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Protect revolution from the West
Related to country: Zimbabwe

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Protect revolution from the West

By Stella Orakwue

WHO are "the people" and what are "the people"? Are "the people" slow? Are "the people" thick? Are "the people" liars, mendacious, deceitful? Are "the people" base?

"We the people" have spoken, but what did they say, what are they saying? "We the people" have voted, but who did they vote for, what are they voting for?

What do "the people" want? Do they even know what they want, or do they lie to themselves, lie to other people, and lie in the polling booths? Can you believe a word that "the people" say?

Who are "the people"? Are they only people like you? Are "the people" only people who are businessmen and businesswomen like you? Are "the people" only people who live in urban areas like you do? If you live in town or a city, are the people who live in rural areas, the countryside, people, too?

Are rich people "the people"? And are you part of "the people" if you are a member of a family that is elite? Are the elite people?

Do you, reader, consider yourself to be "the people"? Or are "the people", to you, other people? People out there, washed or unwashed, great or not great, nasty or not nasty, base or not base, but always, other people? Are they mostly poor, to you? Mostly stupid, or, at least mostly not quite as bright and intelligent as you? Mostly not quite as attuned to what is going on as you are?

"The people dem ah renk!" is a popular Jamaican street saying which in strict literal translation means "the people stink", but in actual usage means "the people" are a nasty piece of work, a waste of space. It is one of my favourite sayings, one I use a lot. The great irony? These other people probably think exactly the same of you: "the people" are always somebody else.

Politicians spend their working lives talking at length about "the people". But what do they actually know about these people they talk about? Which of them lives among "the people", really lives with them, who is an elected politician?

How long do they spend among "the people", really spend, outside of driving or flying in for special or ordinary visiting times, for speech-making, for electioneering?

Who sees "the people" close up and very personally on a day-to-day basis, lives among them, eats among them, talks to them, every single day — but who is not, strictly, of them? That is, he or she is of the ruling class, a politician, a leader?

It seems to me that it is very easy to forget what it is like to be one of "the people". But then again, do "the people" really expect their leaders to dwell amongst them? Do they not expect their rulers to live in big mansions, ride in big cars, have plenty of money and lavish lifestyles, otherwise their leaders and politicians would be no better than them, and what, then, would give them the right to rule over "the people"?

But "the people" want it both ways, do they not? "Look at him," they say of a leader, "eating and I have no food! Look at his birthday cake — where is my cake so I can eat it too?" Deliver them cakes, but would that satisfy them?

Who are "the people" to a politician? His constituents or his country? Are people who support opposing parties "the people"? If the opposition is murdering, torturing, ill-treating "your" people, who then, does the opposition comprise of? People. Surely, "the people".

And if the boot were not on their foot, where, pray is the guarantee that "your" people would not behave in like manner? Are not "your" people, that the opposition is "persecuting", people who are capable of doing exactly the same things to "the people" who are not seen as being "their people"?

Yes, they, your people are capable of being persecutors, murderers, torturers, starvers, that you allege "other people" are. Otherwise, you will need to spell out what is so different about "your" people, people from the same rural areas, from the same towns, from the same cities, from the same educational (or lack of educational) backgrounds, with the same upbringing.

What makes "my people" murderers and "your people" incapable of murder?

Politicians say they are "working on behalf of the people". What they do not say is which people they work for. They cannot be working for all the people. They work for and profess to love their people.

Take them away, out of their section of "the people", the familiar, comfortable people, and put them among others of "the people" and see how they fare and how they feel now and see how long they last.

What do "the people" want? Can you treat "the people" better than they deserve? Yes, in my experience, it is definitely possible to do that. If you see, observe, spot that what "the people" want has changed, is changing, will change, what do you do about that and when do you do it?

When did "the people" — which people? — of Zimbabwe decide that the Western-backed Movement for Democratic Change had become a party that was good enough for them to replace Zanu-PF?

When did Zanu-PF realise that "the people" — which people? — had moved away so far, had lost sight of the revolution to the extent that they could even contemplate voting for, bringing in Members of Parliament who were being primed and prompted, propped up, funded and aided by Western powers whose sole aim is the destruction of Zanu-PF, the revolution, and the man who symbolises both: President Robert Mugabe?

Are "the people" who voted for voted for the MDC so radically different in countenance and personality, shape and form from "the people" who voted for Zanu-PF? No, they are not. You cannot. You cannot tell the people of Zimbabwe apart from each other.

Therefore, how does the West know, how are they so certain that the leader of the MDC, and "the people" who have voted for the MDC into its current parliamentary majority, are such nice, good, clean-living, fantastic people incapable of despotism, dictatorship, atrocity? The West does not know. They do not care to know because they do not care.

What they care about, what they want is the break-up, the end of a revolutionary, liberation-era party that reminds them of their defeat, failure, and losses.

When one man is hated to such an extent by a group of nations all sharing the same skin colour that there is an editorial in the biggest mass-selling daily British newspaper calling for his murder, and a prime-time mass audience British state television programme airs views calling for his death, as in the case of President Mugabe and his presidential election run-off, then you realise that it is something, perhaps some things, other than the man himself that is also hated.

What does that man, Mugabe, represent? "We are not a British colony," he instructs them. "We are not a British colony." The British would like him dead.

Why do the British and their people want his Zimbabwean opposer, the other man, the other guy, the one who threw in the towel? What does that other man represent to the white nations of Europe and America? What is this one capable of being, of becoming that pleases them?

When it is said or written that actions are taken and things are done "on behalf of the people" of Zimbabwe, my question is: on behalf of what? Their virtues? Their morals? Their decencies? It is up to "the people" and the Government of Zimbabwe to provide their living standards.

But how do you protect the minds of a revolutionary country from being seduced by outsiders and their promises of a life lived as richly empty as theirs? If "the people", after one generation, are tired of hearing about "the revolution", how do you freshen their minds? By making the revolution modern. By saying that the revolution wasn’t just then; the revolution is now.

The revolution is how you live every day each day, each night, each month, each year. The revolution is you and your life. The revolution is your family and your children and your future.

Protect the revolution. What was gained in harsh struggle over years can be lost — or thrown away — in an instant. If Western lives are so great, so golden, why do their people want the little in comparison that Africans have? Why do they want what is yours when they have so much already? Because they have so much and yet they have nothing at all in comparison.

We think we have so little and yet we have so much. Seeing the true value of what you have. Seeing it and recognising it before those who truly know the value seize it from you.

They say we are the "poorest" continent, and yet they will not leave us alone. They are all over us, trying to take, take, take. Who steals from the "poor"? Do rich people covet a poor man’s goods? Do they sit and plot how to rob from those who do not have? Perhaps only if they suffer from mental illnesses.

The revolution is still a work in progress. More work, more progress. It will never "finish". There is no "end". You have to remain ever vigilant to protect the gains of the past. There is no "that’s in the past", when foreign powers still want to relive their past in your territory. And take back from you today what they possessed yesterday.

I say this and I say it now, today: President Mugabe is the greatest African leader! He has done it all. He has fought and won in all three wars: national, political, empowerment. His legacy cannot be surpassed. Look at him, listen to him, read him, and you will see this: God is by his side.

For me, Mugabe has become the barometer of African consciousness. What you think of him, how high you hold him up, this great African leader, will reveal how conscious, how aware, how awake you are to Africa’s past, present, and future realities.

PS: I do not have a buxom body, a long silvery sequinned dress or blonde hair, but I would like to croon to you: "Happy victory to you, and the people of Zimbabwe."

l Stella Orakwue is a New African magazine columnist. This article is reproduced courtesy of the August/September 2008 issue of the magazine.




http://www.herald.co.zw/inside.aspx?sectid=613&cat=10