'Africans cannot treat themselves better than colonialists did,' said Yamamoto - tragically, that is true!


"In spite of years of despicable oppression and ill-treatment under white colonial rule, I can't help, but observe that when given the chance, Africans in general cannot treat themselves and their kind any better than they were treated by colonialists," wrote Ken Yamamoto, a Japanese researcher, in his article Mutasa: a moron with an ego in New Zimbabwe.

It makes this pithy observation so poignant and tragic is that it is true and we ignore it at our own peril!

When I was in primary school, in seventh grade, I learnt about the slavery and slave trade. I was struck by the bit that it was not the white men who went into the interior of Africa to hunted and capture the blacks. It was the fellow blacks who hunted their own kith and kin and sold them to the whites as slaves for a piece of calico cloth and a handful of beads.

I have often wondered how many blacks who yesterday sold their own kith and kin as slaves found themselves in turn in chains before the slave trade was done? No doubt they howled like dogs at the injustice of it all.

Slavery was abolished centuries ago, thank God; sadly the trade by blacks in the suffering and misery of their fellow blacks did not stop, it has continued to this day and for the equivalent of the same piece of calico cloth too.

All the corruption and tyrannical oppression by this Mugabe dictatorship involves, somewhere along the line, the sale of human misery and lives cheap selfish political gain by the leaders.

Tsvangirai and his MDC friends accepted bribes from Mugabe, including the $4 million mansion for Tsvangirai; in return they were to do nothing about implementing the democratic reforms. If the reforms had been implemented Zimbabwe would have had its first free, fair and credible elections and Mugabe would not be lording over the nation still!

For Tsvangirai the mansion is a great fortune but is it really worth betraying the hopes and dreams of 12 million fellow Zimbabweans?

When Tsvangirai was quizzed about mansion he has angrily retorted, "Where did you want me to live? In the bush?"

Many of his supporters have public supported Tsvangirai's taking the bribe, arguing that they would have done the same thing. The rest of the MDC leadership certainly did just that, they took whatever bribe Mugabe offered them!

Many blacks will readily condemn corruption whilst seeking public office but will be quick to take their seat on the gravy train because their condemnation them just paying lip-service to the subject.

Whilst Mugabe, Mutasa and the other national liberation heroes and heroines took the nation one step forward in end white colonial rule they have however dragged the nation ten steps backwards since independence. And yet to this day, they still make a big song and dance of that one forward step but will not talk about the freedom, justice, human rights and human dignity they have systematically denied the people and constituting the ten backward steps they imposed. What makes this worse is that even those who claim to be passionate about freedom, human rights, etc. join in the big song and dance about the one forward step and ignore the ten backward! I do despair!
 
Blacks will sale their own mothers for a piece of calico cloth and be proud they had a mother to sale! That is why Africa, for all its abundant riches and great potential for economic prosperity, still remains the most backward continent on earth torn by hunger and disease, corruption and endless but meaningless strive. We are stuck in the rut and; given our seemingly inherent inability to treat our fellow Africans as we want others to treat us, especially once we have tasted power; it is hard to see how we will ever get out. There; I said it and I know it is true!