoma and Biti never would. And Mangoma’s resort to the epistolary format, and to the
boardroom setting for the espousal of his dissent against Tsvangirai spelt doom for his cause. His
methodology only made sense to the thinking, to the boardroom where a jacket and tie are the
appropriate attire. He mistook a jacket and shirt for armour, and that was fatal.

Tsvangirai read his enemies right. They belonged to the white world; their message was white,
elitist. It had no resonance with the people for whom personality cult and loyalty counts for all.
He mobilized the demos for an emphatic rebuttal of an esoteric argument, one so couched in
learned phrases.
Mr Tsvangirai

Into Tsvangirai’s arms

He opened the floodgates of Harvest House and the demos poured in, claws and fangs ready to
maul the smart Alecs of clean politics. The act of tearing Mangoma’s clean shirt became a
metaphor of the rejection of elitist politics so steeped in white patronage. And an emphatic
illustration of the inherent vulnerability of those propped by such politics. The fangs of the
lumpen would always claw the day. If Mangoma thought an image of him in torn shirt would
mobilise support and sympathy, he was gravely mistaken. In politics violence has a totem. It is
not always that it dignifies the victim. Rather, if well calibrated, it dignifies the haver.

Violent Tsvangirai carried the day. In the case of Mangoma, it was worse. Many see him in a
display of yet another round of bravado. As for Biti the irony could not have been more
dramatic: to survive the attack, he had to escape into, and embrace Tsvangirai! Outside
Tsvangirai, there appears no political safety for him.

Citing chapter and verse

Both men have white politics and white money. They don’t have the rabble that moves politics.
And Tsvangirai knew all this, which is why his response continues to move farther and farther
away from the boardroom, the constitution, more and more towards the townships where the
rules are written by the rabble, in plumes of dust. By so doing, he has dared his opponents to
show their real worth by way of popular support.
They can’t match him. They have not organised a single rally, with their supporters getting
haunted out, one by one. In place of slogans of the masses, they continue to cite chapter and
verse from a dead constitution. The Bismarckian notion that great questions of the day are settled
not by speeches and resolutions, but by blood and iron, has never rang truer.

Into ZANU-PF’s value system

There is another dimension. Tsvangirai today parades like the keeper of the soul of the MDC-T.
And the MDC-T soul is threatened by the meddlesome West, the same West which Zanu-PF
attacks daily. That way he has tapped into an argument which Zanu-PF has turned into a
shibboleth of national politics, turned into a veritable test of political legitimacy. Today many in
Zanu-PF view Tsvangirai as gravitating towards a cardinal political value: that of resisting the
West’s intrusive politics and Mephistophelian temptation. We all heard that some figure of
US$3million had been placed on the table to tempt Tsvangirai away from leadership. All this is
seen as symbolising Mangoma-Biti’s degraded, pro-west politics. The framing has been more
than damning.

Tendai Biti

When candor is naïveté

To all that add Biti’s fatal address at Sapes Trust, an address which has been framed as
suggesting that Biti is getting is support from Zanu-PF. Of course all that is nonsense. Except as
a politician he should have known that in politics, honesty and candour amount to naïveté. There
is nothing which Biti said at Sapes which is untoward.

Or even brilliant. He stated the obvious, but at the wrong time. His opponents were hungry for
that link, however tenuous, which would fasten him to Zanu-PF. Such a link would stoke
emotions, themselves the brick and mortar of rabble politics. He supplied exactly that, thereby
allowing himself into a conversation that he would not win.

Declining middle class appeal

Which means what from the point of view of national politics? Well, Zanu-PF’s victory
continues to spawn real contradictions within the bedrock of white politics in Zimbabwe. The
false democratic value system upon which these politics have always been predicated has now
collapsed.
Violence has been unleashed yet again, in the process putting a lie to the notion that the MDC-T
has always been the victim of political violence. It has been such a potent mobilising myth which
has now collapsed, having been twice tested, twice failed.

Secondly, the West always needed a coherent entrepôt for its intrusive politics, something which
the now fragmenting MDC-T so ill-supplies. And as is turning out, each split takes from MDC-T
its thinking side, leaving Tsvangirai more and more reliant on brawn. That bodes ill for national
politics. What is significant is not Mangoma-Biti’s lack of public face; it is the MDC-T’s
declining middle-class appeal.

Mr Sikhala

Nowhere is this more illustrated than by the substitution of Mangoma/Biti by Job Sikhaka.
Thirdly, Tsvangirai’s I-still-have-support rallies have thrown spotlight on the state of MDC-T
support after the July 31 defeat. That support has dwindled drastically. All his rallies really
struggled to make an impression in terms of national politics. Long after Biti and Mangoma are
silenced, Tsvangirai shall discover his slide has accelerated as never before.

The key challenge has never been to unmake Biti and Mangoma; it has always been to remake
the MDC-T after July 31. Even where the economy is failing, an MDC-T without the confidence
of the elites is dead capital.
In the meantime, Zanu-PF will continue to push for Zim-Asset, not so much for its real value but
as a convenient rallying point while real gains are notched on empowerment and value addition.

Icho!

[email protected]

Ukraine: When the people ‘coup’ democracy

March 1, 2014 Blogs, Nathaniel Manheru

The Other Side Nathaniel Manheru

Throughout human history, the masses have always been an ambiguous political magnitude.
Each generation has had to decide what to call them, with each description implying concession
or censure, as far as their role in society is concerned. In feudal history, the masses were a
nameless magnitude, the face of menacing chaos never to be indulged, if the social structure was
to be safeguarded. Feudalism was an era of kings, lords, ladies and knights, a martial era where
the poor had no place, had no name beyond serfdom. The power was the king, its foremost
symbols the sceptre and throne; its home the castle, it’s means taxation, war and marriage.

When order was godly

Expectedly the masses in Shakespearian days were always depicted as a mindless mob, a real
menace driven by “vulgar wits”, and always fickle in times of war or social upheaval. They
could not be relied upon, or made to lead in social action. Wars were always a way of expending
surplus populations, theatres and other public spectacles a cathartic way of keeping them sedate
and thus less threatening to social order. The whole Elizabethan notion of “the great chain of
being” was a rigid law-and-order philosophy, a belief of extraordinary potency when it came to
sanctioning social action. And its potency rested in its metaphysical, scriptural aura which made
it inviolate.

Order was godly.

The great hierarchy

At the top was God the Almighty, followed by Arch-angels. Then came angels, beneath which
fell Man embodied in the King, himself viewed as “God’s deputy”, and thus a human expression
of divine will and order. Then came animal kingdom, with the Lion representing “the king of the
jungle”. That transposition of the regal nomenclature into dumb animal kingdom was meant to
reinforce order as a value ordained by divinity. Even mute beast innately followed and obeyed
this divine structuring! In the plant world, the same power hierarchy subsisted, with the Oak
being the king. I left out creatures of the “Deep” where the Shark was the king.
And its great chain of being
And connecting all these levels, these spheres with all their power personifications, was an
imaginary great chain created by God to ensure that everything was interconnected and kept in
proper place or station, all for greater, overall order. Any disturbances at any one level would
rattle and even snap this great chain, in the process triggering and unleashing chaos in the whole
cosmos. God was not supposed to be deposed, which is why His mighty Hand smote the
rebellious archangel Satan, flinging him into the bottomless pit. That retributive, godly action
triggered a trans-millennia fall which Christians believe is still underway, even as I write! Satan
is still on his way down, from those remote days of the celestial rebellion. And of course when
Milton’s God acts against Satan, the whole cosmos shakes to register both the disorder
threatened by Satan’s actions, and the cataclysm which corrective, godly action entails.
Similarly, when Shakespeare’s King Duncan is assassinated by the ambitious Macbeth, not only
are animals in frightful riot, so too are the elements, with the belching waters of the deep
invading and menacing the land as if to leave their ordained place in the trough of oceans, in a
bid to displace and usurp the place of the land. Shakespeare’s Roman plays, principally
Coriolanus, bring out this sense of order or its antithesis.
Liberty, fraternity and equality

While historians celebrate the French Revolution of 1789, there was, as it unfolded, a clear
consternation in mainland Europe and England, both havens of monarchical rule. To them a dead
French king, head and neck severed from torso, all below a sharp blade of a hungry guillotine
that hung precariously above, was not only a terrifying sight to behold; it was a tragic illustration
of the death of order embodied in the king when he lived and well, and the birth of chaos and
disorder represented by the severed king and his remains, all prostrated.

There was a mortal fear of the notion of “equality”, itself a challenge on the hierarchical order on
which monarchs stood; there was the greater fear of “liberty” which struck at the very heart of
bondage and vassalage upon which serfdom rested; there was even a greater fear of the power of
combinations or collective action built around the notion of “fraternity” or universal
brotherhood. That last value made rebellions of the masses linger, persistent and assured for all
times.

Combating noxious ideas

Once the masses were inserted into history, with such noxious aspirations and bonding, order
would be forever imperilled. Monarchical Europe’s response was thus stern, comprehensive, and
collective. Over and above dispatching multinational armies and the vessels of war against
perfidious France, Europe also unleashed its big brains personified by the ultra-conservative
Briton, Edmund Burke, to battle the noxious ideas emitted by the French Revolution. After all,
the French Revolution had unleashed a massive, iconoclastic brain power not just within France,
but also across Europe, with even leading poets like Wordsworth and Blake apotheosizing it.

Run by its bottom

Nineteenth Century witnesses the birth of a new philosophy, thanks to Karl Marx and his
acolyte, Frederich Engels. For once, the masses find not just a friendly philosophy, but robust
advocacy in the two thrustful political philosophers. Hegel gets buried. And of course with the
rise of Lenin, the masses, already romanticized by Marx and Engels, find a practitioner and
maker of what appears to be the first superstate of the “soviets”, the Russian term for the masses.
1917 thus becomes the apogee of a demos-led state architecture, an epoch of the demos as was
hoped. The once outlawed “demos” had now entered a golden age, enjoying a pride of place as
principal protagonists of history. Both Marxism and Leninism envisaged the end-state as
dictatorship of the proletariat or masses, an era where society is run by its erstwhile bottom! Here
on the African continent, this philosophy creates the notion of “a people’s war” by which most
liberation wars in Southern Africa were fought. The masses were the principal movers of that
history, and our war of liberation bears that out.

Grounding the demos

Of course the above narrative is simplistic, reductive even. It also dodges the glaring discrepancy
between philosophy and political realities that unfold in the real world, all against claims of
people and selflessness. All that is not my interest. My real interest is to start a whole debate on
this magnitude called the people, aka, the masses, in making history, in legitimizing political
processes or even in the destruction of those processes. I should have factored in the idea of
democracy, reminding you, gentle reader, that “demos” means the “people”, again showing that
the accent is on the collective actions and will of the people.

Era of telegenic history

Lately, certainly from the days of the so-called Arab Spring, we have witnessed what appears to
be “people-driven” processes. Of course not in the sense of Professor Madhuku and his
moribund NCA. Or in the aspirational if not chimerical sense of MDC “mass action”. But in that
fundamental way in which politics lose their form, place, order, procedure and even person, in
favour of that menacingly formless, inchoate, faceless, unstructured collective action residing
outside. And the word is “outside”. We seem to have entered the age of the masses, the age of
crowds. It is an age of open-air spaces and actions, the age of the “Square”. It started in Iran,
with the fall of the US-backed dictatorship. That was in 1979. China gave us Tiananmen Square.
Tunisia gave us a square I can’t remember. Egypt gave us Tahrir Square. Tehran gave us Azadi,
Prague Wenceslaus. Today Ukraine or Kiev has given us Maidan or Independence Square. All of
these superseded national parliaments, temporarily, parliaments with their emphases on speakers,
“order”, form, bills and set procedures. History has become a spectacle, with the masses as key,
chaotic actors, which is why history has become so photogenic, so telegenic. But that has not
been my problem, what with my Marxist linings.

When people munch democracy

My real problem is when crowds give rise to revolutions that challenge results of the ballot, itself
supposedly the small but largest “square” for decisive open and democratic political action by
the same masses. Or worse, when the crowds give rise to revolutions that end up undermining
the interests of the very masses, all without a sense of boomeranging irony, all with a happy
shout, yell and contended cheer. We seem to have a new question in politics: can the people
betray themselves, undermine their very cause, their interests and interests of their nation? Can
they overthrow democracy? And assuming the answer is an affirmative one, what then remains
of, or becomes “Demo-cracy”, once eaten up by the “demos”, the intended consumers of this
endless, renewable commodity? Crazy?
The story of Ukraine
Let me illustrate. Ukraine’s ousted leader, Yanukovych, ran for office and won in a democratic
poll, one wholly undisputed. He represented the triumph of a pro-Russia sentiment in the 46
million-strong country. But the demos of Kiev’s Maidan evicted him from office, only a few
days ago.

Which is to say the demos of Kiev defeated the people of Ukraine to which they are a part,
ousting the will of Ukrainians in the form of a president they daily picketed, haunted and
deposed finally. The afterthought of mass action neutralized the forethought of the ballot. And
even flavoured the ouster with the deadly aroma of gunpowder. And some patina of precious
scarlet. What then?

Can the people coup democracy?

Hey, Kiev is not a fluke. Tahrir ousted one Morsi of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood. Himself
an elected leader, Morsi had, ironically, emerged from Tahrir as it forced Hosni Mubarak out. I
would not have had any difficulties if Tahrir had proceeded to install Morsi, before or without
the intermediary of elections. Tahrir would have removed him as and when it pleased it.

That would have amounted to Tahrir recalling its own, all on its mob terms. But Tahrir allowed
itself to be overruled by the ballot, yielding to it. Through that concession, Tahrir admitted it was
a mere mob, far smaller than greater, polling Egypt which soon entered the political process,
lifting it up beyond mod chaos, vulgar wits if you will. That made the result of that ballot larger,
more sacred than the sum shouts of the demos of Tahrir. Soon later, Tahrir became restless yet
again, igniting Egypt into a fire which claimed Morsi and the ballot. A political nondescript
assumed the affairs of Egyptian State. To this day there is no name for it, or for what followed.
But that the actions of the demos of Tahrir against Morsi found favour in the barracks, hospitably
carving political prospects for career soldiers, raises stiffer questions about the place of squares
and demonstrating people in national politics. About the outcomes of such interventions in
relation to national goals and the values of democracy. Can the demos install the military? Can
they mount a coup against an elected leader, an elected government, for a military junta? Can the
people coup democracy?

Can a people reject polls?

Nor is Tahrir the closing act in the puzzling drama of world affairs. Quite the contrary, it may
very well be the beginning. Look at Thailand. There, the government under siege was elected,
democratically. It is a legitimate government founded on the expression of Thai will. But it faces
stiff street action, much of it with a bloody foreboding.

The sitting prime minister, a lady, decides to, and challenges her antagonists to an open poll so
the people can settle the matter once and for all. She acts in the belief that the people are the final
arbiter in any contested politics. But her antagonists, all of them wielding street power, reject her
call, even responding to it with more barricades, more missiles, more marches, and of course a
little more blood to colour this unexpected shift in the political game. What we are used to
politically is the fact of ruling politicians resisting early or any polls.
What we are facing in Thailand are the demos refusing polls, the people repudiating the ballot or
its “contorted” outcomes. The demos are stopping the ballot! What happens to democracy when
the demos reject its incubator — the ballot? Its manifestation and will — the result?

Doffing to the street

In case you think Thailand is a lonely example or even an aberration, turn to Venezuela. Or
Turkey, and tell me what you see. But there is a bigger question beyond the rituals of democratic
legitimation. Again Ukraine immediately leaps to the fore. Detecting that Yanukovych is
unnerved by the demos of Maidan, Parliament stepped in to pass a vote of no confidence in the
President voted in alongside itself by the same people, in the same election. This suggests a
people can condemn a government while salvaging some of its constitutive parts? Surely
Parliament was indeed a part of the overall failure? Yet it appears to rise above the fate of
“failure”, and even assuming the role of both guardian and king, the last reflecting in the choice
of one of its own as an interim president.

He sits on the throne, to a pacified square as if to suggest he wields more legitimate power from
the street than Yanukovych who got his from the ballot box. Parliament, itself a creature of the
ballot, has turned to, and kowtowed to the demos. Much worse, it has now passed a resolution to
put its erstwhile president to the International Criminal Court to stand trial. What is significant
will not be the trial should it ever take place, but the fact that the ouster of the result of the ballot
can turn to and enjoy the benediction of an international court to delegitimise the will of the
people, to legitimise the will of an effervescing street corner. A real pile up of ironies.

Between diminished sovereignties

Lastly and grievously, the saga of Kiev brings out the dilemma faced by a people choosing
between two scenarios, both amounting to diminished sovereignty. The ousted leader sought
greater affinities with Ukraine’s giant neighbour, Russia. Not just political Russia, but economic
Russia with its vital gas supplies to Ukraine and beyond, its investments inside Ukraine, and its
salvage financial package measuring billions of dollars. And from the perspective of Russia,
Ukraine is not just part of the near abroad; it is also home to millions of its kinsmen in the whole
of Crimea, a strategic land abutting the Black Sea which houses Russia’s sea power.

Repeating Georgia
The demos-installed leaders are pushing for membership to the EU, possibly or inevitably
NATO. For EU and America, themselves fomenters of the instability in Ukraine, it is about the
strategic encirclement of mercurial Russia under Putin, an effort similar to that mounted in
Georgia a few years ago, to a disastrous result for Shakasville, the then president of Georgia. For
Russia, Ukraine is a calculated chaos across the vlei, all of it morphing into a hostile formation
right by its doorstep. A Russia with a hostile, pro-Western Ukraine may not be able to sleep well.
Or even step outside its doorstep. Its investments and gas sales inside Ukraine itself, let alone
abroad, cannot be assured. And in the past Ukraine has not been a good, honest customer. Russia
will not stand by, the same way it didn’t in Georgia, the same USA didn’t over Cuba in early
sixties in the heat of the so-called Cuban Missile Crisis. Powerful states don’t want hostile
doorsteps.

Against a resolute neighbour

And as in Georgia, break-away sentiments are the easiest to stir up and mould and develop into a
Trojan Horse, a process seemingly already underway. This brings out the full irony of a people
acting in history. Their actions have not propped or enlarged their supremacy, their sovereignty.
Rather, they have amounted to coupling their country to a choice between two limiting
neighbourhoods, one geographic and thus real, another symbolic and thus surreal. Much worse,
both Europe and America have made it clear Ukraine will have to engage the IMF for succour,
something Ukraine could still have done without docking on the EU will-of-the-wisp. The
people’s actions too, are threatening the very integrity of Ukraine, even imperilling its very
institutions and government. The fact of inviting the UN against fear of the Russian bear,
underlines the desperate outcome and posture, against a neighbour known to be resolute once her
interests are threatened. And in this case they are. Watch RT and tell me the direction of the
psyching.

Dire options, varying outcomes

I am sure all Governments across the world in the weaker south must be mulling this one. What
do the people mean in the defence of national interests and sovereignty of a given country? Can
they be bought, or compromised to a level where they begin to act against their own interests?
And should that happen, what is the role and response of a responsible State? To be afraid, very
afraid and then flee, as has just happened in Ukraine? To seek to resolutely put down mob action
soon to ripen into open rebellion, as has happened in Syria where even Americans, themselves
the real sponsors of that war are now seeking peace? To combine graduated quelling of street
action and jaw-jawing with protesters, as is happening in both Thailand and Turkey? To subdue
the demos while engaging their instigator America, as is happening in Venezuela? To kill them a
little, make graduated but illusory changes that roll back democracy while rolling in the military,
as appears to be happening in Egypt? Or simply abandon post and await a cruel, lynching fate,
followed by disintegration of the State and greater chaos, as happened in Libya? Let us debate
this hot one.

Icho!

[email protected]

EU-Africa summit: More trouble than it’s

worth
April 1, 2014 Opinion & Analysis
David Cameron

Tichaona Zindonga Senior Political Writer

The EU-Africa summit which was due to begin tomorrow and has now been shrouded in
controversy, is turning out to be more trouble than it is worth, really. Not many people would
vouch for clear and present advantages or developments that have come from the dialogue in the
past few years.

If one were to consider the hullabaloo and the huggermugger that it have characterised the
concept in its short history and possible premature end, the verdict would not cast much
favourable light on the interface between Africa and the bloc of former colonial powers (and
slavers).

The summit in Lisbon in 2007 Portugal, for example, was dominated by the standoff between
Britain and Zimbabwe as the former doggedly sought to have its former colony barred from
attending the event.

When that failed, the then British prime minister Gordon Brown snubbed the indaba not only
because he had not had his way, but because he would be forced to sit next to President Mugabe
in the meetings.

That would have greatly ‘repulsed’ him: President Mugabe’s opponents especially in the West
retreat at the prospect of having President Mugabe near them because talking to him — and he is
every inch a gentleman — is one easy way to deflate their egos, prejudices, preconceptions and
ultimately the image of a Dracula that they want so much to perpetuate.

Western officials also walk out on speeches by President Mugabe while Western media black
him out or focus on some inconsequential details like the length of the speech.

When President Mugabe was invited to the meeting, which he has now turned down, there were
familiar noises.
A statement by the UK Foreign Office said: “The UK would prefer not to see Mugabe at the
Summit, but it was a necessary part of the EU agreement to renew the overall sanctions on
Zimbabwe which we played a leading part in maintaining. The UK government is absolutely
clear: attendance at one EU meeting in Brussels does not change in any way the fact that Robert
Mugabe is not, and will not be, permitted to travel to the UK.”

And Kate Hoey, a Labour MP who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on Zimbabwe, urged
premier David Cameron to boycott the meeting saying, “If he (President Mugabe) now is to be
there, then I would call on our Prime Minister to follow the principled lead of his predecessor
Gordon Brown.”

The EU-Africa summit has grabbed headlines for all the wrong reasons.
This time around, the issue has been on the composition of the African delegation to Brussels.
There have been concerns that the EU has been cherry picking African representatives —
snubbing full African Union members such as Eritrea, Saharawi Republic while inviting
Morocco, which is not an AU member and Egypt, where a coup toppled the country’s
democratically elected President Mohammed Morsi.

The 22nd Ordinary Session of the AU General Assembly in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, earlier this
year resolved that African leaders would not attend the Summit if President Mugabe, who was
elected the First AU Deputy Chairman, was not invited, which led to the EU backtracking.

The African Union Peace and Security Council met last week and expressed disquiet over the
way Europe was holding Africa in contempt, urging member states not to attend the summit.

The EU Ambassador to Zimbabwe Aldo Dell’Ariccia tried very hard to justify Europe’s actions
and attitude by saying the ill-fated indaba is “not the AU-European Union meeting. Participation
is not guided by the membership of the African Union.”

He was lost to the irony in the statement. Could Africa have demanded the participation of non-
EU members of the European continent to be part of the meeting?

As long as the bickering between Africa and Europe continues where these summits are
concerned the concept is headed for an inglorious end.
Ball in EU court

The onus is on Europe to approach the matter with the right attitude, or risk losing out, that is if
Africans can speak with one voice and refuse to be cowed, divided and rule.

Here is one assessment on how the balance of power is: A 2012 paper by James Mackie, Anna
Rosengren, Quentin de Roquefeuil and Nicola Tissi for the European Centre for Development
Policy Management situates the dynamics of the relationship between EU and Africa.
According to the paper, Africa is on the rise, while the EU is on the wane.

Says the paper: “The marked reversal of roles between the two continents is a good starting
point. Many African countries are experiencing unprecedented economic growth, with a
booming natural resource sector and growing markets. Europe, meanwhile, is struggling with
financial crisis, soaring debt, budget cuts and widespread euro-scepticism.
“This economic transformation inevitably affects the very fundaments of Africa-EU relations.
For the EU it means reformulating development co-operation strategies so as to do more with
scarce resources and deliver increased ‘value for money’. For African states there is the essential
challenge to ensure more inclusive distribution of their recent economic growth and to use their
resources as an instrument to get to grips with problems still plaguing much of the continent,
such as unemployment, rising inequalities, political instability and persistent poverty and hunger.

“Moreover, both sides are seeking reformulated co-operation models, as stakeholders in Europe
and in Africa attach declining importance to traditional approaches to development cooperation.

“This trend is reinforced by new development partners, such as India, China and Brazil,
promoting new kinds of relationships that prioritise trade, investment and geopolitics over
official development assistance (ODA).”

Further, a change in attitudes has led to the “recognition that the donor-recipient relation may
hinder establishment of an equal and stable relationship between the EU and African countries.”

“Many African countries’ attitudes towards development assistance have changed as well. Rather
than relying on ODA, African countries are actively developing other policies and methods to
ensure economic growth. Domestic resource mobilisation, innovative ways to secure national
and regional financing and utilisation of the ‘resource boom’ for wider development are
examples of new ideas that call for rethinking the role of aid.”

The game has thus truly changed.

Just over the weekend, West African countries, led by Nigeria, refused to open their economies
to free trade with the European Union.
One report says negotiations over the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) stalled two years
ago after countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) resisted
lifting tariff barriers over fears they could crush nascent industries unable to cope with European
imports.

Under the EPA, explained the report, the European Union would immediately offer the 15-
member ECOWAS and non-member state Mauritania full access to its markets. In return,
ECOWAS would gradually open up 75 percent of its markets — with their 300 million
consumers — to Europe over a 20-year period.

Reuters quoted Ghanaian president John Mahama as saying: “We need to negotiate an EPA that
is beneficial to our sub-region and will contribute to the prosperity of our people.”

The EU should learn from this episode. The bloc, on the other hand, should disabuse itself of
delusions of grandeur, because its greatness is well and truly gone and the wealth accumulated
by theft and plunder is fast diminishing.

Europe can only be poorer; less powerful.

The other point concerns the shifting power and economic dynamics with the rise of new players
fronted by China.
Statistics indicate that China’s trade with Africa jumped from US$10 billion in 2000 to an
estimated US$200 billion in 2013 and in the process overtook the United States as Africa’s
largest trading partner.

Writing for the World Financial Review last year, Fantu Cheru and Cyril Obi note that China has
become Africa’s preferred partner and there are a lot of reasons for this.

The first reason is because of the instructive values of China’s development experience for
Africa whereby China’s historical experience as a semi-colony and its spectacular growth
experience since the late 1970s under the guidance of a strong and effective developmental state
have raised African interest in learning from China’s success in economic management,
visionary leadership and home-grown radical economic reform agenda, and the basis of its
success.

Second is the “complementaries of Chinese investment to African needs” whereby, according to

authors, the sectoral areas that China invests in and the choice of technology that accompanies
this investment has been complementary to African needs and priorities.

“For example, throughout the structural adjustment decades of the 1980s and 1990s, Western
development partners focused more on policy-based lending to make markets work better while
neglecting investment in vital infrastructure and support services that are critical for raising
productivity and reducing poverty. The Chinese are filling this critical infrastructure gap and
they are doing it cheaply, less bureaucratically, and within a shorter time frame.”

Thirdly, the Chinese portray Africa in a positive light and “contrary to the standard Western
doom and gloom analysis of Africa, China holds the view that Africa is a dynamic continent on
the threshold of a developmental take-off, with unlimited business opportunities that would serve
both Chinese and African interests.”

Say the authors: “Therefore, when China does pronounce about development co-operation, it
avoids the language of ‘aid’ and development assistance and instead prefers the language of
solidarity, mutually beneficial economic co-operation, ‘common prosperity’ and shared
‘developing country’ status. Granted, there is more to this rhetoric than meets the eye, but
nevertheless this is music to the ears of African policy makers who are wary of perceived
Western paternalism.”

In the final analysis, the EU-Africa summit, if it subsists, will have to be more creative, which
the theme for this year, “Investing in People, Prosperity and Peace” does not exactly suggest,
euphonic though it be.
The backlash West will face over Russia
sanctions
April 1, 2014 Opinion & Analysis

Russian President Vladimir Putin

Felicity Arbuthnot
Western accusations have lately been flying towards Russia: Russia has taken a “dark path”,
according to US vice president Joe Biden; Russia is “in flagrant breach of international law
(sending) a chilling message across the continent of Europe,” according to British premier David
Cameron and US President Barack Obama is worried about “Russian aggression”.

Never mind that Russia has stated and restated that it has no intention to move further into
Ukraine and that its troops in Crimea are still well below the contingency allowed in a mutual,
legal agreement, whilst the US crosses the Atlantic to rattle sabres (and F-16s.)
There is going to be a backlash from Western attacks on and attempt to isolate Russia.

Belgium, population 11 161 642 (2012) has had trading links with Russia since the early 18th
century. Peter the Great visited what is now Belgium in 1717 and donated funds for a portico to a
spa town, some sixty years before the birth of the United States. Last year’s exports to Russia
were worth some four billion Euros.

In all, according to Eurostat, the 27 EU countries exported 108 billion euros -worth of goods to
Russia in 2012 and imported 163 billion euros in trade from Russia: “with energy accounting for
more than three quarters of imports.”

In blindly backing the US in another certifiably insane provocation, Britain has much to lose.
According to UK Trade and Investment: “Russia remains an important trading partner . . .
Between 2009 and 2012, exports of goods and services to Russia have grown by over 75 percent
from £4,3 billion to £7,6 billion.”

Last September, David Cameron made a “landmark visit “to Moscow with a “strong commercial
focus.”
With him were the Foreign Secretary, the Trade and Investment Minister Lord Green and a
delegation of 24 business leaders representing a range of sectors. The visit aimed to “cement
relations.” Beware British politicians bearing gifts.

In November, Business Secretary Vince Cable led a trade visit to Russia “with more than thirty
British companies to boost the fast growing economic links between the two countries . . . British
exports to Russia have almost tripled in the last ten years, with around 600 UK companies
currently operating in the country. The opportunities are huge for British business — that’s why
we’re also investing in a US$50 million fund to help British small businesses export to Russia.”

The not so small businesses who accompanied the Business Secretary were bosses from Britain’s
biggest companies, including Rolls-Royce, British Airways, Rio Tinto and Diageo in a bid to
“strengthen ties and promote trade.” Other companies that have recently moved in to the Russian
market include Cadbury, AstraZeneca, Kingfisher, Marks & Spencer and Monsoon.

Trevor Barton, executive director of the Russian British Chamber of Commerce said that British
exports to Russia have been continuing to grow at 20-30 percent per annum, with Russian
imports in mainly raw materials, oil and gas slightly exceeding exports.

However, the market is “pretty substantial (the UK’s) fastest growing export market of anywhere
in the world”, which the UK government had actively “encouraged.”

Russia was a “very close trading partner and the possibilities have not gone away”, said Barton
for whom, it seems, the country is not alone a business opportunity, but for which he cares and
relates. But these were “challenging times” in “spending time talking to companies” and
explaining possibilities, when frequently potential investors currently simply unquestioningly
take at face value the insane biased media hype. (Mr Barton was scrupulous in not commenting
on politics, the latter lines are entirely the writer’s interpretation.)

Germany’s foreign trade group BGA, has warned that Germany would suffer more than other
European country if sanctions escalated. “With about 6 200 German companies invested in
Russia and bilateral trade worth 76 billion euros ($105 billion) last year. A trade conflict would
be painful for the German economy . . .” warned BGA President Anton Börner, adding that
Germany could not do without Russia since both economies were “highly complementary.”

By late 2010, French companies in Russia had increased six-fold with trade between the two
countries worth $22,6 billion. Fifty percent of Russia’s fruit and berries are imported from
Holland, Portugal and Poland. Meat deals with Brazil (pork and beef especially) also have the
potential to diminish or trash European trade.

From Ireland in the west of Europe to Italy in the south (the latter Europe’s fourth largest trader
with Russia) to Greece in the east, focus has been on developing trading ties with Russia and the
EU can certainly do with fewer financial setbacks, as it is already, in the eyes of many, a fiscal
train wreck waiting to happen.
Across the Atlantic, in Houston, Texas alone, 400 companies trade with Russia. Sanctions could
lead to some of America’s biggest companies being impacted. PepsiCo “had nearly $5 billion in
net revenue from Russia in 2012.” Coca-Cola has a “large presence” and Exxon Mobil has
signed a deal with Russian state oil company Rosneft to drill in the Arctic, beginning this year.
“The lucrative crude up there could be worth hundreds of billions of dollars.”

Both General Motors and Ford have a market share in Russia and have invested in production
facilities, with Ford negotiating a partnership with Russian Sollis, all worth several billions.

“Russia is an emerging market with growing incomes, and US companies have been actively
looking to increase their investment there in recent years.” — Global Research.