Hip Hop NASea

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The Nas controversery regarding naming his new album "Nigger" should be contextualized.

The casual use of the word “Nigger” or “Nigga”* is counter revolutionary & self destructive. It’s an externalization of the reactionary self-hate complex characteristic of post-traumatic slave syndrome. However, the deep-seated psychology behind its common use and acceptance must be dealt with in a variety of prescriptive & therapeutic methods. Many of the conventional methods sought to deter its use are ineffectively weak in appealing to the broad segment of our society who naively underestimate its negative consequences and are most disenfranchised by its perpetual use (or mis-use, to avoid semantic dissonance).

However, I do draw a distinction between its common reactionary use and its pro-active revolutionary use within the context of art, & intellectual critique. The art medium is undeniably one of the most effective mediums of universal communication with the potential to be used as a negotiative, persuasive voice to convincingly deter the casual, careless use of the term “Nigger”. At the risk of mounting cliché’s (or stating the obvious), art influences life and vice versa. It must also be recognized that art offers an extremely valuable opportunity to effectively communicate complex socio-political-economic concepts to those who would not ordinarily seek information on their own terms. Art in its highest expressive form is an appealing, effortless, penetrating invocation of pertinent, useful information that speaks directly to the soul of each individual in a uniquely effective way. Art is often perceived to have spiritual dimensions, which lack the political disingenuousness or political motives that are perceived to be hidden behind informative mediums such as books, newspapers, conferences, the church, "leaders", etc…. In other words a critical intelligent assessment of “Nigger” within the context of art maybe the most effective and direct medium to achieve what many organizations are attempting to achieve indirectly. Hip Hop has the full undivided attention of the youth whom are most disenfranchised by its use.

While beyond the scope of this discussion, it must be stated that this whole debate takes the focus and pressure off the shady music corporate system of payola and the corporate A&R’s and talent scouts who carefully hand pick and nurture artists to promote decadence. Our energies should be focused on forcing corporations to incorporate intelligent artists, with thoughtful lyrics into their corporate promotional playlists, rather than focus our efforts on censoring the artist's available palette of words which are essential for full, articulate expression. The wholesale censorship and banning of words will unfortunately only result, in the rebellious, resentful desire to use "Nigger" even more. Angry pundits will only add flame to the fire.

“Nigger” has enormous significance within the cultural psyche and vernacular of black folks and must be given room for proper and gradual exorcism & expulsion.** A ban on the word from those perceived as ‘uppity’ (those who appear unsympathetic or out of tune with the ordinary everyday life experience of the working class) is ironically perceived by it’s embracees to be an attack on their “culture” and their expression. Many so called “street” brothers are endowed with a certain pride in their perseverance of “staying street” in spite of the systemic forces designed to kill or punish them (prison, army service) for their rejection & non participation in the system. In recognition that they have been disallowed & isolated from the best jobs and legitimate, worthwhile opportunities within the system they become reactionary outlaws with hopes of circumventing the system to achieve economic success. The embrace of this outlaw mentality is a form of pseudo maroonage, that rejects indoctrination or spoilage by the “mainstream”, “corporate” culture. Hence, “street brothers” or “G’s” are suspiciously resentful of the corporate class of blacks who they feel do not possess the moral high ground, or conviction or authority to dictate codes of conduct. My gut perception is that Nas’ announcement of a “Nigger” album is a symbolic gesture intended to openly reject the dictates of the uppity black bourgeois who he may perceive to be arrogantly overlooking the constructs of “thug legislature” or the moral G code that governs this outlaw way of life. Nonetheless, this move puts Nas in good standing with street brothers who recognize the significance (of this chess move).

I personally doubt that Nas has the ability or is the right person to pull off an entire constructive and meaningful “Nigger” concept album. He is undeniably inconsistent in producing positive songs and is not truly indebted to the “street code”*** that he professes. His own admission of being a "Columbia Record Slave" on his song Black Zombies should raise a flag and set off alarms!!! However (who am I to judge another man), I recognize that the positive songs that he has done are in many cases brilliantly complex (listen to Second Childhood) and indicate that he has the potential to pull it off. I've heard it said that If Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik Shabazz) had not been given a second chance than the world would have been denied his brilliance and we would have only known a pimp named Malcolm Little. Hell, even Prodigy (Mobb Deep) is threatening to become a Malcolm X. No one, should be denied an opportunity to create an album because of critical pre-determinism (which is just as bizarre and unjustifiable as pre-crime or the Bush administrations logic for preemptive-war). Much of the criticisms presented to date are based on 20 second sound bites of what the Media has selectively chosen to disclose on the issue. Moreover, it’s impossible to constructively critique the art without an example of the art at hand. While it is apparent that this album title is unlikely to materialize into reality, our energies should be spent critiquing the album if and when it does come into existence.

Notwithstanding, Mos Def’s classic “Mr. Nigga” is a justifiably, provocative, artistic rendition of the familiar social complexities of modern black life embroiled within the prevalence of white America’s unrelenting depreciative view of Afrikans as “Niggers”, in spite of the perceived advances in race relations. Denying Mos Def of the opportunity to use Nigger almost certainly would have robbed the song of its potent message and symbolism. When “Nigger” is used in the proper artistic context it can actually be effective in demonstrating the absurdity and acceptance of its widespread embrace. (Which reminds me of how paradoxical it is that BET invites rappers like Ludacris to explain the ludicrousness and illogicality of its acceptance and assimilation within so called ‘hip-hop’. That's Ludicrous.) I also commend Mos Def and Bun B for being the only rappers to show up in Jena for the rally. Nas, and other artists could really help their own cases if they were involved in these grass roots efforts.

*For purposes of this dialogue, I do not make a distinction between the terms “Nigger” and what some refer to as “Nigga”.

**The average brother’s vocab is extremely limited. The unfortunate reality is that by taking “Nigger” away from the streets you’ve effectively reduced the functioning vocabulary of the hood immensely. The reality of a limited functioning vocabulary is largely contributed to by the culmination of inherited slave language (Ebonics), a rejection of intellectualism as interpreted through the public ‘fool’ system’s version of education and the educational and socio-political deficiencies that exacerbate the dire circumstances of post slavery Black America. Consequently there is an over-relliance on derogatory emotional terms that take the place of more efficient expressive choices of words and terms.

***The “street code” referred to within this context refers to the distorted, glamorization, of a falsified gangster ideology that modern rappers toss around just as carelessly as they do the term “Nigga”

Brother Okra
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Prescription for Drapetomania

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James Watson’s recent attacks on the intelligence of Afrikan people warrants a declaration for independent, objective, genetic science research, pioneered by Afrikans. I won’t spend much time analyzing this assault because often times these things function to put us in a reactionary mode which distracts us from revolutionary action. But since, I’ve met my revolutionary action quota for the day I figure I’d quickly put the attack in perspective and use the opportunity to briefly discuss how the Afrikan community may go forward in countering this act of cultural terrorism in a pro-active, forceful, and effective manner.

The use of scientific racism has the same function today that it always has. It seeks a scientific, rational justification to deny Afrikan people their equal due as human beings. This dehumanization effectively allows the European to morally justify his insatiable greed and ultimate mis-use of power in orchestrating the social, economical, political and sexual exploitation of Afrikan people.

The Afrikan slave trade, jump-started modern capitalism and afforded the European the lavish lifestyle of luxury that could only be maintained provided the continual exploitation and dehumanization of Afrikan people. The degradation of African life allows the European to escape moral accountability for his principle role in destroying Black life. This is one of the primary reasons that media corporations are so intent on projecting a coon image of Afrikans. This is also the reason why the white nationalist, white supremacist, racist’s who are regarded as Amerika’s ‘founding fathers’ perpetuated the notion that Africans were inferior to whites. For instance, in 1781, Thomas Jefferson, a wealthy slave owner wrote:

“Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous. It would be unfair to follow them to Africa for this investigation.”. (Keep in mind, that Jefferson and other lawmakers found it necessary to legally ban Afrikan slaves from reading anything)

In spite of Jeffereson’s sexual obsession and forcefulness upon his slaves he also curiously wrote,

“love seems to them to be more of an eager desire, than a delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation.”

Abraham Lincoln was ‘kind enough’ (and I’m being facetious) to afford us some accommodations, in spite of his strong resolve in declaring white racial superiority when he stated the following:

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the Negro should be denied everything."“

Scientific racism is a political discipline that seeks the use of baseless, blotched, self-proclaimed ‘scientific’ evidence and flawed experimental process to support and advance predetermined racist theories for the gain of socio-political objectives. There are countless examples, but a few are worth noting. For instance, the impact of Charles Darwin’s “The Origin of Species” was a monumental psychological achievement that released the moral burden of European exploiters. The book advanced the apparent scientific notion that European supremacy was a bi product of the evolutionary process In nature called “natural selection” and gave the impression that the horrific acts of violence and human exploitation perpetuated against the Afrikan in the Slave trade was an act of almighty God. In a more recent example, Charles Murray received 1.2 million dollars from an array of right-wing Think Tanks to write a book called the “Bell Curve” claiming that ‘scientific’ IQ tests revealed that Whites were genetically superior to blacks. However, the most striking example of racism disguised as science is owed to a distinguished physician of his time, Dr. Samuel Cartwright who advanced the medical diagnosis that came to be known as Drapetomania. It was asserted by Cartwright, through the medical association of Louisiana that Drapetomania was a mental illness of Afrikan slaves in which the principal symptom was a compulsory desire to flee slavery or escape servitude. It was thought that those who attempted to escape were unable to recognize how good they had it. Cartwright prescribed, in his own words "whipping the devil out of them" and amputating toes as preventative medical’ treatments for this disease (as was done to Kunta Kinte (sp?) in Roots).

James Watson’s brand of science is fashioned along the same principles of scientific racism. His ideology of racist supremacy is a continuum of the political machine conceived by America’s forefathers. His forecast that scientists will find a gene in whites that explains their intellectual superiority within the next decade speaks volumes about his desire to usurp genuine scientific process with white supremacist political agenda.* There is also a clear & curious desire by the media to depict Watson as an isolated, anomaly, and renegade within the scientific world, as if his opinions are not shared by others in the broader European science community. He is a leader of one of the most prestigious scientific institutions in the world and has most likely used his influence and power within that institution to shape it according to his views. His involvement in the human genome project was obviously fueled by this desire to prove white superiority. The findings of the genome project were an obvious disappointment to him.

Nonetheless, the scientific discovery sought by Watson would in essence provide the European unwarranted justification in exorcising uncontained policies toward Afrika and it’s people. Modern, scientific racism still seeks a scientific rational to morally justify the imposition of European will and domination over us.** If they declare themselves a higher species they will try to use this as a justification to impose, policies and restrictions over us that are regarded to be in our best interests. The imposition of parental discretion exorcised over children who are not equipped to make the best choices for themselves is a microcosm of this desired phenomenon. Afrika is often portrayed as a child like continent ripe with internal mass ignorance, violence, corruption & mismanagement as if the western powers have not conspired to instigate and engineer much of these shortcomings.

Afrikan people cannot rely on European scientists. If the European/Western science community (that uses white males & females as a universal standard) found information that was of specific value to Afrikans, would they disclose it? It’s highly unlikely that James Watson would publicize a gene discovery indicating a clear Afrikan genetic advantage over his European counterpart? Afrikans must move beyond being passive subjects in the research of others to engage in objective scientific study and research that brings useful, practical and meaningful scientific and technological advancement to our lives.

While Watson charters his scientists to find this so called intelligence gene, Afrikan geneticists must become intensely familiar with the genetic makeup of the European (and himself) as well. European genes should be studied to identify any race specific European genes (or missing genes) that cause the racist & violent behavior known only to it's race. We must not rule out a genetic cause that explains why the European is out of sync with nature, out of sync with the world and out of sync with the world's people. The plausibility of this genetic explanation is worth investigating considering the inability of the European to have ever established a functional peacful state or function with a non-destructive mindset (even amongst themselves). It is imperative for the survival of the planet and it's inhabitants (including the European). It is our divine duty to restore order and peace to this planet with which we Afrikans are most familiar.

*The Western world's general addiction to & reliance on coffee (roasted bean juice) as an intellectual stimulant is a significant fact that is often overlooked as a point of advantage for whites in professional environments, universities, etc... In general, Afrikan people do not consume coffee as a social beverage or it's stimulative effects. Take away coffee and you've done a great deal of harm to Western thought and culture!!!

**Even the latest media attack on Michael Vick was designed to send a message that these people (blacks) are not morally, & intellectually capable of contributing to white society.

Brother Okra
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Come On Cosby

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It appears that Bill Cosby has been to school and has been coached well. He has reappeared with a sharp acknowledgment of the undeniable logical realization of systemic and institutionalized racism. Cosby has abandoned his irrational anti-intellectual squabbling to finally make a logical, rational, realistic assessment of the contextual reality of the systemic forces surrounding black behavior (at least from what I gather in these two video clips).

In his recent appearance on ‘Meet the Press’ Cosby provides his most, methodical, reserved, careful, and articulate explanation of his opinions to date. In his own words Cosby acknowledges that “The power structure can stop a person from getting a better education…living in better conditions…stop improvements from being made,” He also highlights the critical longstanding fact that white youth are the predominant consumers of derogatory, corporate influenced ‘hip-hop’ or gangster rap (although there's nothing gangster about it). It must be stressed that, white patronage of this negative portrayal of blacks provides corporate America with the economic incentive to keep producing more. It has been generally acknowledged by music scholars that there is a direct correlation between the growing mass interest and popularity of Hip Hop amongst white youth, and it’s general decline. A similar phenomenon has also occurred with the decline of Bee-Bop and Rock N Roll as both musical expressions gained popularity amongst white youth.

Hopefully, Cosby understands that the effects of this degenerative form of ‘Hip Hop’ or hip-hop (as I spell it) are two-fold. On the one hand white youth are attracted to the music because they are able experience this whimsical expression of black life vicariously as entertainment or as a pseudo, virtual, video game type of experience. They don’t directly relate to Hip Hop’s overwhelmingly black identity; therefore, they can psychologically disengage or escape this experience willfully, just like hitting the off button on the playstation. Whites in general are also more comfortable with the distorted clown, coon-type representations of black people as opposed to enduring the sight of serious artists like Immortal Technique, Jeru the Damaja or Dead Prez who offer real quantitative art that reflects positively on the negative. On the other hand, black youth simultaneously identify with hip-hop's blackness directly. They in-turn falsely interpret these same hip-hop images to be literal representations of black life. Most impressionable black youth are not mature enough to separate fact from fiction. The literal interpretation of these images in combination with the preexisting social-political-economic harshness and realities of post Slavery Amerika have contributed to making a bad situation worse. Recognize that the poverty that Grand Master Flash spoke of in his classic “The Message” record preceded “Hip Hop”.

Finally, Cosby suggests that black progressive action must take place under ordinary everyday life circumstances by ordinary people in his assertion that “the revolution is in their apartment, in their house, in their neighborhood.” Right on, but the upper class blacks must do their part as well. He has yet to capitalize on his high level of respectability and influence within the black community to equally condemn the upper class bourgeois blacks like Deborah Lee who profit from the entertainment industrial complex, which socializes, and conditions black children to become coffers of the Prison industrial complex. The complexities of which are captured beautifully in the film “Beyond Beats and Rhymes” and by Reverend Coates. Cosby will be on Oprah’s show tomorrow (10.17.07) promoting his book “Come on People” It is obvious that the book will ultimately be a self damning, introverted critique that will find blame laden within the black community, but at least Cosby is now acknowledging White Supremacy in soft terms (more so than he did before). I look forward to Cosby’s book, but I’m left to wonder who really wrote it.

On another note, be sure to check out the new, controversial documentary “What Black Men Think” and the blog. Perhaps, Microsoft can tell us what Black men think?

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The Meatrix Trilogy

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Health is undoubtedly the cornerstone of our well-being. We literally are what we eat. Correct thinking and sustained long-term revolutionary action must be accompanied and supported with a proper diet. Dr Kambon has been a Vegan for 29 years and is living testimony to the positive effects of proper eating habits. The African Hebrew Israelites of Dimona Israel have demonstrated that proper dieting can eliminate the major health ailments that plague Afrikans in America.


Start by knowing where your food comes from. The Meatrix trilogy is a good place to start educating yourself and others about the inherent dangers in the conventional meat production industry. The commodification of these animals bears the stamp of the same hand and mentality that sought the wholesale commodification & dehumanization of Afrikan people. We have been systemically socialized and desensitized to the notion that animals are living creatures with feelings & emotions. It's no mystery why the rate of elephant attacks (and I don’t mean Republicans) have increased dramatically. For those who have transgressed this level of thought, here's a delicious live food recipe for Raw Chocolate Dream Cake.

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Vicente Fox Reveals Elite Plans for One World Government

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The US public is now being conditioned (and soon coerced) into accepting the legitimacy of a one-world government. Whether intentional or not the truth is out of the bag. Until now, the one-world government scheme has been written off, untouched and overlooked by the mainstream press as an unfounded conspiracy theory without significant justification or proof. Much of the available information on the subject has been bred by those branded as ‘conspiracy nuts’* and leftist radicals. The issue has now turned itself over and elevated to become a ‘revealed truth’ through the mouth of the former president of Mexico, Vicente Fox, a petty-elite politician, who apparently finds strength and comfort in merging the inherent perceived weaknesses of his nation with the perceived strengths of the US and Canada. One of Vicente’s most significant moments as Mexican president was when he publicly stated, Mexican immigrants in America are taking the jobs that “Blacks don’t even want to do”.

In his recent interview on CNN’s Larry King Live, Vicente Fox revealed immediate plans for the merger of America, Canada and Mexico under the banner of a collective governing body referred to as the “North American Union”. He also admitted to discussions with American President G. W. Bush on the conspired goals of a long-term plan to bring all the America’s under one union, with a common currency. Fox presented the case for this first stage of a tri-lateral American government under the false pretense of a socio-political-economic imperative to better compete with emerging European and Eastern Power blocks. It appears that Vicente may even genuinely believe this, but whether he truly does or not is irrelevant. What matters is that he is a legitimate ‘third world’ corporate capitalist chartered to do the high stakes bidding of the ruling class elite and has exclusive access and contact with that class. His contacts and his role in administering these measures make him a legitimate and rare source of credibility worth listening to.

The merger of nations that Fox has alluded to is part and process to the next stage of global, regional nation consolidation as a necessary step toward the realization of a one world government. The European block has already been formed, the United Arab Emirates has been formed, the North American Union is high priority, the consolidation of Africa toward a continental One world government is already underway, the Latin Caribbean block and the Asian block currently referred to as ASEAN are also currently in transition. Although, the US functions as a de-facto Israeli colony there have been no indications that Israel is an official party to any of these collective blocks. Nonetheless, once, this stage of regional consolidation is completed the next logical stage will be to further consolidate the large regional blocks into a single one world governing body.

The global dimensions and reach of the White Supremacy ideology has made it possible for all
this to occur. White Supremacy has ruthlessly forced a capitalist structure around the world, and was designed to weaken and strangle the inherent economies, traditions and cultures of
each non-European regional inhabitant. White supremacy then functions to commodify and integrate the surviving entity into a productive and efficient mechanism to further the growth of modern global capitalism. Long standing healthy, thriving, cultures that genuinely sought the higher cultivation of the human spirit as it’s goal were decimated and supplanted with an alien European ideology as a universal standard.

The ultimate goal of the One World Government is to seek the supreme evolution of modern capitalism. It is literally the pursuit of unchallenged, unrivaled, global, hegemonic, dominance and control over all people, things and production. The ruling class elite seeks to usurp the role of GOD here on earth and abroad. If unchallenged, the colonization that once sought dominion over nations will evolve to colonize the individual directly. The protectionism offered by the traditional nation state (which is ironically a euro-capitalist construct) under capitalism will erode towards a system of rogue individualism. The historical evolution and theory of modern capitalism was started with the advent of the Afrikan slave trade and in turn seeks to continue and pursue advanced methods of human exploitation (which began long before the Afrikan slave trade). The wholesale exploitation of human capitol has proven to be the most efficient source of production within the white supremacist construct. Human exploitation is the most relied upon, long standing production tool in the history of European civilization.

*In some cases these so called ‘conspiracy nuts’ have advanced, ridiculous, far-reaching claims, and theories that stretch the truth. Overall, these false claims have harmed the credibility of the conspiracy academics as a whole. David Icke ranks high in this regard. At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy nut, I will say that often times agitators or working agents are given the means and opportunity through publicity, books, movies, etc. to harm the perception of the genuine conspiracy scholars. This shouldn't be hard to believe for those familiar with the basic modus operandi of Cointelpro.

Brother Okra

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Megan Williams Interview

Read the Megan Williams NOI interview wherein she provides her own description of the terrorist acts carried out against her. Her ordeal is cause for a common sense, practical, call of action for the black community to learn self defense, at a minimum. Europeans are alarmed by the large volume of people that rallied to the support of the JENA 6 in Louisiana. It's only a matter of time before their fears materialize into more serious acts of assault and mayhem against us.

Let’s organize gun rallies and hold gun ownership drives to force the issue of self-protection and self-defense. Educate and enroll all your loved ones (including yourself) in a martial arts class to learn how to defend yourself with and (most importantly) without weapons. As historical victims of white hate tirades it behooves me that black education has never emphasized or placed any focus on self-defense. Self Defense should be a strict imperative and top priority of Black Education.

This is not extremism. Extremism is when you walk around defenseless and vulnerable to the senseless attacks of those who continually demonstrate their contempt for your being. The great Robert Williams was largely ostracized from the black community by and large and certainly amongst the black elite for promoting the ideology of black self-justice. However, when many of those same blacks became victims of the KKK’s attacks they knew that Robert Williams was the safest person to turn to for safe refuge. We should also be mindful that Robert Williams is largely responsible for stopping the KKK night raids, not the police or the justice system. Read his critical works.

Get P2P While It's Free

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The war against information gathering/sharing is mounting. Gather as much information as you can while you still can. This techni-babble explains the latest assault on information. Go to a bit-torrent download site and get yours. Please read the download agreement on the site prior to downloading any file (wink, wink!). Beware of the entertainment police.

The Age of Aquarius is dawning!!! Prepare yourself by staying in-formed.

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The P is Not Free

P is having a bad month. First he's punched by Saigon and now this. Hopefully prison will offer him the opportunity to clear his mind and revolutionize his music like Immortal Technique did.

Rapper admits guilt

Rapper Prodigy pleaded guilty to criminal possession of a loaded gun Tuesday in a deal that will put him behind bars for the next 3-1/2 years.

The 32-year-old Queens native interrupted his trial in Manhattan Supreme Court to admit to owning the unlicensed .22-caliber pistol found in an armrest of his bulletproofed Chevy Suburban last October in Chelsea.

Prodigy was busted on the gun charge after cops stopped him for making an illegal U-turn on Ninth Ave.

Barbara Ross

Hate-on Haters

In the Katt Williams comedy special ‘The Pimp Chronicles’ Katt views the assailment of his “Haters” as a sign of endearment and praise. He is flattered by being the subject of ‘haterism’ and lambastes his critics by inviting them to “feel free to hate on me”. Katt is encouraged and fueled by this form of contempt because he correctly interprets this as a bi-product of success. The more haters you have, the more successful you are. In other words, the degree of haterism is in turn a barometer of one’s achievements and accomplishments.

Often times true hate (in literal terms), is manifested for the same reason. Those who hate, ironically function as a type of gauge that provides us with an indication of how effective our actions are in dismantling and disrupting the process of White Supremacy. Hence, anything and anyone that is targeted by racists should be of interest and studied for their effectiveness. This noose incident at Columbia U is the latest opportunity to seek answers. Who is Dr. Madonna Constantine? I now want to hear what this professor has to say that has my enemy so alarmed. Moreover, this is an exclusive Ivy League school therefore, the perpetrator was likely highly educated, and fully understood the full significance of the act. There is no way that the media can play this down as a rogue occurence in some uncultured, remote town, like they did Jena.

I must admit that I’m a little disappointed that Manning Marable was not the target of this spectacle. I know that he is busy working on a more complete biography of Malcolm’s life that allegedly links the FBI and the CIA to his assassination.

The Myth of the Mestizaje

Read my earlier post on 'Brazil in Black and White'. This article reiterates my point about how the mulatto factor (the myth of the mestizaje) is used to cancel African dissent, even in developing countries with non-white majorities.

Moreover, self-preservation is the first law of nature. We often assume that he who rises up to conquer a shared oppressor will reach down in his own victory to promote the status of the downtrodden masses. We must learn that freedom is the exclusive right of those who earn it. Even the radical priorities of Chavez’s Bolivarian politics are shaped within the confines of a White Supremacist value system. This is not cause to write Chavez off, I'm just stressing the limits to which others will operate to advance our own best interests. Read on:

Is There a "Black Vote" in Venezuela?

December 4th 2006, by Vinod Sreeharsha – Slate

SAN JOSÉ DE BARLOVENTO, Venezuela—Luis Perdomo, a black Barlovento resident, was denied entry to a Nelson Mandela birthday commemoration last year. Seeing his complexion, a "revolutionary" government official assumed he was a bike messenger and turned him away.

Perdomo had been an invited speaker. He eventually gave his speech, during which he also recounted this humiliating incident. But afterward, Venezuela's state TV network refused to interview him, though they spoke to the other presenters, upset that he dared to criticize the government at an event it had organized.

Harry Belafonte or Danny Glover would have fared much better. Glover was part of a TransAfrica Forum delegation that visited Venezuela earlier in President Hugo Chávez's second term. So enamored was el comandante that he wanted to form a Venezuelan branch. Perdomo, one of Glover's hosts, responded, "No. We are already here."

Barlovento is home to one of the largest concentrations of black Venezuelans in the country, and it is a center of the growing Afro-Venezuelan movement. But leaders here say that their struggle for increased visibility is too often a lonely one, even though the government claims to represent the world's downtrodden.

The Venezuelan divide is often described as the white elite versus the dark-skinned masses. Like most things Chávez says, there is some truth to this. But the black vote in Venezuela shows the enormous gap between the romanticized version of the "Bolivarian Revolution," Chávez's political program for Venezuela, and the real thing. It also explains why the opposition is having a difficult time winning over frustrated chavistas—even Perdomo is voting for Chávez.

Race is virtually never discussed among Venezuelans. Most subscribe to the myth of the mestizaje—that everyone is a mix and thus treated equally. As evidence that race is not an issue, Venezuelans point to their custom of addressing dark-skinned friends as "negro," seemingly oblivious to the irony. El Imperio, Chávez's nickname for the United States, cannot impose political correctness here, they boast.

It certainly cannot in the campaign of Manuel Rosales, Chávez's main challenger in the Dec. 3 presidential election. His signature proposal, "Mi Negra," a prepaid debit card for poor Venezuelans, means "My Black Lady." His supporters say that those who are squeamish about this nomenclature don't understand Venezuelan warmth. But Perdomo calls Mi Negra "offensive" and asks, "Why doesn't Rosales have a card called Mi Blanca?"

Perdomo is one of approximately 8 million Afro-Venezuelans, 30 percent of the country's population, says Jesus "Chucho" García, founder of the Afro-Venezuelan Network. There is no way to pin down the number more precisely, since the Venezuelan government does not ask questions about race in its census, despite years of lobbying from García.

How black Venezuelans figure in the Bolivarian Revolution remains unclear. On slavery, Chavez's hero Simón Bolivar took a position that was "ambiguous at best," says Venezuelan historian Elias Pino Iturrieta. Freedom was conditional on slaves serving in his army, and slavery was not abolished in Venezuela until more than 20 years after Bolivar died. Another Chávez idol, Fidel Castro, "took 40 years to acknowledge racism was an issue in Cuba," says García, who has studied the country.

During landmark constitutional reform in Venezuela in 1999, which García hailed for adding indigenous peoples' rights for the first time, blacks were excluded. The Chávez government has been perpetuating the myth of the mestizaje.

Most troubling to Barloventeños is the prevalence of endoracismo, the rejection of one's heritage. Marisela Álfaro says that her 13-year-old daughter already talks about marrying a white guy in order to "mejorar la raza," or "improve the race," a phrase commonly used in black families here. Such lack of self-esteem results from deeply engrained prejudice in wider Venezuelan society. The government as well as private companies routinely request photos in job-application packages. On Globovision, the country's main 24-hour news network, which essentially represents opposition to Chávez, guests have repeatedly referred to the president, who is of mixed indigenous and black origin, as a "monkey."

This is partly why many Afro-Venezuelans have not yet abandoned President Chávez: They empathize with him. They also point to some recent progress. The Ministry of Education has started to promote Afro-Venezuelan culture in schools, and a presidential commission on racism has been formed.

The economic message of Rosales' Mi Negra program also riles them. The opposition has long misunderstood that Chávez supporters prefer work or educational opportunities over freebies. Mervin Rodríguez, a Venezuelan political analyst, says, "Mi Negra is promoting a stereotype that many people in the barrios do not like."

Still, the economy is also President Chavez's Achilles' heel with Afro-Venezuelans. Many live in rural parts of Venezuela and work in agriculture, the long-neglected stepchild to the oil industry. Chávez's land-reform initiative, an attempt to redistribute large estates to the landless, was important in principle for Afro-Venezuelans. It was also supposed to promote local agricultural development and "food sovereignty," but in the last year alone, agricultural imports have grown by 31 percent, according to government figures.

Barlovento, which is mostly rural, produces world-class chocolate, but the government has done little to cultivate the industry. The administration opened a chocolate-processing factory in the middle of the election campaign, but it came two years later than promised.

García shrugs. He'll probably still vote for Chávez on Sunday but says, "I have never said that I was a chavista. If things don't improve in the next three months, this country will have a lot of problems."

Source:Slate

Even the mosquitoes are snitching!

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Where are my Afrikan engineers and Afrikan futurists?

Take note: "Cyborg insects with embedded microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) will run remotely controlled reconnaissance missions for the military" , "Scientists are making progress on neural devices that can translate the thoughts of a paralyzed person into driving action for a prosthetic device" and "A novel machine that makes nanostructured fibers could be the key to a new generation of military uniforms that take on active functions such as generating and storing energy."

I.S.E.P.M.

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Top Ten Forecasts for 2008

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"For the element that can use its intelligence to look ahead is by nature ruler and by nature master, while that which has the bodily strength to do the actual work is by nature a slave, one of those who are ruled."

Aristotle, 'The Politics'

Neely Fuller once promulgated the notion that Afrikan people do not set long term objectives and or goals in relation to their white counterparts. To paraphrase, he stated that the average European thinks 10 years ahead compared to the average Afrikan who thinks weeks ahead. While controversial and exaggerated there is some truth in these allegations.

Some of our scholars might suggest that this is because Europeans operate on a terminal, linear construct while we operate on a balanced circular continuum. While I agree, I’ve also composed many geometric variations of the circle and often times the edges of these circular variations were facetted. These facetted circles are composed of straight lines connected in an angler series and enclosed to form a circle. I propose the facetted circle as the model for structured long term behavior and goals of Afrikan people.

Nonetheless, here is a listing of the top ten forecasts for 2008, courtesy of Futurist Magazine.

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Zimbabwe President Mugabe rips 'hypocrite' Bush, condemns U.S., British Foreign Policy toward his African nation

Watch Mugabe's UN Speech.

I suggest Stephen Gowan's critical article entitled "Zimbabwe's Lonely Fight for Justice" (see below) and the May 2007 issue of 'New Afrikan' magazine (an issue devoted entirely to the situation in Zimbabwe) for background info.

Obi Egbuna of the Pan-African Liberation Organization also provided some good background information on the 03.26.07 episode of Jazz & Justice. Download the two part show.

Part 1

Part 2

March 30, 2007

Zimbabwe's Lonely Fight for Justice

By Stephen Gowans

Ever since veterans of the guerrilla war against apartheid Rhodesia violently seized white-owned farms in Zimbabwe, the country's president, Robert Mugabe, has been demonized by politicians, human rights organizations and the media in the West. His crimes, according to right-wing sources, are

numerous: human rights abuses, election rigging, repression of political opponents, corruption, and mismanagement of the economy. Leftist detractors say Mugabe talks left and walks right, and that his anti-imperialist rhetoric is pure demagogy.

I'm going to argue that the basis for Mugabe's demonization is the desire of Western powers to change the economic and land redistribution policies Mugabe's government has pursued; that his lapses from liberal democratic rectitude are, in themselves, of little moment to decision makers in Washington and London; and that the ultimate aim of regime change is to replace Mugabe with someone who can be counted on to reliably look after Western interests, and particularly British investments, in Zimbabwe.

I am also going to argue that the Zanu-PF government's abridgment of formal liberties (including freedom of assembly and freedom to travel outside the
country) are warranted restraints, justified by the need to protect the political program of the elected government from hostile outside interference. In making this argument I am challenging a widely held, and often unexamined, view that civil and political liberties are senior to all other liberties, including rights related to economic sovereignty and freedom from oppression and exploitation.

Before 1980 Zimbabwe was a white-supremacist British colony named after the British financier Cecil Rhodes, whose company, the British South Africa Company, stole the land from the indigenous Matabele and Mashona people in the 1890s. British soldiers, who laid claim to the land by force of arms on behalf of Rhodes, were each rewarded with nine square miles of territory.

The Matabele and Mashona -- those who weren't killed in the British land grab -- were rewarded with dispossession, grinding poverty, misery and subjugation. By the turn of this century, in a country of 13 million, almost 70 percent of the country's arable agricultural land was owned by some 4,500 mostly white farmers, many descendant from the original British settlers.

After a long campaign for national liberation, independence talks were held in 1979. Talks almost broke down over the land question, but Washington and London, eager for a settlement, agreed to ante up and provide financial support for a comprehensive land reform program. This, however, was to be short-lived. Britain found a way to wriggle out of its commitment, blocking the march toward the national liberation struggle's principal goal.

George Shire's grandfather Mhepo Mavakire used to farm land in Zimbabwe, before it was handed to a white man after the Second World War. Shire argues that "The unequal distribution of land in Zimbabwe was one of the major factors that inspired the rural-based liberation war against white rule and has been a source of continual popular agitation ever since." (1)

"The government," says Shire, "struggled to find a consensual way to transfer land," but with inadequate funds and insufficient assistance from London, land reform made little headway. (2) Frustrated, and under pressure from war veterans who had grown tired of waiting for the land reform they'd fought for, Mugabe embarked on a course that would lead him headlong into collision with Western governments. He passed legislation enabling the government to seize nearly 1,500 farms owned by white Zimbabweans, without compensation. As Zimbabwe's Foreign Affairs Minister from 1995 to 2005, Stan Mudenge put it, at that point "all hell broke loose." (3) Having held free and fair elections on time, and having won them, Mugabe now became an international pariah. Overnight, he was transformed into a dictator, a stealer of elections and a thug.

Displeased with Mugabe's fast track land reform program and irritated by other economic policies the Mugabe government was pursuing, the EU concluded that Mugabe would have to go, and that he would have to be forced out by civil society, the union movement or NGO's, uprisings in the street, or a military coup. On 24 January, 1999, a meeting was convened at the Royal Institute of International Affairs to discuss the EU's conclusion. The theme of the meeting, led by Richard Dowden, now the executive director of the pro-imperialist Royal African Society, was "Zimbabwe - Time for Mugabe to Go?" Mugabe's "confiscating" of white-held land compelled an unequivocal yes to the conference's rhetorical question. Dowden presented four options:

1) a military coup;

2) buying the opposition;

3) insurrection;

4) subverting Mugabe's ZANU-PF party.

A few months later, Washington weighed in. The US State Department held a seminar to discuss a strategy for dealing with the "Zimbabwe crisis." Civil society and the opposition would be strengthened to foment discontent and dissent. The opposition would be brought together under a single banner to enhance its chances of success at the polls and funding would be funnelled to the opposition through Western backed NGO's. Dissident groups could be strengthened and encouraged to take to the streets. (4)

The Milosevic Treatment

The program the US State Department prescribed to rid Zimbabwe of Mugabe and his land reform politics had been used successfully to oust Yugoslavia's president Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. The basis of the program is to pressure the civilian population through a program of bombing, sanctions or military threat, in order to galvanize the population to rise up against its government, the proximal cause of its discomfort. (In Zimbabwe, the hoped for response is: If only Mugabe hadn't antagonized the West, we wouldn't be under this pressure.) This was illustrated by US Air Force General, Michael Short, who explained the purpose of the NATO's 1999 bombing campaign against Yugoslavia was to create disaffection with Milosevic. "If you wake up in the morning," explained Short, "and you have no power to your house and no gas to your stove and the bridge you take to work is down and will be lying in the Danube for the next 20 years, I think you begin to ask, 'Hey, Slobo, what's this all about? How much more of this do we have to withstand?'" (5)

Paired with outside pressure is the enlistment of a political opposition and grassroots movement to discipline and organize the population's disaffection so that it's channelled in the direction of forcing the government to step down. Western powers create the pain, and inject a fifth column of "democracy" activists and a "democratic" opposition to offer the removal of the current government as the cure. In the end, the people administer the cure themselves. Because the Milosevic treatment is typically deployed against the leaders of revolutionary societies (though the revolution may have happened some time ago), the opposition can be thought of as a counter-revolutionary vanguard. The vanguard has two components: a formal political opposition, whose job it is to contest elections and cry foul when it doesn't win, and an underground grassroots movement, mandated to carry out extra-parliamentary agitation and to take to the streets in planned "spontaneous" uprisings, using allegations of electoral fraud as a pretext for pursuing insurrectionary politics.

In Yugoslavia, the underground movement, known as Otpor, was established, funded, trained and organized by the US State Department, USAID, the US Congress-funded National Endowment for Democracy (which is said to do overtly what the CIA used to do covertly) and through various NGO's like Freedom House, whose board of directors has included a rogues' gallery of US ruling class activists: Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Otto Reich, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Steve Forbes.

Otpor has been the inspiration for similar groups elsewhere: Zubr in Belarus, Khmara in Georgia, Pora in the Ukraine. Otpor's Zimbabwean progeny include Zvakwana, "an underground movement that aims to .. undermine" the Mugabe government and Sokwanele, whose "members specialize in anonymous acts of civil disobedience." (6) Both groups receive generous financing from Western sources. (7) While the original, Otpor, was largely a youth-oriented anarchist-leaning movement, at least one member of Sokwanele is "A conservative white businessman expressing a passion for freedom, tradition, polite manners and the British Royals." (8)

Members of Zvakwana say their movement is homegrown and free of foreign control. (9) It may be homegrown, and its operatives may sincerely believe they chart their own course, but the group is almost certainly not free of foreign funding. The US Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act, signed into law by US President George W. Bush in December 2001, empowers the president under the US Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to "support democratic institutions, the free press and independent media" in Zimbabwe. It's doubtful Zvakwana has not been showered with Washington's largesse.

Zvakwana's denial that it's under foreign control doesn't amount to a denial of foreign funding. Movements, political parties and media elsewhere have knowingly accepted funding from Western governments, their agencies and pro-imperialist foundations, while proclaiming their complete independence.

(10) Members of these groups may genuinely believe they remain aloof from their backer's aims (and in the West it is often the very groups that claim not to take sides that are the favored recipients of this lucre), but self-deception is an insidious thing - and the promise of oodles of cash is hard to resist.

There's no doubt Zvakwana is well-financed. It distributes flashy stickers, condoms bearing the movement's Z logo, phone cards, audiotapes and packages of seeds bearing anti-Mugabe messages, en masse. These things don't come cheap. What's more, its operatives study "videotapes on resistance movements in Poland, Chile, India and Serbia, as well as studying civil rights tactics used in Nashville." (11) This betrays a level of funding and organization that goes well beyond what the meager self-financing of true grassroots movements -- even in the far more affluent West - are able to scrape together.

If Zvakwana denies its links to the US, other elements of the Western-backed anti-Mugabe apparatus are less secretive. Studio 7, an anti-ZANU-PF radio program carries programming by the Voice of America, an agency whose existence can hardly be said to be independent of promoting the aims of US capital around the world. The radio station SW Radio Africa, the self-styled "independent voice of Zimbabwe," broadcasts from the UK by short-wave radio.

It may call itself independent, but the broadcaster is as independent as the British Foreign Office is, which, one suspects, is one of the principal backers of the "international pro-democracy groups" that fill the station's coffers with the cash that allow it to operate. (12) The radio station's website evinces a fondness for British Prime Minister Tony Blair's take on Zimbabwe, which happens to be more or less equivalent to that of the formal political opposition in Zimbabwe, which also happens to be more or less equivalent to that of foreign investors, banks, and shareholders. That the station operates out of studios in London -- and it seems, if it had its druthers, would not only put an end to Harare's crackdown on foreign meddling in Zimbabwe's internal affairs, but see to it that policies friendly to the rent, profits and interest of foreign owners and investors were allowed to flourish -- should leave little doubt as to who's behind the "international pro-democracy groups" that have put SW Radio Africa on the air.

In late March 2007, Robert from SW Radio Africa contacted me by e-mail to find out if I had been hired by the Mugabe government to write an article that appeared on the Counterpunch website, titled What's Really Going On in Zimbabwe? (13)

Stephen,

Do you promise (cross your heart) that you received no money from Zimbabwe's Ministry of Information (or any group acting on their behalf) to write this piece?

The rhetoric does sound awfully familiar.

Richard

Richard,

From your e-mail address I take it you work for UK-based SW Radio Africa, which broadcasts Studio 7, the Zimbabwe program of the Voice of America, funded by the US government.

I don't receive money, support, assistance -- not even foot massages -- from anyone in Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwean government or any of its agents or representatives.

Now, do you promise (cross your heart) that you receive no money from the US or British governments or from the US Ministry of Truth, viz., the Voice of America, (or any group acting on their behalf)?

Your rhetoric sounds awfully familiar.

Steve

Robert replied with assurances that "We are, in truth, totally independent, sponsored by a variety of groups that support democracy and freedom of expression," but didn't explain how Radio SW Africa could be "totally independent" and at the same time dependent on its sponsors. When I asked who the station's sponsors were, he declined to tell me.

An equally important component of the counter-revolutionary vanguard is the formal political opposition. This to be comprised of a single party which unites all the opposition parties under a single banner, to maximize the strength of the formal political forces arrayed against the government, and therefore to increase the probability of the anti-government forces making a respectable showing at the polls. The united opposition is to have one goal:

deposing the government. In order that it is invested with moral gravitas, its name must emphasize the word "democracy." In Serbia, the anti-Milosevic opposition united under the banner, the Democratic Opposition of Serbia. In Zimbabwe, the opposition calls itself the Movement for Democratic Change.

This serves the additional function of calling the government's commitment to democracy into question. If the opposition is "the democratic opposition"

then what must the government be? The answer, of course, is undemocratic.

Integral to the Milosevic treatment is accusing the government of electoral fraud to justify a transition from electoral to insurrectionary politics.

The accusations build and build as the day of the vote approaches, until, by sheer repetition, they are accepted as a matter of indisputable truth. This has a heads I win, tails you lose character. If the opposition loses the election, the vote is confirmed to be illegitimate, as all the pre-election warnings predicted it would be, unleashing a torrent of people onto the streets to demand the government step down. If the opposition wins the election, the accusations are forgotten.

The US, the European Union and international human rights organizations denounced the last election in Zimbabwe as tilted in favour of the governing party. The evidence for this was that the state controls the state-owned media, the military, the police and the electoral mechanisms. Since the state of every country controls the military, the police and the electoral mechanisms, and the state-owned media if it has one, this implies elections in all countries are titled in favour of the governing party, a manifestly absurd point of view.

So far the Milosevic treatment has failed to achieve its desired end in Zimbabwe. One of the reasons why is that the formal political opposition has failed to execute the plan to a tee. The lapse centers around what is know as Plan B. The Los Angeles Times describes Plan B this way: "Insiders are asking what happened to the opposition's 'Plan B' that they had designed to put into operation the day after the March (2005) elections. The plan called for (the MDC leader, Morgan) Tsvangirai to claim a confident victory, with masses of his jubilant supporters flooding the streets for a spontaneous victory party -- banking on the idea that with observers from neighbouring African countries and the international media present, Mugabe's security forces would hesitate to unleash violence." (14) (Note the reference to the planned "spontaneous" victory party.) That Plan B wasn't executed may be the reason Tsvangirai is no longer in control of a unified MDC, and is vying with Arthur Mutambara, an Oxford educated robotics engineer who worked as a management consultant, to lead the opposition.

Countering the Milosevic Treatment

The problem, from the perspective of the US State Department planners who formulated the Milosevic treatment, is that if you do it too often, the next victim becomes wise to what you're up to, and can manoeuvre to stop it. With successes in Yugoslavia, Georgia and Ukraine, but failure so far in Belarus, the element of surprise is lost, and the blatancy of what the US government is up to becomes counter-productive. So obvious has the Milosevic treatment become, US government officials now express surprise when the leaders they've targeted for regime change put up with it. (15)

Mugabe, however, hasn't put up with it, and has imposed a number of restrictions on civil liberties to thwart destabilization efforts. One measure is to ban NGOs that act as instruments of US or British foreign policy. NGOs that want to operate in Zimbabwe cannot receive foreign funding and must disclose their sources of financial support. This stops Washington and Britain from working within the country, through proxy, to meddle in the country's internal affairs. For the same reason, legislation was put forward in Russia in 2005 to require the 450,000 NGOs operating there to re-register with the state, to prevent foreign-funded political activity. The legislation's sponsors characterized "internationally financed NGOs as a 'fifth column' doing the bidding of foreigners." (16)

In a similar vein, foreign journalists whose reporting appears to be motivated by the goal of promoting the foreign policy objectives of hostile nations, like the US and UK, are banned. CNN reporters are prohibited from reporting from Zimbabwe because the government regards them, with justification, as a tool of US foreign policy. What reasonable person of an unprejudiced mind would dispute CNN's chauvinism? Given that one of the objects of US foreign policy is to intervene in Zimbabwe's affairs to change the government, the ban is a warranted restraint on press freedom.

Limitations on press freedom are not unique to Zimbabwe, although those imposed by Mugabe are a good deal more justifiable than those imposed by the West. In the wake of the March 2006 re-election of Belarus president Aleksandr Lukashenko, the US planned to sanction 14 Belarus journalists it labelled "key figures in the propaganda, distortion of facts and attacks on the democracies (i.e., the US and Britain) and their representatives in Belarus." (17) In 1999, NATO bombed the Serb Radio-TV building, because it said Serb Radio-TV was broadcasting propaganda.

Laws "sharply curbing freedoms of the press and public assembly, citing national security" were enacted during the 2002 elections. (18) Mugabe justified the restrictions as necessary to counter Western plans to re-impose domination of Zimbabwe. "They want our gold, our platinum, our land," he argues. "These are ours forever. I will stand and fight for our rights of sovereignty. We fought for our country to be free. These resources will remain ours forever. Let this be understood to those in London." (19)

Mugabe's warning about the danger of re-colonization "underpins the crackdown on the nation's most formidable independent forces, pro-democracy groups and the Movement for Democratic Change, both of which have broad Western support, and, often, financing," as the New York Times put it. (20) (Note the reference to the opposition being independent even though it's dependent on broad Western support and financing.)

This "fortress-Zimbabwe strategy has been strikingly effective. According to a poll of 1,200 Zimbabweans published in August (2004) by South African and American researchers, the level of public trust in Mr. Mugabe's leadership has more than doubled since 1999, to 46 percent - even as the economy has fallen into ruin.and anger over economic and living conditions is pervasive." (21)

Mugabe, his detractors allege, secures his support by focusing the public's anger on outside forces to keep the public from focusing its anger on him (the same argument the US government and anti-Castro forces have been making about Castro for years.) If this is true, the groundswell of opposition to Mugabe's government that we're led to believe threatens to topple Mugabe from power any moment, doesn't exist; it's directed at outside forces.

Consistent with this is the reality that the US-based Save Zimbabwe Campaign "does not.have widespread grassroots support." (22)

Implicit in the argument that Mugabe uses anti-imperialist rhetoric to stay in power is the view that (a) outside forces aren't responsible for the country's deep economic crisis and that (b) Mugabe is. This is the view of US ambassador to Zimbabwe Christopher Dell, and many of Mugabe's leftist detractors. "Neither drought nor sanctions are at the root of Zimbabwe's decline. The Zimbabwe government's own gross mismanagement of the economy and corrupt rule has brought on the crisis." (23)

Yet, in a country whose economy is mainly based on agriculture, the idea that drought hasn't caused serious economic trouble, is absurd. Drought is a regional phenomenon, whittling away at populations in Mali, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mauritania, Eritrea, southern Sudan and Zimbabwe. Land redistribution hasn't destroyed agriculture in Zimbabwe; it has destroyed white commercial, cash-crop farming, which is centred on the production of tobacco for export.

Equally absurd is the notion that sanctions are economically neutral.

Sanctions imposed by the US, EU and other countries deny Zimbabwe international economic and humanitarian assistance and disrupt trade and investment flows. Surgical or targeted sanctions are like surgical or targeted bombing: not as surgical as their champions allege and the cause of a good deal of collateral damage and suffering.

Left critics of Mugabe ape the argument of the US ambassador, adding that Mugabe's anti-imperialist and leftist rhetoric is, in truth, insincere. He is actually right-wing and reactionary -- a master at talking left while walking right. (24) But if Mugabe is really the crypto-reactionary, secret pro-imperialist some people say he is, why are the openly reactionary, pro-imperialists in Washington and London so agitated?

Finally, if Mugabe uses outside interference as an excuse to keep tight control, why not stop interfering and deny him the excuse?

Mugabe's government also denies passports to any person believed to be travelling abroad to campaign for sanctions against Zimbabwe, or military intervention in Zimbabwe. The justification for this is the opposition's fondness for inviting its backers in Washington and London to ratchet up punitive measures against the country.

No country has ever provided unqualified public advocacy rights, rights of association, and freedom of travel, for all people, at all times. Always there has been the idea of warranted restraint. And the conditions under which warranted restraint have been imposed are conditions in which the state is threatened. There's no question the ZANU-PF government, and the movement for national liberation it champions, is under threat.

Archbishop Pius Ncube tells a gathering that "we must be ready to stand, even in front of blazing guns, that "this dictatorship must be brought down right now, and that "if we can get 30,000 people together Mugabe will just come down. I am ready to lead it." (25) Arthur Mutambara boasts that he is "going to remove Robert Mugabe, I promise you, with every tool at my disposal" and that he's not "going to rule out or in anything - the sky's the limit." (26) If I declared an intention to remove Tony Blair with every tool at my disposal, that no tool was ruled out, and I did so with the backing of hostile foreign powers, it wouldn't be long before the police paid me a visit.

Why the West wants Mugabe gone

It's not Mugabe per se that Washington and London and white commercial farmers in Zimbabwe want to overthrow. It's his policies they want to be rid of, and they want to replace his policies with their own, very different, policies. There are at least five reasons why Washington and London want to oust Mugabe, none of which have anything to do with human rights.

The first reason to chase Mugabe from power is that in the late 90's his government abandoned IMF-mandated structural adjustment programs - programs of bleeding people dry to pay interest on international debt. These are policies of currency devaluation, severe social program cuts - anything to free up money to pay down debt, no matter what the human consequences.

The second is that Mugabe sent troops to the Democratic Republic of Congo to bolster the Kabila government. This interfered with Western designs in the region.

The third is that many of Mugabe's economic policies are not congenial to the current neo-liberal orthodoxy. For example, Mugabe recently announced the nationalization of a diamond mine, which seems to be, in the current climate, an anachronism. If you nationalize anything these days, you're called radical and out of date. The MDC - which promotes the neo-liberal tyranny -- wants to privatize everything. It is for this reason that Mugabe talks about the opposition wanting to sell off Zimbabwe's resources. The state continues to operate state-owned enterprises. And the government imposes performance requirements on foreign investors. For example, you may be required to invest part of your profits in government bonds. Or you may be required to take on a local partner. Foreign investors, or governments that represent them, bristle at these conditions.

The fourth is that British companies dominate the Zimbabwean economy and the British government would like to protect the investments of British banks, investors and corporations. If you read the British press you'll find a fixation on Zimbabwe, one you won't find elsewhere. Why does Britain take such a keen interest in the internal affairs of Zimbabwe? The usual answer is that Britain has an especial interest in Zimbabwe because it is the country's former colonial master, but why should Britain's former colonial domination of Zimbabwe heighten its interest in the country? The answer is that colonization paved the way for an economic domination of the country by British corporations, investors and banks - and the domination carries on as a legacy of Britain's former colonial rule. If you're part of the British ruling class or one of its representatives, what you want in a country in which you have enormous investments is a trustworthy local ruler who will look after them. Mutambara, who was educated in Britain and lived there, and has absorbed the imperialist point of view, is, from the perspective of the British ruling class, far more attractive than Mugabe as a steward of its interests.

Finally, Western powers would like to see Mugabe replaced by a trustworthy steward who will abandon the fast track land reform program, which apart from violating sacrosanct principles of the capitalist church, if allowed to thrive, becomes a model to inspire the indigenous rural populations of neighbouring countries. Governments in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand also look askance at Mugabe's land reform policy, and wish to see it overturned, for fear it will inspire their own aboriginal populations.

Mugabe's government accelerated its land redistribution program in the late 90s, breaking with the completely unworkable, willing buyer, willing seller policy that only allowed the government to redistribute the country's arable land after the descendants of the former colonial settlers, absentee landlords and some members of the British House of Lords were done using it, and therefore willing to sell. Britain, which had pledged financial assistance to its former colony to help buy the land, reneged, leaving Harare without the means to expropriate with compensation the vast farms dominated by the tiny minority of white descendants of British colonists.

"Zimbabwe finally abandoned the 'willing buyer, willing seller' formula in 1997. The formula was crippled from the start by parsimonious British funding, and it was a clear that the program's modest goals were more than Great Britain was willing to countenance. In a letter to the Zimbabwean Minister of Agriculture in November of that year, British Secretary of State for International Development Clare Short wrote, 'I should make it clear that we do not accept that Britain has a special responsibility to meet the costs of land purchase in Zimbabwe.' Referring to earlier British assistance funding, Short curtly stated, 'I am told that there were discussions in 1989 and 1996 to explore the possibility of further assistance. However that is all in the past.' Short complained of 'unresolved' issues, such as 'the way in which land would be acquired and compensation paid - clearly it would not help the poor of Zimbabwe if it was done in a way which undermined investor confidence.' Short was concerned about the interests of corporate investors, then. In closing, Short wrote that 'a program of rapid land acquisition as you now seem to envisage would be impossible for us to support,' as it would damage the 'prospects for attracting investment'" (27)

It was only after Mugabe embarked on this accelerated land reform program that Washington and London initiated their campaign of regime change, pressuring Mugabe's government with sanctions, expulsion from the Commonwealth, assistance to the opposition, and the usual Manichean demonization of the target government and angelization of the Western backed opposition.

The MDC, by comparison, favours a return to the unworkable willing seller, willing buyer regimen. The policy is unworkable because Harare hasn't the money to buy the farms, Britain is no longer willing to finance the program, and even if the money were available, the owners have to agree to sell their farms before the land can be redistributed. Land reform under this program will necessarily proceed at a snail's pace. The national liberation movement always balked at the idea of having to buy land that had been stolen from the indigenous population. It's like someone stealing your car, and when you demand it back, being told you're going to have to buy it back, and only when the thief is willing to sell.

Conclusion

One thing opponents and supporters of Mugabe's government agree on is that the opposition is trying to oust the president (illegally and unconstitutionally if you acknowledge the plan isn't limited to victory at the polls.) So which came first? Attempts to overthrow Zimbabwe's ZANU-PF government, or the government's harsh crackdown on opposition?

According to the Western media spin, the answer is the government's harsh crackdown on opposition. Mugabe's government is accused of being inherently authoritarian, greedy for power for power's sake, and willing do anything - from stealing elections to cracking skulls -- to hang on to its privileged position. This is the typical slander levelled at the heads of governments the US and UK have trouble with, from Milosevic in his day, to Kim Jong Il, to Castro.

Another view is that the government's authoritarianism is an inevitable reaction to circumstances that are unfavorable to the attainment of its political (not its leaders' personal) goals. Mugabe's government came to power at the head of a movement that not only sought political independence, but aspired to reverse the historical theft of land by white settlers. That the opposition would be fierce and merciless - has been so - was inevitable.

Reaction to the opposition, if the government and its anti-colonial agenda were to survive, would need to be equally fierce and merciless.

At the core of the conflict is a clash of right against right: the right of white settlers to enjoy whatever benefits stolen land yields in profits and rent against the right of the original owners to reclaim their land. Allied to this is a broader struggle for economic independence, which sets the rights of investors and corporations abroad to profit from untrammelled access to Zimbabwe's labor, land and resources and the right of Zimbabweans to restrict access on their own terms to facilitate their own economic development.

The dichotomy of personal versus political motivation as the basis for the actions of maligned governments recurs in debates over whether this or that leader or movement ought to be supported or reviled. The personal view says that all leaders are corrupt, chase after personal glory, power and wealth, and dishonestly manipulate the people they profess to champion. The political view doesn't deny the personal view as a possibility, but holds that the behavior of leaders is constrained by political goals.

"Even George Bush who rigs elections and manipulates news in order to stay in office and who clearly enjoys being 'the War President,' wants the presidency in order to carry out a particular program with messianic fervor," points out Richard Levins. "He would never protect the environment, provide healthcare, guarantee universal free education, or separate church and state, just to stay in office." (28)

Mugabe is sometimes criticized for being pushed into accelerating land reform by a restive population impatient with the glacial pace of redistribution allowed under the Lancaster House agreement. His detractors allege, implausibly, that he has no real commitment to land reforms. This intersects with Patrick Bond's view. According to Bond, "Mugabe talks radical -- especially nationalist and anti-imperialist-(to hang on to power) but acts reactionary." He only does what's necessary to preserve his rule.

If we accept this as true, then we're saying that the behavior of the government is constrained by one of the original goals of the liberation movement (land reform) and that the personal view is irrelevant. No matter what the motivations of the government's leaders, the course the government follows is conditioned by the goals of the larger movement of national liberation.

There's no question Mugabe reacted harshly to recent provocations by factions of the MDC, or that his government was deliberately provoked. But the germane question isn't whether beating Morgan Tsvangirai over the head was too much, but whether the ban on political rallies in Harare, which the opposition deliberately violated, is justified. That depends on whose side you're on, and whether you think Tsvangirai and his associates are earnest citizens trying to freely express their views or are proxies for imperialist governments bent on establishing (restoring in Britain's case) hegemony over Zimbabwe.

There's no question either that Mugabe's government is in a precarious position. The economy is in a shambles, due in part to drought, to the disruptions caused by land reform, and to sanctions. White farmers want Mugabe gone (to slow land redistribution, or to stop it altogether), London and Washington want him gone (to ensure neo-liberal "reforms" are implemented), and it's likely that some members of his own party also want him to step down.

On top of acting to sabotage Zimbabwe economically through sanctions, London and Washington have been funnelling financial, diplomatic and organizational assistance to groups and individuals who are committed to bringing about a color revolution (i.e., extra-constitutional regime change) in Zimbabwe.

That includes Tsvangirai and the MDC factions, among others.

For the Mugabe government, the options are two-fold: Capitulate (and surrender any chance of maintaining what independence Zimbabwe has managed to secure at considerable cost) or fight back. Some people might deplore the methods used, but considering the actions and objectives of the opposition - and what's at stake - the crackdown has been both measured and necessary.

(Footnotes removed)