Sometimes despair is the only option. We have taken these last few weeks to high-fiving each other every other day as yet another once-oppressed country makes for the light of democracy. Just about the time that we all start feeling good about the ways of the world, something wicked rises to remind us that we still all have so much more work to do.
Robert Mayer writes about the disappointment of the elections in Zimbabwe:
This has been probably one of the saddest elections I’ve had to cover, because in following the struggles of democratic hopefuls against Mugabe, I have really learned that we can’t just write Africa off. In totalitarianism, there is always a critical low point where it is literally impossible for a people to fend for themselves against a government. This point is where people do not have the strength, the means, or the ability to do so. When we look at Ukraine, Lebanon, and Kyrgyzstan, we see oppressive rulers of people who were not completely deprived of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We also see men who could not forsake their nationality to commit mass murder on their countrymen simply to stay in power.
But when we look at Mugabe we see not a man, but a cold, hollow figure who deliberately denied his countrymen everything we in America hold as truth. Can we here even fully imagine what it would be like to have a government that starves us? Prevents us from working? Destroys our shelter? Holds no sanctity for our very lives?
That’s the kind of man Mugabe is. He has put Zimbabwe past the critical point where if even the entire opposition engaged in mass protest, he would have every one of them shot. Why? Because he doesn’t care as long as he is in charge. That’s why we can’t write Africa off; it isn’t the people’s fault. Their dire situation was caused by the force of ruthless dictators like Mugabe, who they have no chance of fighting back against under pain of death.
I know from our coverage how much they want out. But after the critical point has been reached, they cannot do it alone. That’s why I am so disappointed that South Africa and other neighboring countries were so keen on ratifying this obvious mockery of electoral democracy. The status quo is simply unacceptable, and because of South Africa’s failure to do anything about it, we have to again look west for the moral fortitude that tramples the carnage of island despots.
Robert is exactly right. We can all feel good about ourselves later. There is still so much work to be done.
There are, to be sure, those who will see Mugabe's fraud to be a well deserved slap to imperialism. Read, for example, this comment to Robert's post:
Yes, Mr. Mayer, you can “write Africa off”.
Let black Africans (and Haitians, or that matter) make their own life, their own culture and their own world in their own image and in the manner they see fit.
It is not a place for the white man to live, to work, to visit, to stayor or to meddle, as so many, many right-thinking Africans will tell you.
Listen to them. Listen hard. Listen to Mugabe. Stop rescuing people who do not want or need rescuing.
By this person's reasoning, The United States is not a place for "the black man" or "the asian man" to work, visit, etc. For this person, "right-thinking Africans" prefer dictatorship and murder to freedom. This is the same sort of thinking that has kept third-world countries from enjoying the same freedoms we take for granted every day.
There is little we can do about Mugabe now. But we should. The shame of the west is that we have turned our backs of Africa; often out of ignorance, racism and fear. The people of Zimbabwe, and Sudan and every other country in Africa require and deserve our help.
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