The subjugation of the people of Zim for the sake of power
Ben Freeth: WHEN ECONOMIC SUICIDE BECOMES POLITICAL SALVATION.
Are Zimbabwe’s “Land Reform program,” “the new Indigenisation Laws” and “Political Subjugation of the People for Power,” the same thing?
And what should people do about breaking the dictatorship so that Zimbabwe can be rebuilt on the right foundations?
In my travels around the world with the film “Mugabe and the White African,” there is sometimes a naive misunderstanding of what has been dubbed “Land Reform” in Zimbabwe. Some people seem to still believe it is a program to correct colonial imbalances in land ownership. They do not seem to understand that it is actually an exercise in the subjugation of the people of Zimbabwe for the sake of power.
The question that needs to be asked is: when a dictator loses the critical mass of support from his people what must he do to retainpower? Through all the different ages on different continents and amongst different peoples what is the one weapon at the dictator’s disposal which ensures an extension of their reign of power through the subjugation of the people? The answer is simple: a dictator has to instil intense and tangible fear into the hearts and minds of the population through systematic abuse.
In February 2000 after President Mugabe lost the referendum vote, and he realised he would lose power in the June election, he had to find an excuse to bring fear to his people. The white commercial farms, covering
approximately 18 percent of the land area of Zimbabwe, had approximately 20 percent of the population of the country on those properties. That was the swing vote. The dogs of war had to be loosed on them. At all costs he
had to instil fear in those people if he were to keep power. Nothing else counts in the power game. Everything else can collapse.”Every brick can be taken of every brick” as Vincent Hungwe said to David Conolly at the beginning of land reform. Power politics is completely opposed to the democratic values that try to protect the rights of individuals in a society. Dictatorships are only about one individual staying in power. Every other democratic and moral value becomes expendable along that road if those values are not working towards totalitarian control.
But how can people be paralysed by the brutalities that guarantee fear without the world stepping in to try to stop it? Mugabe had to somehow make sure that eyebrows weren’t raised too much when the plight of the 2 million farm workers and their families became desperate. The answer was simple: if he played the race card, he knew he could also play to the black nationalist audience of other leaders of the freedom struggle in post colonial Africa. It was the politics of jealousy and bitterness from the past: getting the white man back for the colonial days. It wasn’t the white man that was the real target though. He was just a red herring. The target was the subjugation of the black workers on the farms. If the fear was intense enough they wouldn’t dare vote for anyone else. Fear had to reign supreme.
Anywhere in the world there are 3 things that people fear:
People fear losing their lives or physical damage to their bodies and those around them. When this happens on a wide scale, people either run away to allow the dictatorship to continue [and approximately one third of Zimbabwe’s people have left Zimbabwe], or commit acts of appeasement that they would never believe possible to save their own skins. Very few people have the courage to stand against it. The killing of farmers and farm workers and the beginning of the invasions and the tens of thousands of death threats and violent beatings did their evil magic well. People became paralysed by fear.
People also fear the loss of their homes or businesses or other property. With the threat of the loss of their property or business, many people have ended up abandoning principle and paying appeasement money to the Party to try to survive on their farms or in their businesses. In the days of the Vikings the English tried this by paying “Dane geld” – a system that only strengthened the arm of the tyrant and allowed the tyranny to continue. Many farmers have paid “Dane Geld” to try to survive. This helped to perpetuate the suffering. God forbid the business community do the same. Winston Churchill called appeasement “feeding the crocodile and hoping you would be the last to be eaten.”
The third thing that people fear is the loss of the basic freedom of movement, particular if they are to be made hungry or be put into a horrible jail. The threat of jail, especially in Zimbabwe where approximately half the inmates died in a single year in Chikurube maximum security jail, is not a pleasant one. With such a threat, people generally fall into line. Many of the draconian laws in Zimbabwe guarantee jail terms for anyone not going along with the totalitarian system. The opposition faces jail for having an “illegal” gathering. The journalists face jail for “illegally” doing their job when the authorities refuse to accredit them. The farmers and farm workers face jail for “illegally” living in their homes and farming. The business community faced jail when they “illegally” took foreign currency after the local currency became useless. White Zimbabwean’s and the international business community now face jail for not ceding majority shareholdings in their businesses to black Zimbabweans.
If a dictator threatens any or all of these 3 basic aspects of someone’s life and does it on a wide scale he is invariably able to subjugate a people with a great deal of success. When people are intensely afraid they become
like wretched curs cowering with their tails between their legs; and they can be made to do exactly what they are told. To make people afraid though, the dictator needs loyal supporters who wield their sticks without
consciences.
There are 4 basic ways by which dictators can seer consciences and get their lieutenants to do bad things, against other people, that in their hearts they know are wrong:
The first way to get people to do wrong is fill them with ideological propaganda lies that make them feel that they are working towards the greater ideological good by committing violence against people and their
property who they believe are enemies. It is the argument that “the end justifies the means.” The NAZI party was incredibly successful in making the German people believe that they were a special master Aryan race set apart, and that they would bring salvation to the world if they subjugated it. Other people had to be blamed as the cause for any failings of the country. The Jews and other races were eventually gassed in their millions. Much of the propaganda spin and lies that comes out in the media through the dictator being able to control the airwaves and media in Zimbabwe, is very similar to what the Goebels propaganda machine put out. In Zimbabwe it has to be the white man that is the source of all Zimbabwe’s problems.
The second way to get people to do what they know to be wrong is to pamper the covetous nature of human beings and reward them with the “spoils of war” so that their greed for property and their other carnal lusts are able to be continually satiated; and then once they are corrupted make them realise that they have a selfish duty to keep the dictator in power if they want to retain their ill gotten gains. In Zimbabwe this has been done very
successfully in the rural areas, away from the embassies and the NGO’s who sit in the bubble of Harare where everything is swimmingly fine. The farms along with their houses and crops and machinery have been given out on patronage basis on a massive scale. Now that they have almost all been handed out, the dictatorship is forced to start with the businesses. The indigenisation act is the legal instrument which will initiate this process. A cynical view of some of those in the international community may often be glimpsed at this time. Many of them owe their jobs to the destruction of the farms. Zacarias, former head of the Zimbabwe mission from the UN and a long time ally of Mugabe from Frelimo days in Mozambique, is alleged to have a private transport fleet that has been carting food into Zimbabwe. This business has thrived because the farmers and their workers have been chased away. Prior to the June 2008 election Zacarias refused to put out statements regarding the violence or send people into the field to assist in curbing it. Presumably this was because Zacarias knew that Mugabe had to stay in power if his food transport business was to thrive. Many of the people employed in the UN agencies are people close to members of the ruling party and, like parasites, they all thrive on the suffering of others.
The third way that you get people to do what you want is to make them poor and very hungry so that, just like desperately hungry dogs, they will do anything to get a bit of food from their master. Both Stalin and Mao used
the weapon of hunger to great effect in subjugating the Kulaks and the Chinese people. In Zimbabwe it has been no different. In Matabeleland in the 1980’s the area was sealed off so that no food could get into the civilian
population and the people became weak and unable to resist when 5th Brigade came into massacre them by the
thousands. In more recent times, the NGO’s have got stopped from distributing food on a number of occasions prior to elections. In some cases the party has taken on the role themselves using bags of food aid, stolen
from the aid agencies, to give to those with party cards who were actively campaigning for the party.
The fourth way to get people to do what is wrong is to indoctrinate children to do what they are told and commit acts of terror from an early age. This has been a recognised modus operandi throughout the world under
dictatorships. Africa through the Lord Resistance Army and other groups has used children extensively in recent years. In Zimbabwe the Border Gezi youth training camps that have been running for 8 years have trained unknown thousands of children. Zimbabwe with, according to the World Health Organisation, 1.7 million orphans, has a great pool of young people who can be trained to commit acts of violence against other people.
So what should people do about breaking dictatorship so that Zimbabwe can be rebuilt on the right foundations?
I believe that dictators themselves give away the answer to the demise of dictatorship. If we listen to the rhetoric and look at the laws and see what their thugs try to stop the most, we soon find out what their greatest threats are.
In essence, the thing that dictators fear the most is the truth. Truth always becomes the greatest casualty in times of totalitarian rule. Through fear and intimidation, individual leaders whose organisations try to bring out the truth, have to be rendered ineffective by whatever tools of fear it is expedient to employ.
There are various groups of people within the country that try to bring out the truth; and there are various ways by which dictators need to try to counter those groups so that they remain in power:
1. The political opposition try to bring out the truth. They are there in a democratic society to be the counter balance in times where the party in power does things that are wrong. Under dictatorship, opposition parties
have to either be rendered ineffective or swallowed like Joshua Nkomo and ZAPU was in 1987 after an intense fear campaign that resulted in the murder of perhaps 20,000 civilians. Under dictatorship opposition leadership needs to be infiltrated or intimidated. Many questions are already being asked of the one year old unity government that has resulted in the indefinite prolonging of the subjugation and suffering of the Zimbabwe people.
2. The media in an open and free society tries to bring out the truth by reporting on what is going on and taking pictures of events and people. For a dictator, the free media is an essential target. Especially in the modern age of cameras, newspapers, cell phones and the internet, the media have a tremendous capacity to get the truth out to people that care and can do things to stop or curb acts of violence being committed against a poor and defenceless civilian population. Dictators, after destroying the free media, have to replace it with a state propaganda machine that deals in subverting and twisting the truth. Anyone exposed to the state media in
Zimbabwe understands how this can be done.
3. The Judiciary and the courts in a free society are essentially about trying to establish the truth and bring accountability where people are destroying people’s lives or property. The courts are about justice which
should be meted out on a clear set of guidelines protecting the individual from the dictators tools of fear that take away a human beings individual life and property. Under a totalitarian state dictators try to stop
individuals from being protected by an independent justice system. The law itself is perverted to entrench and protect the power of the dictator and destroy the protection that the law should afford to the individual. The
“rule of law” is replaced with a system composed of the “rule by laws” decreed by the dictator. The constitution is changed and a whole lot of draconian legislation sails into being. Individual Judges that cannot be bought or intimidated are booted out of office and replaced by Judges that will do the will of the dictator. Thus justice is turned on its head and a “justice” system is put in place to support the taking away of human freedoms and human rights. The truth is turned on its head in a “show trial” extravaganza such as is facing opposition members, farmers and farm workers at the current time.
4. Human Rights organisations and civic society should be there when the free media and the Justice system is destroyed. In closed societies they try to quietly document the truth and gather evidence where human rights abuses are occurring in order to expose the abuses and try to stop them by diplomatic means or through the international courts. These organisations are not good for those that become threatened by the truth. Dictators
invariably try to infiltrate or destroy such organisations by whatever means possible.
5. The church is potentially the greatest threat to the dictator in exposing the truth. It has more members than any other organisation. Jesus Christ said that he was “the truth” and went further by saying that “the truth will set you free.” A living and vibrant church is potentially such a huge threat because a true Christians hope is in the truth and not in the things of the world. As someone whose hope is beyond the world he is able to find great courage to do what he knows to be right. There are many amazing examples of fine Christians standing in the face of tyranny throughout the ages.Unfortunately much of the leadership of the Zimbabwe church has also become compromised through infiltration and intimidation. Men like Bishop Kunonga and officials in the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe are political plants that are placed in positions to divide the church and destroy any serious
attempts it may take in exposing the truth. Other wavering Christians have a false hope in the “wealth, health and prosperity” gospel and have even been known to take collections for the dictator! Other fine Christians have been incredible on the “mercy” side of what Jesus preached; but scared to get involved in the “justice” side [see
Mathew 23:23].Ultimately, if the church is strong, fear fades away because “perfect love drives out fear.” From a position of love the whole violence cycle is also able to be broken. Unfortunately in Zimbabwe, the church is yet to take its
place in the building of the nation through bringing out the truth of the injustices and conquering the acts of hatred and greed through acts of love. Rarely does the church make media statements calling for what is right;
[will it just let the Indigenisation laws role on too?] and the church leadership has yet to take a court case against injustices such as “murambatsvina” or the plight of the 2 million farm workers and their families who have mostly been left without jobs or homes .Sadly it appears to be up to individual Christians to do what needs to be
done.
6. The International community: The international community has the ability to support the above organisations as well as individuals in the struggle for a society where human dignity is respected. It has the ability to mobilise massive assistance to try to get free and fair elections and to stop people being brutalised through huge influxes of observers and peace keepers. It has the ability to invoke the Rome Statute or other conventions and treaties through the United Nations and other international groupings, to make criminals accountable for crimes against humanity or torture or discrimination or theft or other crimes.It has the ability to close down the financial resources [blood diamonds etc.] used to buy weapons and pay mercenaries to train and pay thugs to beat people up and kill the opposition before elections.
So should we try to stop the indigenisation laws and the further subjugation of the people of Zimbabwe?
Individuals who support a just and democratic society that entrenches human rights and the rule of law need to act. The indigenisation law is racist and unfair. Why should people allow white indigenous Zimbabweans or foreign investors to face 5 years in jail for not seeding more than half their business to black indigenous Zimbabweans? It is abundantly clear that this law will kill investment and destroy the economy and put white Zimbabweans and foreign investors unjustly in jail. We need to collectively come out strongly this time. The indigenisation laws are there to reward the cronies for their support. Ultimately the laws will break the back of business so that the people of Zimbabwe become poorer and hungrier; and then they can be controlled like dogs. The laws are there ultimately to punish the black people in town for daring to vote against the dictator.
We have seen it in “land reform” so I am not being alarmist when I say that through this indigenisation law there will be another mass exodus of skilled black and white people; the education and health systems will break down completely; unemployment will rise dramatically; life expectancy, already the lowest on earth, will further decrease; the totalitarian grip on power will be further strengthened and people will suffer much more than ever before.
I challenge the opposition to take cases to the SADC Tribunal about the farce called the GPA and SADC’s weak stand in helping the people of Zimbabwe get a democratic leadership that respects human rights. I ask the media to expose the indigenisation law and its monolithic effects more. I challenge business to put their names and their money towards robust legal challenges. I challenge the human rights fraternity to expose this law and not allow the further trampling of human rights in Zimbabwe. I challenge the international community to take it to the United Nations commission on the elimination of all form of racial discrimination and to push for a free and fair election like in 1980 where the will of the people is guaranteed. I challenge the church to awake from its silent slumber and have the courage to understand what is going on and make statements and have prayer marches and take court cases and mobilise Christians to take the lead in getting involved to stop it and lay the right foundations for the future.
When the organisations and corporations and big business and the international community fail to find courage to treat the cause of the malaise and merely react by treating the symptoms, I challenge individuals with big hearts to take on the mantle and draw a line in the sand and refuse to comply with the acquiescent nature that creeps so closely with the large and lily livered corporate world so often. Ben Freeth