WHAT HAPPENED TO `LOOKING EAST' IN ZIMBABWE?

> >
CHINESE BUSES
I wrote this article last year for publication in `The Zimbabwean' and having a look at it now, a year on decided to edit it and update it(since I reserve the right to use my own copyright)When I get my website up and running I shall repeat it there too for maximum exposure. Why do I do it? Because I must.
> > Zimbabwe's silver jubilee came and went last year and a jubilant
> > President strutted and fretted upon the stage at the National
> > Sports Stadium in Harare. He had made it very clear even before he and
> > his ZANU (PF) were nearly dismissed in 2000 by his own internal
> > Opposition that he hates the West. He loves the East (in the broadest,
> > political and cultural – and now economic - sense) and aims to shake
> > off, discard, trash or otherwise remove the remnants of a hated (for
> > him) age of British imperialism in a new Zimbabwe which he and his kin
> > will rule forever. It is also well known that in thumbing his nose at
> > white `settlers' he once had the admiration and covert or overt
> > support of every person of his generation who suffered the humiliation
> > of `imperialist' occupation of African soil. Possibly he was admired
> > beyond Africa - wherever full human rights were not accorded to the
> > indigenous people. At home, the history and causation of all this
> > needs no going over here because, at long last, Robert Mugabe has
> > turned his back on the past. But he is facing what he perceives as a
> > new dawn. "We have turned east, where the sun rises, and given our
> > back to the West, where the sun sets" he says.
> >
> > Mugabe was imprisoned for demanding (most eloquently) `majority rule'
> > and freedom from the`settler oppression' of black people which would
> > flow from that. The well-informed, the liberals and all Africa's
> > subject peoples understood, then, his vitriol, aimed at his country's
> > overlords, formerly the British and later, their settler descendants.
> > But is his naked hatred still in vogue - beyond the limits of certain
> > rulers of African states? Hating the West, he pretends that China will
> > take up where the West left off. The `West', including many nations
> > which had played no part in colonizing Africa, generously assisted
> > Independent Zimbabwe with development programmes. Aid, including money
> > donated and loaned, industrial goods, training, and advanced
> > technology flowed freely from the West. Trade was a normal component
> > of bi-lateral agreements. The Chinese were more keenly interested in
> > sales (or barter) of their manufactures. (See The Zimbabwean's leading
> > article, April 22, 2005, by editor Wilf Mbanga) And here is Alister Sparkes,
> > veteran SA journalist's view:
> >
> > "Mugabe's notion of "looking East" is simply part of [the] great
> > illusion. China is an emerging superpower with a hunger for mineral
> > resources, of which Zimbabwe has a modest amount. But China is not in
> > the business of granting aid to developing countries" (The Star 20
> > April).
> >
> > An insight into the preoccupations of struggling Zimbabweans is one I
> > picked up in ZWNEWS, (20 April) from a story of a Harare man [who]
> > was asked if he had not attended the Independence celebrations at the
> > National Sports Stadium because he felt there was little to celebrate.
> > "No. It was because I couldn't find petrol." "But the government had
> > laid on buses from the usual pick-up points." "I didn't know that."
> > "But they were announced on the radio." "I don't listen to
> > that...radio any more." After a while, the first man said: "Come to
> > think of it, you would not have fitted into the buses anyway." "Why
> > not?" "You are too tall. They are Chinese buses."
> >
> > Unfortunately, while fighting the liberation war, Mugabe climbed
> > aboard a bus carrying a large proportion of the world to a Communist
> > Valhalla. On board were Europe's Eastern bloc and other Communist,
> > anti-West friends. The Communist Chinese, no friends of the Capitalist
> > West, were assisting in the training and arming of nationalists and
> > their fighting forces in the run up to the guerrilla warfare which
> > erupted on Rhodesia's borders during the period of the Cold War. Now
> > both wars are over. The Soviet Union is no more and the Chinese are
> > more friendly towards the West (and vice-versa). Trading and `jaw jaw'
> > rather than `war war' has brought old enemies and former political
> > rivals into new relationships, changing the world's economic
> > frontiers. Even Mugabe's anti-Western friend, the now retired
> > President Mahathir of Malaysia no longer directs his poison into the
> > Zimbabwe `king's' ear. Cuba's Castro is old and in a class of his own,
> > while North Korea's Kim Il Jong is very isolated. Independent and
> > sovereign Zimbabwe, the once `non-aligned' nation has no real enemies
> > in any sphere. Mugabe, the old warrior seems to be lost without them.
> > There is no one left to fight against except his own people.
> >
> > The point of this article, however, is to pick up on Mugabe's
> > declaration that Zimbabwe's future lies with the East and his promise
> > to dump the West in a sort of zero-sum shift in foreign policy. Surely
> > he should first listen to the views of Zimbabweans who are being told
> > that they will be the beneficiaries of this sea change. A serious,
> > national debate on the issue has never been presented. Without freedom
> > of expression in Zimbabwe itself, this debate will, perforce, be
> > carried in foreign newspapers - mostly Western because Zimbabweans
> > cannot read Chinese or any other `Eastern' language. `The Zimbabwean'
> > editor, Wilf Mbanga, has opened a window of opportunity for wide
> > ranging views from Zimbabweans, keeping alive the flame of their
> > freedom and national identity in many parts of the world. We should
> > join this debate in earnest.
> >
> > As for re-colonization, Mugabe's big bogey, Zimbabwe elections since
> > 2000 have shown that in spite of the absence of anything resembling a
> > fair debate, a new generation of Zimbabweans who have never
> > experienced any form of oppression from `settlers' are educated
> > enough, or just wise enough to recognise the fact that they face being
> > `recolonized' by a new minority group. This is the Zezuru, clan (never
> > use theword `tribe') from which Mugabe descends, through his father,
> > Gabriel, (a `real Gushungu' from Zvimba, according to James Chikerema,
> > a close relative).
Not an awful lot has changed in a year except that Chikerema has died and the country, lacking massive investments from old friends in the East, or new ones for that matter is still going economically down the tubes.

Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell