Of protests, opposition politics and Western imperialism

THE wave of protests that characterised Harare in recent weeks all but confirmed a failed retracing of the Libyan, Tunisian, Egyptian and Syrian political footprints.

Granted, the country is facing economic problems but to suggest that the problems are a result of a political vacuum is only seeking to take inflated imaginations too far as well as negating the resounding voice of the masses who voted for a Government of their choice three years ago.

And the fact that it is not the first time that Zimbabweans have faced problems of such magnitude economically but have never employed such means of solving them leaves one pondering on where they all of a sudden have borrowed such character from.

In 2008 for example the situation was far more worse than the one currently prevailing but the amount of protests were not as much as they are now and the amount of violence and anger then can never be matched to the purpoted anger displayed in the country this time around.

Although the protests were done within the legal orbit and the parameters of the country's constitution where they were sanctioned by the courts of law it doesn't in any way exonerate them from enquiries on whether the anger was Zimbabwean, and if the violence was part of Zimbabwe's genetic make-up.

If so why didn't it happen in 2008. Why were tyres spared and why were rocks and boulders not used to barricade the roads.

Or do we have a whole new generation that has suddenly grown up now. Or is it that everything that the protestors are doing are an imported phenomenon that is alien to Zimbabwe. Maybe, it is something that they have seen working elsewhere.

This is not to say Zimbabweans have no anger of their own but this time around the purpoted anger had traces of the North Africa and Arab springs which were themselves fomented by the imperialistic West seeking to gain entry into the oil rich countries through the invocation of the so-called Responsibility to Protect doctrine as a justification for a "humanitarian intervention" at least according to the US President Barrack Obama.

What is important is to point out that the West is always clever enough to veil its involvement and its interventionist policy by sponsoring  shadowy groups and opposition political parties to give the demonstrations and the political disturbances a local face behind which lies the real threat to democracy.

Professor Jonathan Moyo last week took a dig at the embarrassing admission by US, EU, Canada and France ambassadors in Zimbabwe's involvement in politics of instability that they have been propping. He said it was purely against the Vienna Convention.

"We have seen the Americans and the EU supporting the hash tag groups while the opposition has been falling on each other to join and claim involvement thinking it's a big thing. They think Jesus had sent these guys to come and save and they tweet like they are opposition. They are using the social media to violate the Vienna Convention. They want to trigger violence. That is totally unacceptable," said Prof Moyo.

One therefore wonders if Zimbabweans have learned nothing and forgotten everything from the Libyan situation or they are just seized and blinded by the bribed push from the West that is still eager to effect illegal regime change after a decade and a half of failure.

In the case of Zimbabwe, the opposition has been a monumental failure hence the rising up of the hash tagged shadowy groups #Tajamuka/Sesijikile #ThisFlag and #MyZimbabwe that also capitalised on the proliferation of social media to give the uprising a semblance of the North Africa and Arab springs.

These groups incite and excite the general public and mobilise them to be the visible force on the ground so that intervention and the responsibility tom protect comes in as justification from their handlers.

What is clear is that these groups that are fronted by local faces, faces of our kith and kin but behind them lies an alien hand that dictates the pace, fund the activities and even rise the tempo giving form to the old statement, 'only fools fight while wise man supply them with the means to do so'. But unlike in the bible where wise men are known to have come from the East, this time the world's 'wise men' are coming from the West which makes skeptics doubt if they are really wise. The situation in countries such as Libya where groups of power hungry cowards were used by the US and Nato forces as the local voices and local faces to front the abduction and merciless killing Col Muammar Gaddafi should not be allowed to happen in Zimbabwe.

And in trying to glorify their acts of terrorism in the world the US and Nato forces claimed that it was a humanitarian intervention and their responsibility to protect that saw them intervening in sovereign nations. The laughable justification was that they intervened to protect the people of Libya from harm their by President but in the process inflicted more harm themselves.

And now the people of Libya are suffering more than before, perhaps more than what they were doing under Col Gaddafi.

Their once proud nation has been made into ruins. Its reconstruction after the disturbances that brought nothing but misery to the majority of the populace is evidence of the destructive nature of the US and its allies.

The proud African nation that stood its ground in rejecting US military presence on the continent arguing that it was an affront to Pan African unity today stands desolate and remains trapped in a spiral of deteriorating security, economic crisis, and political deadlock.

Trust in the nation's weak government institutions has fallen to an all-time low as political elites, unable to agree on even a governmental structure, deploy armed militias to control territory and economic assets. An additional challenge comes from ISIS and other violent extremists exploiting the situation to expand operations in Libya. Still, civil society organisations remain active and committed to laying the foundation for a unity government capable of rebuilding the state.

The same can be said of Syria where the cause, course, timing and sponsors are the same. The difference is just that Bashar al-Assad the President of Syria enjoys the support of Iran, Russia and China and he moved in just in time to crush the protests although in the process he may have lost development and peace.

Syria is still burning and Assad is holding on, but do we really want such a situation in Zimbabwe? And like in what happened in Iraq in 2013 when Saddam Hussein was hunted down and killed by the very people who had created him – the Americans, Col Gaddafi also fell an easy prey to the former French colonisers who felt he was blocking their imperialist dream to control not only the rich oil deposits of Libya but the resources of entire African continent. And just like hyenas wanting to feast on their cubs first accuse them of smelling like a goat as justification; the West employed the same trick.

Minister of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Christopher Mushohwe also warned the Western diplomats to confine themselves to the parameters guiding their operations and reminded them that Zimbabwe was a sovereign State that does not need intervention or dictation from anyone on how it should run its politics. He said their interventionist policies confirm that they were still in the thick of regime change agenda as agents of imperialism.