Reading Molefe Seitei’s article, The False Sense of Law in The Sunday Standard of 29 August 2010 jolted my mind to the little issues we have conveniently decided to ignore at our peril.
That our laws were never meant to serve local interests has never been so poignantly depicted, and it reminded me of the ongoing furore over the SADC Tribunal’s ruling on Zimbabwean ‘white’ farmers.
No one in the SADC region will pressure Zimbabwe to respect a ruling that gives impartial justice to farmers who want to be compensated for land they stole in the first place.
I know many readers will be incensed by this summation, but truth has to be said about the matter.
Nobody, more so white, ever bought land in Zimbabwe prior to the land reform programme, yet they held title deeds to the whole country! The resultant governmental refusal to respect the court ruling is in tandem with Molefe’s thinking, and resonates just like the Prof Good case ruling that the Botswana government recently rubbished too. Maybe the greatest and most despicable manifestation of international disregard for African ethos exhibited itself in its entirety during the Malawian gay couple’s brush with the law.
The statute covering gay rights has been in existence for ages and all and sundry knew the repercussions involved, even the sentence. The two guinea pigs, obviously at the instigation of some rubble-rousing agents went ahead and defied the law for the fun of it.
It is evident that the resultant media frenzy demonizing Malawian statutes, their subsequent incarceration and the eventual Presidential pardon had a tinge of a hidden hand.
That United Nations chief Ban Ki Moon was in Malawi at that fortuitous moment doesn’t auger well for his intensions, and I shudder to think of the calamities it would have caused should there ever had risen issues of him remotely linked to the uncalled for pardon. Malawi has become a playground for rich and spoilt Westerners.
They do as they please, be it adoptions or monetary policy deliberations, and famous celebrities like Madonna have come and gone and came again to hoard unfortunate orphans like cassava and yam on a Nigerian stall, circumventing all tenets of procedure and due legal processes, creating anarchy and mayhem while the political leaders look helplessly because of their countries’ debilitating need for aid and trade favours. I have great respect for President Bingu Wa Mutharika’s approach to the Malawian quest for universal acceptance as an able nation, but I have issues with donor nations that are providing aid.
The man has become a virtual puppet whose legal system is being rubbished in exchange for dollars, tarnishing his image and to some extent, stealing the thunder from his humanitarian programmes that have borne fruit in an otherwise condemned country.
It won’t be surprising to learn that some goons from the West might be claiming credit for Malawi’s sudden rise as an agricultural success story.
To regain some pride, the tiny nation had to change their flag in an endeavour to shed the beggar image the colours denoted and some barbaric illusions like someone having had brought light to Malawi. To add insult to injury, some foreign owned media houses have already started spewing out vitriolic falsehoods to the effect that Malawians need food aid amid the surplus that they are exporting. The same ethos continue to be attenuated by the world’s eminent civilizations that have made it their existential mandates to derail African progress through a succession of pit-traps, threats, sabotage, exclusion, divisive unilateralism and regime change agendas.
Their catchword has always been the rule of law hogwash, and aided by our own gullible yes-people in positions of authority, the road has never been bumpier.
Zimbabwe comes in again as a yardstick through its diamond sales fiasco that has brought out some hitherto, unknown entities like Rappaport Diamond Group, a clandestine outfit of charlatans claiming ownership of diamond buyers. Yes, ownership.
The American based group still preaches the same old, tired and despicable gospel of abuse by the military as a basis for banning the sale of the gems, all in an apparent desire to influence political change in the country. The group didn’t mince its words in threatening to expel any gem buyer from their coterie should they not heed their prejudicial and judgmental summation of the Marange diamond fields issue. One would think South Africa had escaped all these debilitating setbacks bestowed on sister nations by the legacy of colonialism by their late independence. Facts though point to an even worse disregard for precedents.
The public service strike that brought the country to its knees is a manifestation of insolence on the part of a leadership that feels like a God-sent untouchable entity.
The gap between the rich and the poor continue to widen, political heavyweights use their positions to enrich themselves through lucrative tenders and worker rights get trampled. The strike may see an imminent divorce between the ruling party and the Unions, paving way for the emergence of another political party that will bring mayhem to the country.
It was the Unions that backed the ANC to gain state power. And all that seems forgotten. Scapegoats are being created to buttress the quest for absolute power through institutionalized threats and semantic drivel with empty content.
The youth league is being compromised for instigating the need for a generational representation in the echelons of decision making, with their claims substituted as ill-discipline. Come election period, their votes will be needed. Across the border lies another hot potato called Zimbabwe, with Morgan Tsvangirai trying to outdo himself in diplomatic gaffes that have become his trademark. Why he chose to defend Mugabe so fervently in the Justice Malala interview on E TV beats all logic, and on his return home was greeted by another state sanctioned violent disruption of the constitutional fact-finding meeting. His empty rhetoric condemning the violence points to a man who has gotten tired of his mandate.
Threatening to boycott an election wont save him from scrutiny this time, and the sooner he cleans his act the better. Mugabe has never moved an inch from his intransigent point ever since, yet Tsvangirai makes all these overtures to sort of placate or please him. We may now authoritatively say Morgan Tsvangirai is not the answer to the Zimbabwean problem. His participation in the ill-fated unity government has blinded him.
All he seems concerned about are positions for his cronies. While Mugabe summons his ministers to give them directives, Tsvangirai sits, waits and hosts press conferences after heinous and barbaric acts of violence have been visited on the people.
The day Zimbabweans realize that their fate is in making political offices redundant will mark the end of this madness. No amount of mediation or summits will ever reconcile the polarity in that country. Botswana comes last in this race, more-so because of it’s reluctance over the years to subscribe to the African ethos of poverty. However, times have caught up with this republic.
Issues of institutional corruption have now come out in the open, eminent personalities are now caught on the wrong side of the law and the media has now taken a vow to assassinate the President’s persona.
Creative rumour-mongers created an unnecessary brouhaha over the constituency soccer league that fictitiously involved FIFA and even fingered the president too. That the whole issue was fake brought the proponents of hate speech against the president down with a thud, and proved that Botswana has indeed joined the ranks with other African states.
That rank madness and blatant disregard for protocol used to be the preserve of rogue states, and when they appear in Gaborone, it’s time to re-orient ourselves. When the president initiates poverty reducing schemes, opposition outfits go to town demonizing the moves. Some even go to elections under the ruling party banner, and after winning, go on to form their parties.
I call it brave cowardice because they had the chance to stand on their own, but chose to hoodwink voters as genuine propagators of the ruling party. If the Tonota by-election result is anything to go by then woe betide this new outfit.
Shaw Kgathi’s observation that the political party exists in the media won’t be disputed. Our ethoses are in peril and need men and women of omnipotent erudition to unravel this legacy of confusion that threatens to wipe this continent.
Is anybody listening out there?
