Prometheus 6   

George Bush doesn’t want you to talk about empowering the people of Africa – and neither do some African Americans. Issuing thinly veiled threats, these individuals and organizations appropriate to themselves the colors Red, Black and Green, and label as treasonous all Black criticism of their current Strong Man of choice, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.

Espousing a twisted kind of Black “solidarity” that mirrors the “patriotism” of the white Right in the U.S., these groups claim that criticism of Mugabe gives aid and comfort to American and British schemes against the national independence of Zimbabwe. Since the Americans and British are always scheming to commit crimes against Africa, the threat to Black American critics of Mugabe and other African Strong Men is meant to be a permanent injunction. Under these terms, the time will never be right for progressives in the Diaspora to make common cause with the African people, if that involves strong critiques of specific African governments.

This crude gag rule was invoked in June against signatories to an Open Letter to President Robert Mugabe – men and women who rightfully claim “strong historical ties to the liberation movements in Zimbabwe, which included material and political support, as well as opposition to U.S. government policies that supported white minority rule.” The ongoing slanders against the signatories are designed to shut down African American discourse on the subject of African development and democracy, itself. This is absolutely unacceptable.

There are stooges of imperialism among the Zimbabwean opposition to Mugabe’s rule, including at the very top of the Movement for Democratic Change. That is to be expected. Mugabe’s war against civil society in Zimbabwe has succeeded in driving broad sections of his nation into a very small social space. Within that confined and crowded space, he brands all opponents as stooges. His supporters in the U.S seek to replicate those tactics in Black America, so that they can appear to be the true defenders of African liberation. Everyone else is warned to remain silent.

When a man says “Shut up,” you defeat him by refusing to do so. The best way to counter this ugly, thuggish and politically vacuous campaign against progressive Black Americans is to speak the Truth about all the parties in Zimbabwe. Our contribution to the debate revolves around five documents, listed and linked below. We invite readers to study the documents in depth.

Strong Man rule creates weak civil societies that are, ultimately, helpless to defend the nation against imperial power. Robert Mugabe has sought to strengthen his regime by weakening Zimbabwean civil society, thus making the nation more vulnerable to American and British subversion.

Black America is not Zimbabwe. This debate will not be throttled.

The right wing of the Democratic Party is once again threatening to secede. Our fervent wish is that nobody tries to stop them.

Historically speaking, Charleston, South Carolina would have been a better locale for the Democratic Leadership Council’s secessionist-minded “National Conversation,” this week. Instead, the party’s corporate extortionists chose Philadelphia to make a stand for the American White Man, whose every idiocy must be accommodated lest the party fall into the hands of…you know who: them!

White men are terrified of them – which explains why the poor fellows get all confused and vote against their own interests every time it is imagined that they – “special interests,” Blacks, unions, and the dangerous people who call for health care, jobs, peace and justice – are about to intrude on the “national conversation.”

…That’s what the “national conversation” in Philadelphia was all about – what the despicable Evan Bayh (whose late Senator father, Birch Bayh, was a leading party liberal) means when he raises the specter of a takeover from the “far left.” The DLC is panicked over the candidacy of former Vermont Senator Howard Dean, now the top fundraiser in the primary race. But the forces they fear in the party are minorities, organized labor, women’s organizations, environmentalists and the peace movement.