Trump and his sanctions; Madness

The recent decision by Donald Trump to slap sanctions on Mnangagwa confirms beyond doubt that American Foreign policy has lost touch with the aspirations of the majority of the people in the world. Given that most of the countries in the southern hemisphere have been denied an opportunity to develop in their own way albeit in the context of the global economic framework of the world, and as such, have continued to wallow in the depths of economic margins of the global economy that is essentially designed to deliver progress to the US and its traditional allies. It comes as no surprise to us that despite the appearance of a new political order in Zimbabwe, the US through its narrow-minded President should think that the new order poses a threat to US Foreign Policy.

We are told that because of a breakdown in the rule of law in Zimbabwe characterized by political and economic instability and of course the manufactured allegation suggesting the existence of political motivated violence and intimidation in the country, the US President found it necessary to impose sanctions as a way to create and force to come into being an environment that surrenders power to the US anointed political parties.

We are fully aware that certain individuals were summoned to the US recently to update their friends on the situation in Zimbabwe after Operation Restore Legacy and we know that the actions taken by Trump are partly a response to an impassioned plea by those individuals for the need to stop the process of change and radical transformation of the political and socio -economic space in Zimbabwe.

Rest assured that Zimbabweans can no longer live in the shadow of a bully that pretends to act in the interest of the people of Zimbabwe when their ulterior motives are centuries old. Donald Trump's attempts to thwart Zimbabwe's transformation from one system to another under the leadership of ED Mnangagwa is obviously based on unmitigated ignorance to distinguish between a historical watershed in the Zimbabwean politics and the illusionary convulsive political desire for change that is driven by inherently and irredeemably defective local interests that have always been allied to US interests.

Trump's decision is not new and novel because it is a mere reappearance of US international relations behavior and Zimbabweans must not accept to have their sovereign right to determine their own future to be frustrated by a mere Executive Order issued by a President whose primary concern is far removed from the current challenges to transform the Zimbabwean economy through building its own industrial entrepreneurial base that responds to the country's economic development. Zimbabwe is talking to the whole world and has invited them to come and see what is emerging in the country since the new political dispensation and ironically the US has an Embassy in Harare that has capacity to see events on the ground first hand.

This clouding of facts and the reality of events in Zimbabwe is partly ignorance of the US law makers and of course, we are tempted to conclude that its also an outcome arising from the consumption of propaganda that is fed into their system by their local allies whose political Agenda has been rendered impotent by the new order and the approach of the new President.

The world cannot and should not always be defined in the context of the US interests. This approach has been counterproductive and has largely destabilized rather than stabilize the world.

The idea that the US must be the ruler and we must be the ruled is no longer tenable in the twenty first century political configuration. Zimbabweans are better off with the rest of the world that are happy to work with us. The government must not continue to invest a lot of energy in building political bridges that the US is unwilling to use.

The process of change that has started in Zimbabwe must be encouraged and supported and certainly despite the concerns of legality of the origins of the new order and those who feel that the pace change of is slow, the overall consideration should be the commitment by the new order to create conditions for long - term sustainable transformation and development.

Let's fight for change that we deserve and not changed that is brewed in other people's pots and served on our political dinner table. We deserve better.

Davison Todson Gomo is a political and economic analyst and has interest in broad development issues and global political systems.