A Thousand Times Over

In the eyes of Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe, we as Westerners are seen as outsiders with no grasp on what's going on in this southern African country. If that's not enough, he feels that our criticism of the way he's been running the show of late is illegitimate and has no basis whatsoever in reality, that we have no right to point our finger at him & say that he needs to step down off his cloud of a throne (one which he has held sway over for almost three decades).

Just the other day, his official spokesman carried over much of Mugabe's chagrin over the West's take on situations in Zimbabwe in a nutshell: that Western governments have no moral authority to verbally scald Mugabe for the hurt he's put on his nation & that the West can "go hang a thousand times." This hasn't been the first grand act of defiance Bobby & his cohorts have launched at our faces & won't be the last either, I'm afraid. And rather than have Mugabe step up & say his thing to the media, his official spokesman decided to speak his mind instead.
How cowardly, letting your spokesperson say the words you were intending to say to us all along, Robert.

And here's the thing. We in the West do have a right to launch into criticisms & judgments over how badly & out of hand the political situation has become over the past couple months or so & what better way to vent our frustration by pinning the blame on the man who made all this possible to begin with. In a nation where one can forget about voting fairly (if at all), Mugabe deserves to be a man scorned, a man rightly vilified for his actions. To tell us to "go hang" is the verbal equivalent of telling us, "Hey, Zimbabwe isn't your problem, so back off & mind your own business."

Sorry to burst Mugabe's bubble, but we do care & we do show a great degree of empathy for the thousands of Zimbabweans who are in suffering, in despair, cowered back into place because they want no part of ZANU-PF. We do have an insight & understanding on the crisis going on & need to make our voices heard. We need to bring Mugabe's horrid track record into the spotlight to tell others, "This man needs to go, even if it means having to do so forcefully." When his spokesman gave us the "go hang" kiss-off, what he meant to tell us was, "Do nothing. Watch Zimbabwe self-destruct more & more. This nation is none of your concern & never was."

But in times like these, we can ill afford to sit by & watch Zimbabwe fall into an even deeper quagmire of suffering. We must do something; we must step up & give this nation a ray of hope which has been denied it for far too long.