THE recent death of George Floyd a black American at the hands of police brutality in Minneapolis, United States of America has shaken the world in more than one way.
Firstly, it brings to the fore the generational trauma of African Americans in a country that wants everyone to believe it is the undisputed cradle of democracy, civilisation and human rights. Is the reverse not proving to be true?
Then, instead of accepting the racial crisis as an internally routed problem, that requires intelligent deep-reading, cultural sensitivity and human empathy – none of which seems to be available – the US government is seeing the dirty hands of little Zimbabwe, mighty Russia and China.
There lies the big problem – denial. America is in denial. So, in that wisdom, little and peaceful Zimbabwe, worked in cahoots with the US police to kill Floyd? Little Zimbabwe then moved fast and organised demonstrations that have rocked the US and the rest of Europe? Little
Zimbabwe must have some magical touch, that finds it among the gods of world politics.
Little Zimbabwe did the magic, influenced every protester to forget the coronavirus and flood the streets, sing, dance, loot and fight police? Little Zimbabwe! The land of Munhumutapa.
The problem here is not Russia, it is not Zimbabwe and neither is it China. The problem is the United States itself and its pretentious attitude. Its disregard of real human rights issues. Its big brother mentality and indeed its contemptuous view on other democracies and races.
And, then with national security advisers like Robert O’brien, does US president Donald Trump need more enemies? The enemy is in his room or rather in his pocket.
After the death of Floyd, the demonstrations began peacefully but deteriorated into firecrackers, tear-gas, multiple fires, violence and looting.
It would have ended with peaceful demonstrations had the Trump administration not started focusing on the imagined hand of Zimbabwe, Russia and China and instead listened to the wounds, the pains, the smells and the sounds of the racial divisions.
Today, cities in America and beyond reel under protests and violence as Floyd turns and twists in his coffin with anger and disgust.
That Trump’s security adviser picks on Zimbabwe, Russia and China as the chief influencers of the current racial demonstrations shows that his administration is ill-qualified for this moment; a moment of truth that has made the whole world re-look at whether the democracy and human rights that the US preaches is not mere lip-sing?
The crisis in the US today as protests spread to Germany, United Kingdom and beyond is that of contempt of other races, weak moral leadership, crass, vulgar rhetoric, an erosion of norms, blatant dishonesty and selective application of human rights.
Now that the elephant is in the room, Trump speaks of demonstrators as “thugs” and threatens them with “vicious dogs” and “when the looting starts, the shootings start”.
The world is watching in awe as in the past thugs in other countries like Zimbabwe, Hong Kong and Moscow who loot and burn property have been classified by the same Trump administration as “defenders of human rights” and “pro-democracy protesters”.
But we know the thugs in our parts of the world will have no cause at all but to effect regime change on behalf of the US. Doesn’t what goes around come around? And, yet at this particular moment in the US, the protesters against the government’s heavy-handedness on black people is justified. The US must move out of the racial cocoon and get real. It must treat its citizens, black or white, equally before preaching human rights to other nations. Racial discrimination has pricked the US society on its most tender flesh. The pain is all over.
Back to Zimbabwe, it is fact not fiction, that Zimbabwe was declared an enemy of the US by virtue of an illegal sanctions regime. A sanctions regime that circumvented United Nations statutory procedures. Zimbabwe’s crime was merely taking back its land from minority white farmers and redistributed to its majority indigenous people.
Zimbabwe did not take an inch from the US, Britain or its allies in Europe. It took what belongs to it. Zimbabwe has no business interfering in American politics. But the US has brazenly declared Zimbabwe its enemy.
The illegal sanctions imposed by America are a racial attack on the people of Zimbabwe, whom America views with constructive contempt, as a race that does not deserve to benefit from its land.
If the US was not contemptuous of the people of Zimbabwe, it would have understood why they needed their land, which is their most precious natural resource. Their birthright!
If the US respected democracy it would have gone through the UN, and gotten a resolution to impose sanctions. It did not.
If the US believed firmly on human rights, it would have understood that Zimbabweans are people who deserve to benefit from their natural resources, ahead of other races, or nationals.
Today it is laughable that the US is losing sleep over little Zimbabwe, Russia and China in an internal matter, which has been the hallmark of its society. Racism has been the hallmark of US governance, internally and externally.
Who doesn’t know that?
Source: The Herald
