The fantasy of Western interference

I am always amazed when I have conversations with certain friends of mine, or when I read the opinion section of The Herald, and read all about how the West is trying to forment revolution and regime change in Zimbabwe.

Reason Wafawarova in MELBOURNE, Australia – IN the West, the media coverage of political events in Zimbabwe will give one the impression that Prime Minister Tsvangirai is this Herculean democratic leader of a ubiquitous political party supported even by yet to be born Zimbabweans, but surviving in a brutally skewed relationship with Zanu-PF, a party that in the eyes of Westerners is nothing more than a tyrannous gang of support-less thugs surviving on stealing votes.

There is a fantasy that “the West” want Robert Mugabe to step down or be removed from the post of President (Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces).

To hear some tell it, Bush, Brown, Blair (all the world’s Bs) are trying to steal our land, and there’s no such thing as human rights because of Guantanamo Bay, and MT is a paid agent of the British neo-imperialists, and the MDC is funded with the very life-blood drawn from the shattered bodies of our gallant heroes.

They are trying to reverse the gains of our hard-won independence, they cry shrilly. They want to reverse the land-reform programme, they declare. They want to re-colonise our beautiful land of abundant natural resources, we’re told.

I hear these super-patriots speak, and I despair at their desperation. The truth is so self-evident, the lie so blatant, that not even the fog of opinion can blur the lines between what is and what isn’t.

It’s not the tyrannical west that’s enslaved the people of Zimbabwe. It’s not the west that is pleading Morgan Tsvangirai’s case to the world. It’s not the west begging for truly democratic outcomes to Zimbabwe’s never-ending cycle of questionable elections.

It’s not the western world clamouring for change, for peace, for freedom, for the ability to speak their minds without fear of brutality, the confidence to walk in their own country without fear of death.

It is the people, not that intangible creature hijacked by The Party to represent what repeatedly turns out to be a minority every time the country votes, but the true mass of Zimbos at large, who cry out for change, for hope … for food.

The majority of people in Zimbabwe have consistently, over the past ten years or so, voted to end what they see as tyranny; they have consistently supported a progressive platform, yet their hopes have been dashed at every turn.

It’s not the majority of the Western world that is against you; it is the majority of your “people” here at home.

Repeating a lie won’t make it true.

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Converseley, the same Reason Wafawarova (in Melbourne, Australia) chose to include this gem in his article excoriating the Western media for the biased and partisan coverage of Zimbabwe;

This writer is reminded often that the indictments of subtlety that he makes about the media are too simplistic and puerile. The argument forwarded is that readers, listeners and viewers should not be viewed with a low opinion, since they are intelligent and knowledgeable enough to pick up on any biases. That would be true if the same readers, viewers and listeners had access to other sources of information.

And shit flows down-hill.