EUAfrica Summit Redrawing geography values

EU/Africa Summit: Redrawing geography,

values
March 29, 2014 Nathaniel Manheru

Morgan Tsvangirai
It must be very frustrating for Morgan Tsvangirai. He summons a show-of-unity press
choreography today, Biti in glum tow. The following day you have Mangoma hyping dissent and
militantly telling the world there is no substitute for Tsvangirai’s resignation. Another day later,
you have Mudzuri weighing in, loudly to say MDC-T needs a no-holds-barred indaba
characterised by tolerance and unstinted speech. Both statements are not quite in accord with the
“We are back together again” headline of the leader’s press conference.

Quite the contrary they give sinister semantic value to Biti’s long glumness, one intermittently
broken by this what-is this-simpleton-up-to wry smile.

Squeezing an unripe abscess

And a real simpleton Tsvangirai is proving to be, including when measured by the contents of his
address. His “robust debate” postulate bears no relationship with his rally message alleging
sinister conspiracies. His claim that his party is not a movement in “turmoil” and “disintegration”
only serves to convince the bystander that not only is he in the storm of fissiparous politics; he
has also found the right adjectives for describing it, albeit through denial.

And the question we ask is whether, having realised the enormity of the problem, he has decided
to take a tactical retreat through fawned hatchet burial? Whether, to put it in local figurative
parlance, he has now realised he was trying to squeeze dry an unripe abscess? The cockpit he
makes reference to stands odd and obscene, a pretext for unleashing more autocracy while
claiming the dawn of “robust debate”. “What is important is that there has to be stability in the
cockpit and there has to be discipline in the ranks. We want everyone to fall in line.” Here is an
ultra-modern imagery for an antediluvian style of exercising authority!

A moment of epiphany?

And of course an admission of the slippery slope he seeks to clamber: “I want to acknowledge
the fact that no one is guilty until proven guilty by the right forum, so everyone is innocent.”
Really? It takes a bruised potbelly, a broken shirt front, a series of hostile, denunciatory rallies
for a real leader to realise this elementary principle of natural justice? Mangoma was never more
right, more borne out than now. But even then, Tsvangirai could not fool even himself, much as
he believed he was staging a believable act. Anger obtruded, uncapped. From nowhere he adds:
“Haikona kusvina mota risati raibva”, which roughly translated means do not squeeze an unripe
abscess; wait for it to suppurate. Who was supposed to be pelted by this loaded verbal sling?
Who? Consumer beware.

The Russian bear on prowl

Barack Obama

Comrade Putin has moved, emphatically stamping his authority in Crimea, leaving his opponents
wistfully wondering whether or not he will move into Eastern Ukraine where a pro-Russian
sentiment is brewing, boiling, even spilling over. Most probably not, but he has shown he has the
means and will to do it, in the process daring America with its nearly black president. Obama is
angry, very angry, but it is the anger of impotence.

Just devoting two lengthy addresses to attacking President Putin in Brussels is enough tribute to
his bete noire. Putin has succeeded in irking the big man of the world and what better victory
does one need after poking the lofty eye of a giant bully, throwing him into a rage? America is
processing a US$1bn aid package for Ukraine, a billion it never had. It has to shore up its pitiable
politics in Eastern Europe, now in near tatters. It is much worse. It has had to commandeer the
IMF to cough up $18bn to prop a venal oligarchy far well beyond redemption, in the process
straining the West’s means of subverting the world through a veneer of multilateralism.
Anything that stretches thin western means to destabilise, is good enough. Much worse, when he
was in Europe, Obama realised how helplessly dependent on trade with Russian troubled Europe
is, including Germany, the powerhouse economy of a sickly continent. And how far Europe is
from generating energy alternatives to what the bear provides. That sobered him up, in the
process making him realise power and alliances do have limits, as also does patience when taxed
to the limit. Thankfully, the goons in Kiev have not been as foolish as Shakesville, the mad man
of Georgia who dared the bear, earning its fangled wrath. They have behaved quiescently
limiting their response to hard words, unmatched by wooly actions. But all this is just an entry
point to my subject for the week.

President Mugabe

Shouting for Europe

The EU-Africa Summit seems in doubt. The President of Zimbabwe and his delegation are no
longer going. The Summit itself was scheduled for early days of April, the month of fools. And
Europe’s subaltern propaganda wheels here have been turning, grinding basic truth in the
process. I am talking about the shallow African press here, always dutifully ready to send or
receive blows for Europe. Joined by Cde Sikhala who thinks the best way to vindicate his return
to mainstream opposition politics is by tackling the President of Zimbabwe, however
gratuitously.
Be seen to pick a quarrel with legends, and you also grow enormously, to the stature of your
quarrelling partner! That seems to be the logic visiting this raw man of shifty, mercurial politics,
a man whose politics begin and end with the first and last letter of a village epithet respectively.
Let the truth be proclaimed here and now, so you, gentle reader, may know what really is at
stake. Africa may not go to Brussels. Or may very well be divided over Brussels. Whichever
way, the outcome will present Europe with an embarrassing deficit, endow Africa with growing
confidence as an independent actor in world affairs. For without the whole of Africa in
attendance, it shall never be the EU-Africa Summit which the EU proclaimed and envisioned,
but something smaller, something more accurately described as a parody of Africa. And France-
Africa Summit, or even lesser gatherings, might appear more successful, more representative
than the so-called EU-Africa Summit. April is the month of fools.

When AU is not Africa

But the rain did not begin to beat us in 2014. It did well much before, and this is where facts
should be presented without a skew. Firstly, Africa wanted the ill-fated Summit named the EU-
AU Summit. That was many years ago. The EU would have none of it, for just the fact of two
sub-regional organisations appearing to meet as so, conveyed some imputation of parity which
racist Europe abhorred. For over a century, the EU-Africa relations have always been founded on
asymmetry. So the Europeans insisted it had to be an EU-Africa summit, as if to suggest the EU
was meeting a market, meeting some imperfect, inchoate geography, never an equal and
equivalent political formation.

That way the stage was set for a condescending palaver, the full implication of which is just
beginning to unravel. This supercilious attitude apart, there was and is a more compelling
motive. The AU excludes Morocco, includes Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, SADR for
short. The one is a country, expansionist one at that, the other a liberation movement, the last on
the continent. And the two are locked in that familiar decolonisation fight, with larger Africa
weighing in on the side of SADR. That support to SADR got Morocco to opt out of the AU, then
OAU, way back in the early eighties. Europe views Morocco as a strategic entrepôt to the
continent, regards SADR as a liberation nuisance. When it meets with Africa, Europe wants that
meeting to include Morocco, to exclude SADR. And invoking the name of AU does not quite
achieve that, given that Morocco is not a member, and SADR is a member. This is a key
consideration in the current stand-off between Europe and Africa, and the lackey press will not
say so.

Then CAR and Egypt

Secondly, Europe does not quite find Eritrea — an African country — that handsome, and this
on various grounds. Apart from its unlikeable Isiahas Afeworki, the EU thinks Eritrea arms
insurgency in Somalia. Besides, Eritrea has had periodic run-ins with Ethiopia, EU’s darling. But
Eritrea is part of Africa, a full member of the AU. Framing the summit as pitting the EU against
the AU would force Europe to sit eye to eye with the reviled Aferworki and his Eritrea. Another
point, the AU has its own mores and parameters for sanctioning all those of its members who
will have transgressed those mores or values. AU no longer recognises power grabs. It has taken
a very strong stance against tribal and regional pogroms, genocides if you will. It’s sanctions
include suspensions and outright expulsions.

To date a good number of countries are under suspension, CAR and Egypt included. Europe does
not worry much about CAR, an African backwater, an instance for showing Western
benevolence over regressing, atavistic Africa. But Europe worries stiff about Egypt, a multi-
billion dollar market, only in temporary and calibrated turbulence Europe wishes will soon come
to pass. That means Egypt, Africa’s political outlaw is at the same time Europe’s coveted
interlocutor. What happens when two sevens clash? How do you engage from a position of
respect and equality a continent whose decisions and values you seek to undermine?

Thabo Mbeki

Defending great principles

It gets worse. Sudan is under ICC sanctions. Africa challenges those sanctions, and rejects the
notion of sitting heads becoming subjects of world litigation. Such an arrangement, far from
ending the so-called culture of impunity, makes peace vanish on the continent. Mbeki put it so
well. There are times when peace and settlement comes before justice. If we had the ICC and it
had requested us to surrender de Klerk, added Mbeki, we would not have obliged. South African
peace and settlement came a distant first, well away from Rome and its vindictive statutes.
Remember that?

So Africa has not recognised the ICC ruling on Sudan and her Al Bashir, a sitting African head
of State. Africa has gone much further. Provoked by the case of Kenya, where a sitting head of
State and his deputy are subject of similar action, Africa took a collective stance of getting the
ICC to drop that case, change its ways, or else provoke Africa to pull out, en bloc. As expected, a
robed Arab is a sight of great perturbation to the European, which is why they cannot
countenance the attendance of Bashir, a man who will not go to Europe anyway.

But for Africa, there is a great principle at stake here, as there is on Morocco/SADR, as there is
on Eritrea, indeed as there is on Egypt. The essence of international diplomacy, whether between
states or between continents, is mutual regard and respect. You do not seek to redraw the map of
another continent, and still pretend some respectful regard towards it. You do not pee on values
held dear by a country or continent, and still pretend to engage as equals. Lastly, you do not
suggestively crouch atop decisions of your interlocutor country or continent, and still pretend
you are its equivalent, or wish its homogeneity for everlasting continuance. This is what is at
stake, and let no amount of oversimplification or one-sidedness stand in the way of facts.

One ill-mannered host

And now the smallest part of the altercation, yet with possibly the greatest implications for
Zimbabwe and the continent. When it came to Zimbabwe, the EU climbed down from its pre-
2007 obduracy. It did not invoke the phony sanctions or human rights arguments, to disallow
Zimbabwe from participating. It would not have made sense against the 2007 meeting in
Portugal which Zimbabwe attended, and also against moves which the EU made to remove
sanctions. Above all, such a demand would have revealed the lack of consensus within the EU on
Zimbabwe. And the British were not foolish to stretch it.
Omar al Bashir

So President Mugabe got his invitation and, on the strength of it, proceeded to put together his
delegation. That delegation included his wife, something barely noticed or ever unexpected in
State interactions. At that point the British came in, alone. Against the whole of Europe, they
insisted no visa had to be granted to Amai Mugabe, the wife of President Mugabe, the First Lady
of Zimbabwe, itself State invitee to the EU-Africa Summit. Through that decision to deny the
First Lady of Zimbabwe a visa, the EU sought to rearrange the delegation of a sovereign state.
That amounts to a challenge on Zimbabwe’s statehood. And by denying the President of
Zimbabwe the company of his wife, EU was being a very bad, ill-mannered host, possibly with
sinister motives. And that odd decision could not be explained away by simply saying the EU-
Africa Summit has no programme for spouses. Well, there does not have to be, but which need
not make wives superfluous to their husbands, if we were to reduce matters to the barest
minimum. And dismissing this act of utter disrespect in the name of the First Lady’s so-called
shopping sprees, all concocted, suggests African demand for Europe’s finished goods injures the
EU and its economy. What a stupid argument! Why did Europe colonise Africa in the first place,
but to create markets for its finished goods? Why hide naked animosity and ill-will behind
fawned moral fastidiousness? Surely if the well-being of Zimbabweans is European concern, let
the sanctions then go?

Gay values?

What is not known by those who look at issues glibly is that all this is the thin end of the wedge.
We are on the cusp of an evolving relationship between the EU and Africa, and much rests on
Africa’s response and resolve. By picking and choosing, the EU has repudiated Africa’s political
geography, substituting it with its own, for its own ends. It has challenged the sovereignty of a
continent. By disregarding Africa’s ruling mores, and the enforcement of the same, the EU is
challenging Africa’s evolving value system on the basis of which a continent is defined, held
together. Yes, by subverting Africa’s sanctions against its errant membership, the EU is not just
undermining Africa’s membership, but also attacking the cohesion and compliance of that
membership. Lastly, by putting apart what God has knitted together in matrimony, Europe is
seeking to be that God, indeed to challenge the sanctity of African marriage, itself a prologue to
the insertion of gay values over whose rejection Museveni is paying the aid price.

Challenging continental leadership

Much more, and this is the missed part, by challenging Africa’s January 2014 Resolution
outlining parameters for inter-continental engagement, the EU is more than condescending; it is
challenging Africa. For Zimbabwe specifically, the EU is telling Africa and sadc that you made a
mistake by appointing Mugabe deputy chair, by putting him in the line of chairmanship. For that
you shall have a frozen year. The EU mortally fears a sadc and an AU under Mugabe’s
chairmanship. It seeks to test Africa’s readiness to take a stance in defence of Zimbabwe’s
chairmanship, well ahead of its assumption. If Africa blinks, Europe will insist that Zimbabwe is
skipped, never mind that it now sits in the chair of deputy. That way Africa will have rearranged
the leadership of the continent. And if Africa does not act as one, or at the very least, act as a
majority block, then her chance to enforce equality is irretrievably lost. It is not about the First
Lady; it is about the impending chairmanship of Zimbabwe.

Meeting the whole of Europe

Europe has crossed the line, the same way they did over Ukraine. President Putin gave Europe a
substantive response, and the West is backing off with ignominy, trimming its response to moral
platitudes, homiletic calls. Can Africa do the same? The whole Summit was stuffed with issues
of governance, well away from issues of mutually gainful trade, investments and processing. We
were going there to listen to Moses hand down more commandments, beyond the 10 which the
real God gave the world. There was very little of value, certainly nothing more important than
the continent’s worth and sovereignty. Maybe the time has come for Africa to insist on meeting
the EU as the AU. If not, to insist that it meets Europe, the whole of it. That includes Russia,
Belarus and many others.

Icho!

nathaniel.manheru@zimpapers.co.zw