People who live in glass houses should not throw stones. Dancing with the enemy at the expense of your fellow Blackman will always backfire. Africans should be like iron which sharpens iron. A betrayal of Zimbabwe by any revolutionary party in Sadc is the same as an idiot whom sitting on a branch (high up a tree) cuts the very branch he is sitting on. The moment the branch falls the very moment the imbecile will also fall.

President Mbeki once warned African revolutionary and nationalist leaders that to allow Zimbabwe to fall to the Western imperialists would be disastrous for the whole Sadc region. After Zimbabwe no one would know who would be next. We have witnessed such a domino effect in the Middle East, where Afghanistan was the first to be bombed into submission by the Western allies followed by Iraq and now it’s going to be either Iran or Syria.

Treacherous Arab leaders have been overtly and covertly assisting the Western imperialists to overthrow, undermine, weaken and demonise other states within the Middle East. In Syria, one actually sees the ugliness of this treasonous and deceitful behaviour as evidenced by the way the Syrian opposition is being clandestinely armed and funded by both Arab states and Western countries. Libya went down through the same traitorous way and Africa also had a perfidious hand in the downfall of Gaddafi.

What Malema said when being interviewed by Sunday Mail assistant editor, Munyaradzi Huni, has actually revealed the type of dishonest leadership we now have in Africa. South African ‘wikileaks’ has brought to light what was once said in the cover of darkness. Thanks to Julius Malema our own Julian Assange, for finally letting the naughty and two-faced cat out of the diplomatic bag.

President Mugabe in an interview on the eve of his birthday in February actually pointed out that some African leaders who are ‘supposed to represent the African Union in the Security Council are voting with Europe against their own countries. Not only have they become cowards, but they have also become sellouts of their own people.’ Africa is more of a continent in confusion. Backbiting, animosity, treachery and lack of a coherent vision all characterise the type of leadership Africa now has in the 21st century.

Professor Jonathan Moyo in some of his articles has openly castigated the way the South African leadership behaves towards Zimbabwe. The Professor has on several occasions questioned the way Lindiwe Zulu has been attacking Zanu-PF, left, right and centre while on the other hand praising and defending the MDC party.

Thanks to the new Malema ‘wikileaks’ we now know that such actions might actually have been sanctioned by the South African President himself.
The Lusaka Sadc meeting clearly exposed how venomous and malicious the Zuma group had become towards President Mugabe and Zanu-PF party. Caesar Zvayi, in a very interesting article quizzed the credibility of the South African Sadc facilitators in dealing with the so called ‘outstanding issues to the GPA. He also queried the power this group had arrogated itself to the whole Sadc facilitation process. Nkrumah, Sankara, Biko and many other pan-Africanists had always foreseen how some of our black brothers and sisters would be used by the white world against their own kith and kin.

Biko actually noted that the logic behind white domination was to prepare the black man for the subservient role despite the position that the black man held in society. Academics, Presidents, members of parliament and many well to do Africans have on several occasions been very compliant and obedient to white control. To a large extent the white colonialists have succeeded in producing at the output end of their (colonial) machine a kind of black who is man only in form. What more can we say about some of the leaders now found in the ANC.

This clearly shows the extent to which the process of dehumanisation has advanced in some of these revolutionary parties. Many blacks in our midst suffer from this inferiority complex which was inherited from years of brutal white colonialism.

These assimilators are a great danger not only to themselves or their political parties but to the entire African race comprising the living, the dead and the yet to be born. This retards Africa’s development as well as weakening its standing in the international system. Biko has no kind words for such Africans.

He says, all in all the black man has become a shell, a shadow of man, completely defeated, drowning in his own misery, a slave, an ox bearing the yoke of oppression with sheepish timidity. Should the ANC leadership stoop so low? Should it become an empty shell of its former self? Should it dance with the enemy to betray another African brother? The ANC should not be like an idiot who is holding a burning log whilst standing waist deep in gun powder.

Deceitful relations being shown by the South Africans in their diplomatic engagements with neighbouring Sadc countries won’t get them anywhere. Once mistrust and suspicion breeds among such relations then there will be retaliation which will play negatively on stability and development in the whole Sadc region. Sekou Toure sums it up when he says in order to achieve real action you must yourself be a living part of Africa and of her thought; you must be a popular element of that energy which is entirely called forth for the freeing, the progress and happiness of Africa. We wonder if some elements in the revolutionary ANC party are really committed to Africa and Sadc’s cause.

The ANC leadership must know that the African founding fathers had a vision of a totally emancipated Africa both politically and economically. Pan-Africanism demands for African consciousness and loyalty. Each pan-Africanist must also be concerned with the freedom and development of other African states. These things can conflict. Let us be frank and admit that they have already conflicted. This is why we have always argued that African unity risks being a fiction or an illusion unless it can be effectively exercised by all African leaders.

No Southern African state can be an island unto itself for this will be a recipe for ruin and disaster. This calls for a unified Sadc. Emperor Haile Selassie in one of his keynote addresses to the African leaders remarked that “we know that there are differences among us. Africans enjoy different cultures, distinct values and special attributes. But we also know that unity can be and has been attained among men of the most disparate origins, that difference of race, of religion, of culture, of tradition, are of no insuperable obstacles to the coming together of peoples. History teaches that unity is strength and cautions us to submerge and overcome our difference in the quest for common goals, to strive, with all our combined strength, for the path to true African brotherhood and unity.” We hope some in the ANC leadership will put this into practice.

One of the essential elements in Nkrumah’s influential work, Neo-colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism is the idea of an integrated African economy.
He opined that there could be no sustainable development in Africa in the interest of the African people unless there was a continent-wide integration of the production system as a whole, in particular the use of resources — oil, forest products, minerals — to build an ‘integrated industrial complex.’ This is the reason why we lamented in one of our installments that South Africa and other Sadc countries actually failed to assist Malawi in its economic crisis yet the resources to do so are in abundance.

There are some misguided elements in the ANC leadership who are continually losing the plot as they are failing to promote and safeguard Sadc’s interests as envisioned by the founding fathers.

Are these few treacherous brothers and sisters in the revolutionary ANC fully aware of the consequences of dancing with the enemy? They must know that the whole Sadc region is targeted by Western imperialists for regime change and for them to survive this onslaught they must together with other Sadc brothers and sisters understand the objective around which they must unite. Some few individuals in the ANC leadership must fiercely reject and not accept a culture of political and economic injustice in the Southern African region as well as the crushing of the black men carried to extreme perfection and systematic refinement by the white world.

One renowned scholar, Jose Miranda contends that “The philosophy of oppression, perfected and refined through civilisation is a true culture of injustice . . .  which is so deeply rooted in the oppressors themselves and their ideologies . . . capitalist oppression carries with it thousands of years of injustice . . . Africa is a victim of force and injustice.”

The question that requires being reflected on is why some in the ANC leadership are allowing themselves to capitulate before this evil and exploitative system which has seen many Africans in the Sadc region wallowing in abject poverty. Dancing with a poisonous snake will never spare these traitorous brothers and sisters in the

ANC from its venom when it finally turns against them.
One of South Africa’s most vociferous and brilliant sons Steve Biko, actually warned all those who were to come after him that the white liberals were not at all willing to give away their privileged position in society as to uplift their so called ‘black brothers’ from abject poverty. These white liberals as well as the other radical whites will do anything, even going to war as to maintain and preserve their grip on the South African economy.

As long as their interests and privileges are safeguarded, and as long the status quo is maintained, this group of liberal whites will always pretend to sympathise with the poor Africans. Those few imprudent brothers and sisters in the ANC leadership should clearly understand that despite their country being economically sound they do not yet own the means of production.

Owners of the means of production are the American and European multinational corporations. It is a reality that some in the ANC leadership must clearly grasp and comprehend.

Arguably, as long as we do not own the means of production we will never be able to raise a finger to support our own African brothers and sisters who are groaning under the yoke of poverty and multinational oppressive vices. What is worrisome and disturbing is the fact that the money that Africa is getting through false generosity from the donors is actually money accrued through the naked exploitation of the continent’s abundant resources.

This is why we argue that our brothers and sisters in the ANC should clearly understand that what is happening not only to them, but to all countries in Africa, is the most perfect type of oppression there has ever been. Africa has allowed itself to wallow in oppression and Africans themselves pretend that they do not know that they are being exploited and have accepted it as a norm, a situation which objectively is naked oppression.

Kwame Nkrumah advised that “Freedom fighters of Africa must prepare themselves for the ‘regime change’ danger. It is threatening sovereign states. To resist this, it calls for unity, unifying the military command and foreign policy and liberation movements through concerted efforts.”
South Africans must therefore be aware of the snares of the neo-imperialists whose sole aim is to divide Southern Africa by manipulating some of its leaders.

• Bowden Mbanje and Darlington Mahuku are lecturers in International Relations, and Peace and Governance with Bindura University of Science Education