QUEENSTOWN, SOUTH AFRICA - Last month, the NAM (New Africa Magazine), based in London, announced that according to its comprehensive open survey Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, was the second greatest African of all times. He was beaten by Nelson Mandela only twelve votes. Julius Nyerere followed at number three. The lingering question is how is it that the man most vilified by the media becomes the number two greatest African of all times in the eyes of people on the ground?
Hands much more competent than mine have many times dealt with the issue of the media, so I shall not go there. All I can say is that the media, where it does not have a hidden agenda, or vested interest, is misled by good intentions, like not wishing to appear to be too pessimistic. As a way of registering protest, I'll say I have a problem with good intentions when they mislead; the road to hell is paved with them.
If the AU (African Unity) meetings are anything to go by, African leaders feel a grievous need for the West to recompense Africa for the funds the West garnered during the mercantilist era when it plundered the gold, slaves and other goods of non-capitalist, primitive societies by force. When outside of the mob psychology of AU meetings, most of the African leaders retreat to conciliatory tones, subservient to the demands of western institutions for economic development like the Washington Consensus.
Not Mugabe.
Mugabe vents his anger against Western governments' double standards: like [the West's] preferring free trade when they've an advantage and protectionism when that advantage is threatened by outside competition. Most people on the ground of developing countries feel this anger. It is this that has endeared Mugabe to their hearts and endowed him with a romantic anti-imperialistic mantle, despite his shortcomings.
The situation in most Africa [countries] is underscored by the need for social revolution at the economic level. This sometimes becomes hysterical since it coexists with poverty and the general mood of cynicism and unhappiness against the way the world is structured. Indeed this is not only unique to Africa but to the majority of the underdeveloped world, as was demonstrated when Luis Inacio de Silva - 'Lula' ñ declared free trade to be imperialistic was promptly elected.
There're also pockets of global justice movements in the developed West who share these frustrations with the underdeveloped world and do their best to vent their anger. Taking their cue from people like Peter Singer these have decided it not right that the way one live must be the cause of the death of others, [let along] the source of their pain and deprivation.
Our era has blatantly revealed that capitalist imperialism is a matter of economic domination. The use of free trade has itself become the mode of dominating and subjecting. This might appear as an elision of two apparently contradictory themes: direct domination and free exchange. But when one observes what goes on in the organisations like the WTO (World Trade Organisation) one is left with no other impression but this.
Classic Marxist theories of imperialism emphasised the growth of coercion at the expense of free trade. According to Marxism, capitalism was supposed to lead to social revolution. That might be true of transitional economies, as is suggested by the present situation in the developing economies, but in mature capitalist economies capitalism has undoubtedly taken the route of imperialism. There is, mostly, in western societies an absence of social forces with interests in the transition to new forms of economic production that might give rise to criticism against anything not playing according to western rules. That is why it was easy for the economic power of the US to revert to the idea of an Empire, i.e. of
one state seeing itself as a guardian of what it sees as legitimate violence.
An Empire is always state protection of business interests gone too far.
Mugabe has become something of a romantic symbol of anti-capitalist imperialism for those who're weary of the tribulations of modern life and domination by the Anglo-American Empire. Most Africans sympathise with Mugabe's frustrations concerning the land issue, which are grievances of the majority of Zimbabweans. But Mugabe, with his savage acuity, has hijacked these issues for his own political ends. He has created nation-statism, which is fascist in its extreme, to perpetuate his reign. This loses him the support of those who're not ignorant of the consequences of things in the seed; who also appreciate and learn from history.
If the history of fascism teaches us anything it is that fascism is an opportunistic political movement that recruits from frustrations at the slow pace of political change in creating the infrastructure that provides basic services to the population. It is not necessarily a reaction against modernization or democracy but an exotic and attention grabbing anti-political kind of gut prejudice that has outbursts in street hooliganism. The basis of fascism is almost always social and economic frustrations. That is why it usually thrives during times of economic crisis. Fascism mobilizes those who regard themselves as humiliated victims into paramilitary cocoon organizations.
According to Marxism, fascism was a violent effort to preserve capitalism from the challenge of the left-wing mobilizations that followed World War I.
The African form of fascism appeals to people who blame western colonialism and capitalist imperialism for all their woes. It is collectivist, envious, racist, ethnic, xenophobic, authoritarian, and a consequence of the disappointments of post-colonial failures. It also comes from the anxieties created by the oppressive ambiguities of democracy: the lack of control citizens feel over the decisions made on their behalf by their leaders, and so forth.
There are many things frustrating about most white Africans:
- their complacency when it comes to redressing past wrongs;
- their blatant or subtle condescending attitude towards blacks and
- extant racism.
But most of us didn't fight against apartheid in order to replace it with the predatory habits of fascism. Mugabe has tainted his not-so-excellent-anyway record of being one of Africa's liberator with his greed. He does not have my vote; neither does his staunch enemy Tony Blair -- or George Bush, for that matter.
It remains to be seen whether the world will revert to fascism. But there are certainly signs that a planet well stocked with authoritarian capitalist regimes is in the cards. Liberal capitalist nations are becoming more authoritarian under the threat of terrorist attacks, while societies which were already authoritarian, such as China, are turning capitalist. The two systems are meeting each other, so to speak, coming from opposite directions.
Meanwhile, the globe is well furnished with capitalist set-ups that were never liberal in the first place, as well as with regimes whose former colonial proprietors exported market forces to their shores while forgetting to include democratic institutions in the cargo.
The assumption that the free market and political democracy go naturally together was always pretty dubious, and fascism is one dramatic refutation of it. But we might now be moving deeper into a world where the two go together like a horse and cabbage. (Terry Eagletton)
