by a more privileged and powerful one, whether this privation be perceived or real.
Lack of justice often results in the “them” and “us” syndrome where “they” are depriving “us,” stealing from “us,” or disrespecting “our” rights, or enjoying benefits through means “we” view as unacceptably bad.
When the people of Zimbabwe feel alienated by power as is perhaps arguably the case right now, what we get are sentiments that create fertile grounds for resentment and if unchecked, the eventuality of conflict. When one takes away NATO’s escalating of the Libyan conflict and the subsequent hijacking that led to the callous murder of Gaddafi, what remains is a situation where some Libyans felt alienated by the Jamahiriya political system, leading to them developing a resentment towards Col Gaddafi’s rule – a resentment that eventually morphed into a mild military conflict, itself tragically hijacked and escalated by self-interest driven Western powers. The question one might ask is what happened to equality and justice in all this?
Social justice is rather complex, and one cannot successfully define it without addressing the issue of equality. Some people have looked at the concept of equality as utopian, arguing that social justice is more a matter of equity than it is of equality.
For historically deprived groups like formerly colonised peoples, the definition of equality is rooted in not having what others have – not because others merited their privileges but because they either robbed their way through to achieving them, or they inherited the proceeds of robbery and plunder.
The aspiration of such deprived people is equality of condition and access to resources, be it through affirmative granting of these privileges, or through forcibly bringing down the privileged, as was the case with the way colonial settler farmers were removed from the farmlands they occupied in Zimbabwe. Today, Zimbabwe seeks equality in the economic sector by increasing local ownership in business and commerce.
When we have a debauched political system as is the case with the evidently corrupt government systems in Africa today, what that creates are societies made up of selfish elites ruling over masses that are imprisoned in dogma, ignorance, backwardness, bitterness and resentment.
Equality may be complex, or in some cases highly idealistic, but this must not be misconstrued to mean that equality is not meritorious. It has great merit, and this is why most successful political movements are usually driven by the ethical ideal of equality.
Socialism and Communism were once powerful ideologies that threatened to thwart the selfish strides of capitalism. This was precisely because both socialism and communism are premised on the idea of equality, of course always grossly undermined by the harsh realities of practice.
Modern day egalitarianism is what drives political movements like Zimbabwe’s MDC-T, itself sometimes viewed as a vehicle of generational expression used by an emerging political mindset that sees the outgoing generation as overstaying its relevance; but the MDC-T is also a deadly tool of Western powers that have found in the disgruntlement of the Zimbabwean youth a platform to manipulate the resentment for the achievement of the traditionally known selfish imperialistic goals.
The treachery in the politics of the MDC is written all over the personality and character of its leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
The feeling in today’s egalitarian premise is that “there is no inherent fact about any individual or group of individuals which gives them greater entitlements in any respect above other individual or group,” to borrow from author AC Grayling.
For Zimbabwe the argument pushed by Zanu-PF political opponents is that there is no inherent fact that entitles those who directly participated in the country’s liberation struggle to uninhibited political power and other privileges. It is an argument similar to egalitarianism’s opposition to formerly prevailing views about inherent differences based on race, royalty, nobility of blood, or tribal inferiority labels.
Zimbabwe’s liberation war heroes argue that they enjoy no inherent entitlement to political power or privileges, having themselves brought democracy after defeating Ian Smith’s racist regime; and they insist that what they are doing is defending what they fought for, as currently threatened by the MDC-T’s treacherous bedding with Britain, itself the ex-colonial master.
Equality is an attractive slogan to rally around, and any activist mobilising for social justice will testify to that. But all attempts to define equality will always face serious problems. Equality is far reaching and wide and one cannot define it in a single sentence.
There are arguments about equality of opportunity, about political equality, about equality before the law, about equality of rights, about equality of income, and about strict distributive equality in which we all must have exactly the same goods, benefits and resources. Of course there are arguments about equality of gender too. One needs to place the relevant value to each of these equalities, for example the value attached to us having exactly the same goods, benefits and resources. Do we really all need the same goods, benefits and resources in life? If the pleasure of consuming alcohol was to be taken as a benefit for example; would that be a benefit we universally find relevant and applicable?
Perhaps the real value behind equality is the concept of justice. One may argue that the fact that we do not look exactly the same means that we are inherently not equal, at least from a mathematical point of view.
We have inequalities in capabilities and talents, inequalities in cognitive development, and we meet not the same type of luck or fate in life. At birth some are born in a rich country while some are born in poor countries, some to educated parents, others to illiterate ones; and some to rich families while others to those living in penury, some in health and some with disease.
Yes we are not equal and the question of inequality will always be asked. But the inequalities that drive us to ask so much the question of equality might themselves not all be answered in the same way or by the same logic – and sometimes these inequalities may not necessarily need equality as the answer.
It is a lot easier preaching equality when we are addressing matters of racism, sexism, ageism, tribalism, suprematism, homophobia, or any other forms of discrimination. These are basically indefensible traits from a moral, political or legal view point.
But it must be realised that being different means we are not equal, much as we should be equal before the law, equal in accessing public health facilities, and equal in exercising the vote. We are here talking about social and political equality of citizens. For Zimbabweans, it must not matter that one supports Zanu-PF and the other supports the MDC-T.
What matters greatly is that we should all be treated exactly the same way before the law and in the polling booth. Those who find superiority in their political affiliation are only exposing the illusion that comes with backwardness.
Some people have argued it is fairness and equity rather than equality that really matters. We had a land reform program that from its own set divided the land beneficiaries into two groups, the A1 small scale commercial farmers, and the A2 larger scale commercial farmers. The argument was that those with the skills and financial means could be allocated the A2 farms while those considered less privileged would be allocated the smaller A1 farms that were considered suitable for their means and capacity; or small enough to allow affordable state assistance. Each according to his means and ability one would say.
If this had been followed as a matter of principle, perhaps there would be no idle A2 farms, and all A1 farmers would have been assisted according to their needs. That would be attaining equity and fairness, much as it would be far from equality. But one can argue today and say we have not attained any equity, fairness or equality through the land reform program, if idle land and struggling small scale farmers were a measure to be considered.
Perhaps the only fairness we attained was reclaiming the land from those that had stolen it. But we did not reclaim the land to see the putrefaction of the agricultural system in Zimbabwe. Rather we reclaimed the land to see justice and fairness prevail, to see the joy of equity where opportunity is availed to those with aspiration – an aspiration whose fruition can only be a booming agricultural regime, the pride we see through the emerging tobacco farmers today.
The prescription for justice is about “each according to his needs” and that is a call for fairness and equity, not equality. We have those in political power that still hold to the ancient philosophical doctrine of classical antiquity – “giving each his or her due,” where our dues are defined by the labels stuck to us by those in power. This sadly manifests in international affairs as well.
If you are an African then the imperial doctrine defines you as belonging to an inferior race or place, your due is less than that of a European, just like the due of a female Greek was once less than that of an adult Greek male. We are only equal to Europeans within the confines of political correctness and not in the harsh realities of life itself.
So if you are an African and you are treated the way Gaddafi was treated by Western powers; your country has been ravaged and wrecked to smithereens, your resources have been parcelled westwards, this does not mean that you are being unjustly treated, it is simply your due to be treated as a victim in the greater goal of safeguarding the West’s imperialist goals.
That is why Hillary Clinton giggled in celebration after receiving news on the callous murder of Gaddafi. One can imagine what Westerners would have done if someone had publicly giggled in joy after the killing of 3000 people in the September 11 attack.
But the Enlightenment view is the view of modern day international law, where everyone merits the same dignity and respect as everyone else.
If indeed there was such a thing as respect for international law, the territorial integrity of Libya was not going to be blatantly violated as we saw this year. International relations today must be defined by the theory of natural rights – based on the idea that all states are equal, and that when they come together in mutually contracted international arrangements for the benefits this is meant to bring, they never fully forfeit their entitlement to self-determination and sovereignty.
The West must be denounced and condemned for this enshrined view that Westerners by definition have inherited and intrinsic differences with all other mortals, requiring them to discriminate positively or negatively, or to prescribe to all others how international affairs should be defined and interpreted, even instructing all others how they should run their countries and live their lives.
The West simply had no moral, legal or ethical right to join and escalate a civil war in Libya. What we saw is a serious breach of the principles of equality and justice. The subsequent resentment means that the disgruntled will have to find ways to hit back and free themselves from the tyranny of the powerful. Gaddafi will fight more in death than he ever did in real life. No doubt his death will be avenged whose quest for international justice has been watered by the shedding of his blood in this revolution towards equality and justice.
It might be over on the battlefields of Libya but the war rages on in many disgruntled hearts of the children of Africa, not for the merit of the goodness of Gaddafi but for the inherent evil that caused his downfall.
Africa we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!

l Reason Wafawarova is a political writer based in SYDNEY, Australia.

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