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Obi Egbuna Jnr Simunye
During Zimbabwe’s 37th Independence Day celebrations, President Mugabe and zanu-pf were showered with congratulatory messages from governments, organisations and movements whose solidarity and goodwill towards both the ruling party and everyday people, who are the salt of the nation, never wavered even for a moment. This genuine rock-solid support automatically neutrailises any feeble and grosssly opportunistic attempts by Zimbabwe’s enemies to desecrate the country on such a special day.

While addressing Ghana’s National Assembly on September 3, 1958, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah stated: “It would be a great mistake to imagine that the achievements of political independence by certain areas in Africa will automatically mean the end of struggle. It is merely the beginning of struggle.”

The Osagyefo’s brilliant accessment of Africa’s political situation at that historical moment perhaps holds even more weight today, simply because the pro-imperialist and neo-colonialist narrative describes our initial independence almost identical to how Christians portray the process when explaining how one gains entrance through the Pearly Gates of Heaven.

This contrast without question not only intensifies the war of ideas between President Mugabe, zanu-pf and US-EU imperialism, but exposes Africans worldwide regardless of their capacity, who have been hurling insults at Zimbabwe on notice, that those amongst us who at the first sight of progress stopped struggling for total liberation are incapable of relating to the warriors who fight to their last drop of blood and breath of air.

That includes so-called African Americans who are guilty of presenting the civil/human rights movement of the mid-1950s and decade of the 1960s as the grand finale of our grass- roots frontline resistance, which explains how in a 50-year period the deadly combination of blood money from Fortune 500 companies and backdoor deals with the US Homeland Security apparatus, completely co-opted a movement that in the words of late boxing icon Muhammad Ali “truly shook up the world”.

We as Mother Africa’s children at home and abroad have been provided with an opportunity to witness an African nation led and guided by a head of state who has promoted a culture of selflessness, that has been impervious to criticism from his kith and kin.

A historical obligation of ours is to raise a rather fundamental and pertinent question: “Can neo-colonialist heads of state in Africa and the Caribbean, so-called African Americans who have served in the US Senate and Congress relate to President Mugabe and zanu-pf on any level whatsoever?”

If the answer is no, then an apology to President Mugabe and zanu-pf is in order, for ever entertaining any criticism articulated by imperialist lapdogs and apologists directed at Zimbabwe concerning the manner they choose to govern their own sovereign affairs.

For the purpose of following the advise of Malcolm X who pleaded with us to always talk to our people in a language they can understand, during chattel slavery we never listened to the critiques of the Underground Railroad and Slave Rebellions, from those amongst our ranks who grew accustomed to picking cotton and tobacco or cutting sugar cane fron sun up to sun down.

Based on that premise, it would be politically suicidal to start validating the sentiments of our weakest and subservient voices, who have not only been reduced to chronicling a legacy of oppression and ruthless exploitation, but in the final analysis do not believe our people are worthy of liberation.

We watch in utter disgust when so-called African American children sit in clasrooms and listen to teachers compare chattel slavery to modern day segregation, which includes the difference between living in slaveshacks, tenements and housing projects, or showing the connection between slave labour our ancestors and chain gangs courtesy of the prison industrial complex.

This can’t even be considered an insult to our intelligence because force-feeding and propagating these ideas can only be carried out by a people who assume we don’t have any to begin with.

Because Washington DC has emerged as the political and military capital of the imperialist world, having the opportunity to poke countless holes in the baseless arguments of US-EU imperialism, attempting to justify bringing about an illegal racist regime change in Zimbabwe, is not only liberating but therapeutic in every respect.

There are unspoken ties to Southern Africa because Washington DC’s first election for Mayor was in 1978, two years before Zimbabwe’s Independence, three years after Mozambique and Angola’s independence, 12 years before Namibia’s independence and 16 years before South Africa’s independence.

While the unemployment rate for so-called African Americans doubles the rate of their Caucasian counterparts, watching the US-EU imperialist propaganda apparatus discuss the employment situation in Zimbabwe has been interesting, to say the least.

The political invention of Washington and Britain, the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) under the leadership of former Zimbabwe prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai has stated the unemployment rate has been as high as 85 percent.

However, what we must take into consideration is that the demographic he is highlighting represents the 350 000 families who have been allocated land since 2000 and the beginning of the Third Chimurenga.

If Tsvangirai would rather see Zimbabweans walking around with resumes and suitcases instead of spearheading an agricultural revolution on land seized from their ancestors in 1890, that is his prerogative, but Africans everywhere must understand he exists solely for the purpose of diminishing the value of President Mugabe and zanu-pf’s achievements.

Many of us may not absorb that concept until you come to Zimbabwe and witness children you have been told are dying from hunger selling some of the most beautiful fruits and vegetables that exist on the planet.

This comes from the same sources who have done everything in their power to persuade you not to visit Zimbabwe due to political violence.

We hope Zimbabwe is soon visited by so-called African Americans who live in places like St Louis, Detroit, Birmingham, Memphis, Milwaukee, Rockford, Baltimore, Little Rock, Oakland and Kansas City who, according to the FBI’s uniformed crime report, are the 10 most dangerous cities in the US.

The crimes are broken down into the following categories: murder and negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

If they are reluctant to go to Zimbabwe they can sit down with the Jehovah Witnesses who held their international convention in Zimbabwe two and a half years ago, and off the record acknowledged it was the most peaceful country they had visited.