Voices from Harlem forum on Zimbabwe
Feb 18, 2009
The following excerpts are from talks presented at a Feb. 8
“Zimbabwe: Pan Africanism or Imperialism” forum in Harlem, N.Y. The
forum was organized by the December 12th Movement and Friends of
Zimbabwe.
Amiri Baraka, playwright and poet
How can any Black or anybody who lived through colonialism ever accept
anything Britain and the U.S. or any of the European imperialist nations have
to say about Africa? How can someone who stole your land and then got put off
it, ask for reparations like a thief who steals your wallet and wants you to
pay them when you force them to give it back? No matter what is happening in
Zimbabwe, Britain and the U.S. must not have anything to say about it. There
are criminal charges still pending against them for colonialism, even for
slavery. The best they can do is submit to just claims for reparations and hope
nobody asks for prison terms. How is it that the greatest murderers and thieves
in the world keep getting off without even a dime of reparations, then have the
nerve to say that the oppressed peoples, once freed from straight out
colonialism, owe them something?
Dr. James McIntosh, Committee to Eliminate Media Offensive to
African People
In Zimbabwe, children die for lack of an asthma pump, clean water or IV
solution to replace fluids lost from cholera or some other cause of diarrhea.
When we realize that under sanctions, shipments of chlorine gas necessary for
water purification are blocked, when we realize that under sanctions aircraft
parts necessary to repair crop dusters to grow the grain necessary to stop
malnutrition are blocked, then we recognize that the imposition of economic
sanctions on a developing nation like Zimbabwe is not an alternative to war,
but such imposition is itself a weapon of war. Like weapons or even war itself,
these sanctions have historically been used for the same purposes. In Zimbabwe
the purpose has been to attempt regime change. The first sanctions were the
unofficial sanctions in the form of the refusal of credit to Zimbabwe by the
IMF [International Monetary Fund] and others. These undeclared and unofficial
sanctions were sparked by the reclaiming of the land by the Zimbabwean people.
Mugabe, like Malcolm X, recognized that land is the basis of all revolution and
that the Zimbabwe revolution must be no different. The response of imperialism
to land reclamation is always war.
Monica Moorehead, International Action Center
Historically, sectors of the U.S. left movement have been weak in carrying
out a consistent, anti-imperialist perspective, especially where
imperialism’s interests are the most profound. Therefore, struggles
especially in Africa and the Middle East face the most intense political
isolation due to racism, chauvinism and social-patriotism, rooted in the
ideology of the capitalist ruling class. The movement must explain in popular
language to the workers and oppressed in the U.S. that the Wall Street bosses
and bankers that are stealing their homes, their apartments, their jobs, their
education, their health care—if they even have health
care—weakening their unions; that benefit from the divide-and-conquer
ideology of racism, including from police brutality to incarcerations to
deportations and much more, are the same forces imposing endless economic and
military wars and occupations abroad. Our enemy is the same here and
worldwide—capitalism and imperialism, not the people of Zimbabwe,
Palestine and elsewhere, who are on the front lines in the war for national
liberation to get imperialism off their backs. The most effective way to build
international solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe is to weaken imperialism
at home with the building of an independent, fightback movement to demand real
change, which translates into a revolutionary transformation of society that
will put human needs before capitalist greed.
Chaka Cousins, All-African People’s Revolutionary
Party
The struggle that is being played out in Zimbabwe is not just about
Zimbabwe. It is a link in the chain of struggle against slavery, against
colonialism, neocolonialism, capitalism and imperialism. This struggle will
show clearly the forces that are for genuinely fighting for true independence
and the forces that seek only to collaborate with imperialism. Imperialism has
declared war against Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwean masses because they dare to
struggle for genuine independence. The sanctions against Zimbabwe are in fact a
maneuver of the neocolonialists. The imperialists can no longer rule directly,
so instead they seek to rule through economic control and through puppet
leaders.
We are currently witnessing the fall of capitalism. Every day we read about
some type of pyramid scheme where the person at the top has stolen the money of
those at the bottom. This is precisely how capitalism exploits the masses.
Those who don’t labor reap and plunder the resources of those who do
labor. This system is bound to fail because it is an unjust system, it is an
oppressive system, and wherever there is oppression, there will always be
resistance.
Professor Molefi Kete Asante, author of “The History of
Africa,” and a trainer of journalists in Zimbabwe during the first year
of the country's independence.
The condition of the Black people in Zimbabwe before the Second Chimurenga
[armed struggle] was near slavery. Whites had managed to segregate the country
much like South Africa. The wages of the African population averaged about 10
dollars a month, while the whites made 600 d dollars a month. It was once
reported that the whites in Rhodesia had the highest standard of living in the
world. When Mugabe’s government began to take the lands and redistribute
them to the people, sometimes to the people who had been working the farms for
decades anyway, because the land belonged to their ancestors, the reactionaries
started a military resistance by arming themselves and some of their
collaborators to fight the government. His decision was historic because it was
in the interest of the masses of the people. They had to take back the land.
They also knew that the white farmers, some who owned 60,000 acres, were
producing not food crops, but cash crops to make themselves rich. Who eats
tobacco and cotton? Yes, there was maize but most of it was for export anyway.
The condition of the people was pitiful in their own land. They were compelled
to call for redress. What people would stand by and allow such a small minority
to dominate their lives?
Atty. Malik Zulu Shabazz, New Black Panther Party
Today, Britain and America have determined that they will rule Africa
through virtual, digital, high speed, automatic remote control, using African
leaders that are pre-stamped, pre-qualified and preordained to be good stool
pigeons for the West and Western neocolonialism under the guise of
“responsible and good governance.” Any leader like Robert Mugabe
who stands up for justice and righting the wrongs or for reparations is lied
upon, slandered, attacked, vilified and his people are made to pay the price
through economic and diplomatic sanctions, which are weapons of war by other
labels. These are the policies of George W. Bush. These are the policies of
Prime Minister Tony Blair. Now, history has vanquished these two men, the
people have removed them and cast them off into the dustbin of arrogant rulers
who disregarded the rights of smaller nations. The people, Black, Brown, Red,
Yellow and White, have removed these two arrogant ones as a sign that their
ideas and policies are morally bankrupt and repugnant to the universal ideas of
mutual cooperation amongst nations and peoples. With the removal of Bush and
Blair, so too must come the removal and dismantling of their policies and
ideals, and indeed a change must come.
