Mugabe, In The Hour Of The Wolf



(image via time)

While we think that Samantha Power is one of the most brilliant and humane foreign policy intellectuals we sometimes wonder -- a la David Reiff, and his evolving "Arcades Project" of internationalist skepticism -- if multilateralism isn't too idealistic a philosophy to manage the present global pandemonium. But why not give it a try, or at least begin a conversation between liberal humanitarianism and realism. Realism, of course, has been the dominant paradigm for most of the past century; Neoconservatism, the new philosophy on the block, has been on the rise over the past eight years -- and both, we say with great melancholy, have brought us to the brink of ruin.

And what about Mugabe? There is a real danger that overheated rhetoric against Mugabe via The West and from the wealthy G8 will play directly into Mugabe's powerful neocolonialist narrative that has been crafted and honed to despicable perfection over three decades. Nothing -- nothing! -- can distract disempowered Zimbabweans faster than an an appeal to colonial interference and those unresolved resentments from the Ian Smith Regime. Of course Ian Smith has little to nothing to do with the present regime and it's pathological banking practices, but what does that matter to an abused, impoverished farmer who hasn't eaten in a day?

Engaging in a Righteous Western Lecture Series (tm) against Mugabe is a dangerous, dangerous course that The Western powers would do well to navigate gingerly. The British press -- BBC, The Spectator, The Times of London -- are particularly shrill in their (essentially correct) condemnation of the Mugabe regime. That moral correctness (which this blog largely agrees with), however, has no correlation whatsoever to do with the actual outcome of the situation in Zimbabwe if such rhetoric persists.

Bush and Brown should make sure not to strengthen Mugabe's hand by martyring him by overplaying their hand with overheated rhetoric. Encourage and create forums where statesmen like Mandela (and, quite frankly, even Bill Clinton) can condemn Mugabe. No one in Africa truly gives a damn that the British parliament or the BBC or Tony Blair dislikes the strongman's corrupt regime; it is all just more hot air.

Samantha Power's article for Time on how to handle Mugabe is particularly genius:

"So what can be done? To start, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon should appoint his predecessor, Kofi Annan, fresh from brokering a power-sharing deal for Kenya, as the U.N.'s envoy to Zimbabwe. One by one, those African and Western leaders who claim to be disgusted with Mugabe should announce that they bilaterally recognize the validity of the March 29 first-round election results, which showed the opposition winning 48% to 43%, though the margin was almost surely larger. The countries which do would make up the new 'March 29 bloc' within the U.N. and would declare Morgan Tsvangirai the new President of Zimbabwe. They would then announce that Mugabe and the 130 leading cronies who have already been sanctioned by the West will not be permitted entry to their airports.

"Tsvangirai and his senior aides should do as South Africa's African National Congress did throughout the 1960s and '70s: set up a government-in-exile and appoint ambassadors abroad--including to the U.N. That ambassador should be given forums for rebutting the ludicrous claims of the Zimbabwean and South African regimes.

"If 'the U.N.' is disaggregated into its component parts, Mugabe's friends will be exposed. 'June 27' countries will be those who favor electoral theft, while "March 29" countries will be those who believe that the Zimbabweans aren't the only ones who should stand up and be counted. This can be a recipe for gridlock in international institutions--but the gridlock won't get broken by lamenting its existence. It will get broken when the heads of state who back Mugabe are forced out into the open and when constructive engagement of the new President of Zimbabwe begins."

The full, brilliant article here.