Kofi Annan spoke about the need for African leaders to speak out
about challenges happening on the continent. the Financial Times
comes out and spins the whole story in reference to Zimbabwe in an
article entitled UN
chief warns on dangers of Zimbabwe Kofi Annan did not mention
Zimbabwe in his remarks, but the European and American media seem
obessed with making that the focus of his comments. They should stop.
Seriously... they should just calm down with this unwarranted attack
on Zimbabwe.

I read this good editorial that was touching on the same topic from
the Mail and Guardian, a South African newspaper that is normally
extremely critical of Zimbabwe as if it was run out of London. the href="http://www.mg.co.za/articledirect.aspx?articleid=244336&area=%
2f" target="new" class="bodytxt">article points out the imbalance
in the amount of press Zimbabwe gets and the amount of diplomatic
attention given to it at these global summits compared to other bona
fide crises in Africa. Why is the G8 not tabling a discussion or
releasing a statement on the Congo, Darfur, class="bodytxt">drought and hunger in Southern Africa. It makes
me wonder, what the true obsession is with Zimbabwe that it becomes
the issue at the center of the commonwealth meetings, Eu Summits, the
G8 meetings, this meeting, this Summit and the next. I don't attempt
to claim that there are no serious issues of economics and political
tension in the country, but for it to be treated like this is
completely bizarre in my assessment. the New Zealand government is href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=4&ObjectID=10334594"
target="new" class="bodytxt">banning the Zimbabwe cricket team
from entering their country to play cricket in retaliation to the
government's actions against informal settlers in the past month.
Those cricketers are professionals. Let them get on with their trade.
Once again, the wrong people are being punished.

The evictions in Zimbabwe were wrong, and certainly not the best
strategy and/or plan for dealing with some of the issues at hand such
as the informal settlements of the black market situation that was
throwing the economy up-side-down. the effects on the people there
has been horrendous. yet no one reporting on it is actually looking
into the other side of the picture, that, given what has happened,
what has been the other effect...? the black market activity has
dropped, that the exchange rate that was going out of control has
stabilized. coincidence? that some of the shortages have ceased. that
there are efforts to rebuild. that the UN sent a high level envoy to
check it out and zimbabwe complied and the UN will issue a report on
it soon. that crime in Harare and other cities has decreased. the
ends do not justify the means. but do they justify horrible, biased,
politicized journalism?

the same people crying about human rights abuses of those people were
silent about the state and living conditions of those people 6 weeks
ago. disease and other potential problems caused by those settlements
were rife. criminal activity was huge. the act of dealing with it was
like swotting a fly with a sledge hammer, i agree. but where were
those lovers of human rights then? they were busy screaming about a
white member of the opposition party and former MP who was href="http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/Zimbabwe/
0,,2-11-1662_1728501,00.html" target="new" class="bodytxt">released
from jail in Zimbabwe. Who defines what counts as human rights?
why is it that african government's approaches to dealing with their
issues, if they do not work in the interests of the western countries
are therefore not legitimate. i have not seen stories showing surveys
and polls of the zimbabwean public in general and their response to
the recent activities by the government recently. but certainly
people in london and Canberra have mouthfuls to say! why are the
same people not making noise about the human rights issue of peoples'
livelihoods. no one talks about poverty as a human right issue. it's
a moral issue. it's morally wrong that people are dying of curable
diseases. it's not a human rights issue to have access to health
care? or to have access to having a way to create a livelihood...
land? a job? etc... it's not a human rights issue to have the
injustices of colonialism reversed? i don't see the cover page of
magazines or the home page of Amnesty International talking about the
rights of these people from their perspective. the people in the
slums in harare have a right and have always had the right to proper
habitation as much as they do now since they were left homeless. but
why is their habitation only an issue now? living in shanty towns
with no sanitation or services is ok and acceptable, as long as
people can criticize the president in a newspaper the next day?

a lot of the media talks about the situation in zimbabwe in two
dichotomies. they are quick to say the evictions in the cities were
pay back to people for voting against the government. or that it was
about sending people to rural areas so that they can learn to vote
for the opposition. i think that's just simplifying things once
again. there is no political logic to doing things that way. the
government gains nothing politically from such an action, unless of
course it fulfills its pledges to rebuild, which i am keen to see and
which i will write about in this very space if they do not deliver.
but there is more than just petty politics at play here and i think
we need to see things beyond political party divides in zimbabwe and
in africa in general. we need to gain an understanding of the
complexity of the whole african picture. that way, our news media can
say some things more intelligent that calling everything a black and
white issue.

Perhaps the clearest sign that the west in general still does not
understand africa can be seen in their calls for the African Union to
'speak out' or condemn zimbabwe for this, that and the next. you have
an institution that
1. is low on resources, attempting to stop genocide [AU troops are
the only forces on the ground in Darfur] and other crises on the
continent and you want them to spend energy on zimbabwe?
2. was created to promote african solidarity and you expect them to
jump when an external voice dictates what they must do? that would
certainly, on a political and diplomatic level be the end of any
significance of such a political union. what else will you tell them
how to do? how to run their countries and who to trade with...?

the challenges in zimbabwe would be so much easier to fix if those
externally found more intelligent ways to engage, and not to polarize
and to divide and rule, which has been used as a tactic for decades.
it is important for people to understand that the issues in zimbabwe
are for real and must be dealt with. the manner in which this has
been done, however can be challenged and i'm open to that and i
challenge it too. but to say it's all bad and to always simplify it
to politics is so unhelpful. other african countries have the same
issues as zimbabwe. i think that the difference is that they choose
to not deal with them in any way and hope that they will go away, or
that the illusion of economic growth will deal with underlying racial
and economic tensions. time will tell. in zimbabwe, there is hope for
this chaos giving birth to long term order. i hope to be a part of
that difficult and trying process of dealing with these issues and
tension, creating dialogue, working out sustainable solution to these
challenges and initiating projects that actually respond to these
needs. endless campaigns by the media focused on making zimbabwe look
bad because of a deep held hatred of one man hurt the rest of us
more. zimbabwe will emerge healthy in all of this. maybe not this
year, or the next... but soon. you watch. we are working on it. if we
don't work on it an zimbabweans, it is us who suffer. these
challenges and difficulties are not forever. sometimes, roses do grow
in cow dung, though the dung can smell really bad, the roses always
look pretty in the end.