LETTER FROM THE DIASPORA

Friday 4th May 2007
Dear Friends.

It is sometimes useful to stand back from the horror and chaos that characterises this last stage of Mugabe's rule and try to look at the situation objectively. Easier to do that I suppose if you're not there in the country suffering the total collapse with starvation and poverty all around you but I admit to bouts of fair-mindedness when I think I ought to try and be objective!

You all know how Mugabe constantly harps on about the west - and the UK in particular - and how they 'demonize' him and his party. 'You never tell them the good things that are happening under Mugabe's rule' the media is told and my response to that is 'What good things are there to talk about?' In my quieter moments I do wonder if perhaps we critics of the regime do not sometimes over-state the case but then I hear about babies being beaten, women being kept naked in the cells and just yesterday I read in The Zimbabwean details of the number of political prisoners being held and I go back to my angry question, 'What good things are there to talk about?'

An interesting article in the UK Guardian recently caught my eye. It was entitled 'How To Turn an Open Society Into A Dictatorship in Ten Easy Steps' and although it was not about Africa or even Zimbabwe the article exactly pinpointed what has happened in our country.

The article by a certain Naomi Wolf argues that there are ten steps that need to be taken by anyone taking over power. She gives the examples of Hitler and Pinochet but in Africa we have our own examples. The process is not a random one. All those seeking power have to do is follow a sort of historical blueprint to close down an open society and turn it into a fascist state - with varying degrees of bloodshed along the way. Wolf goes on to argue that creating and sustaining a democratic society is a long and arduous process but closing it down is much easier. Just follow the blueprint.If you are a Zimbabwean reading this you will be able to decide quite quickly whether the country passes the Dictatorship Test. I leave it to you to decide!

Step One: Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy. For Nazi Germany it was the Jews. In the west today it's Islamic terrorism. Step Two: Create a gulag - a place where all dissenters are sent for long periods. In America that's Guantanamo Bay. Step Three: Develop a 'thug' caste eg. the Nazi Blackshirts whose job was to go round brutalizing the population. Step Four: Set up an internal surveillance system. Step Five: Harass citizen groups and civic society. Step Six: Institute arbitrary arrest and detention. Step Seven: Target key individuals. Step Eight: Control the Press. Step Nine: Equate all forms of dissent with treason. Step Ten: Suspend the rule of law, subvert the judiciary and police.

There's one other point Naomi Wolf makes; once you put all the powers, legislative, executive and judiciary in the same hands you have all the makings of a tyranny. Externally, on the surface everything looks normal. That's what the dictator wants you to see; look behind the external picture and you will see the full horror of torture, brutality and the infringing of basic human rights. And there you have it. By my reckoning Zimbabwe scores nine out of ten on this Richter scale of dictatorship. We don't yet have a gulag as far as I know but then you could argue that the whole country is nothing more than a gulag - for dissenters anyway.

So, in answer to the question, 'Why don't you tell us the good news coming out of Zimbabwe?' I repeat, 'What good news is there?' What good news can there be when the price of the staple food goes up by 700% condemning millions to near-starvation?

Ndini shamwari yenyu. PH