Big Bob's Happyland?: God & Zimbabwe

 There is an obvious problem to sitting down and writing a blog about Zimbabwe; and that is that the situation is likely to change and so what I write becomes obsolete. Maybe I flatter myself, but I like to think that in 6 months, a year, 5 years however long someone may want to read my meagre scribblings and I’d like them still to be valid. So to write about current affairs presents a problem – they don’t stay current.

 

As I sit and write this the BBC news website is reporting that Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai have agreed a power sharing deal the details of which will be formally announced next week so things are hopefully going to improve drastically for the Zimbabwean people. But it doesn’t help me write my blog!

 

During his time in office Mugabe has dragged Zimbabwe into the gutter; he’s ruined what was a thriving agricultural sector and driven the Zimbabwean economy to ruin. He’s controlled the media in Zimbabwe and restricted and banned foreign journalists and foreign aid workers. The people of Zimbabwe have borne the brunt of his policies and they’ve suffered greatly. Meanwhile the international community has sat back and let it happen. Many people and organisations have called for action against Mugabe but their cries have fallen on deaf ears and governments have taken very little action to try to implement change in Zimbabwe.

 

But can we actually take the moral high ground? It goes without saying that wherever in the world we in the West call for change – be it Zimbabwe, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, China Darfur or any of the many troublespots in the world – the leaders in that country will reject what we say. But how can they justify it to their people (presuming they report it)? The obvious way is to decry our moral record and say, “…And they think they can tell us what to do!”  For cultures which are more tightly regulated than ours this is an easy thing to do. For example those countries that forbid alcohol they can just point to our numbers of alcoholics and binge drinking statistics. Cultural differences such as that have been used since time immemorial as propaganda and we do it as much as anyone else. But it doesn’t actually take very long to find things in our recent history which do more serious damage to our credibility as arbiters of justice. During the 1980s Britain poured money and armaments into Saddam Hussein’s Iraq as it was seen as the best form of opposition to the Ayatollah’s Iran which we thought was the biggest threat to the West. Then from the early 90s onwards Saddam became public enemy number 1. Our support or opposition of foreign regimes has been based entirely on how useful they are to us, and has paid no attention at all social justice or their Human rights record. More recently Britain and the US have engaged in a war in Iraq which is widely regarded as illegal. So when we, or our Government, protest to Mugabe (or the leader of another country) about how their countries are run, it’s very easy for them to dismiss what we say because our own moral record can be viewed as very shaky.

 

So why haven’t we done more to intervene in Zimbabwe? Why has Robert Mugabe been able to continue his abuse of power for so long? Firstly to answer this we need to acknowledge the place Britain has in Zimbabwean History. Very briefly Zimbabwe is a former British colony only gaining it’s independence from Britain in 1980. Throughout the 70s a war of independence was fought and the Zanu party of Robert Mugabe was a major part of the struggle. When independence was gained Mugabe became a hero to the Zimbabwean People and was courted as such on the international stage. Fast forward to today and Britain is still seen as the former colonial occupier, so we cannot become too involved in direct confrontational action against Mugabe as we are still viewed as a hostile nation by many of the Zimbabwean people – our help would be viewed with some suspicion.

 

But the international community has also failed to act - other than to ban Mugabe, his government and his wife from travelling to the EU and the US. We have all sat back and watched the suffering of the Zimbabwean people and said, “That’s not very nice is it.”  No-one has suggested going into Zimbabwe on humanitarian grounds – as we supposedly went into Iraq – this may be because our action in Iraq was deeply unpopular with the international community, or it may because Zimbabwe has nothing the world wants. It has no oil and its economy and infrastructure are so damaged it has become an unattractive and expensive prospect for any foreign power.

 

 The UN would perhaps be the obvious vehicle for an international attempt to change Zimbabwe, but the UN charter states that it can only intervene when countries are threatening other countries, not their own people so the UN can’t – or won’t – get involved.

 

It would seem that we have tied our own hands in dealing with situations such as this: maybe we need to take stock of the situation and see if the rule book needs re-making.

 

 

 

So what can we do? To be honest I don’t know! The situation is changing and until we see what shape it takes it’s difficult to suggest anything. All we can do is keep an eye on the situation whilst continuing to lobby our MPs and support organisations working in Zimbabwe (hopefully the doors will be opened to more aid organisations soon). We must continue to support the Zimbabwean people, hold them in our thoughts and prayers and keep their stories circulating in order to keep the eyes of the world focussed in their direction.