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Gibson Nyikadzino
Herald Correspondent
A dangerous relationship of wealth, power and politics is becoming a defining feature in today’s political space. An extension of this relationship is also seen in the trickling effects it has on language use in politics.
Language continues to play a critical role in understanding the discourse of politics.
International Western media, through the regime of truth, has presented a one-sided narrative of global events. This is so because the powerful and the wealthy have influences on world events.
Last week United States President Joe Biden used a war monger’s textbook example by labelling Russia’s President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” because of the ongoing special military operation by Russia in Ukraine. Western media used that template to besmirch Russia.
During the Donald Trump presidency, Western media also referred to Covid-19 as “the China virus” and the alleged involvement of Russia in the 2016 US elections as “collusion”.
Even so, the George Bush administration, after the 9/11 attacks, labelled North Korea, Iran and Iraq as an “axis of evil” and the coining of “Iraq has weapons of mass destruction” phrase.
These labels have been believed by many. If one has power, they can shape the discourses and influence everything on their way to the “objective truth”.
The Biden label on President Putin that he is a “war criminal” is a bid to advance the US’ selfish interests because of the immense power it is purported to possess.
This form of elitism by the US and her European Union (EU) allies is also a way to convince the world that what they are doing against Russia is in the interest of “the international community”.
These binary constructions have become dangerous to the livelihood of the global world. If it is Russia and China, it is wrong, but when it is the US, it is regarded as a mistake.
Western media is therefore politicising vocabulary and language to promote the elite interests of those in the West whose pursuits are informed by the relationship of power, politics and wealth.
Once bitten twice shy
The bombing of Serbia by NATO in 1999, the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the murder of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 and war in Syria in 2011 provide strong evidence that great powers are neither governed by morality nor international law, but apply it to suit their interests.
When Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi was murdered by the US-led forces, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton exhibited how Gaddafi’s demise was a celebration in the Obama administration.
Her reaction was: “We came, we saw, he died.” Her comment was awkward, tasteless and terribly unfunny. Rather, it was a warmonger’s moment of regrettable laughter.
Extensively, the past 25 years have seen the abuse, violation and misapplication of international law by the West.
The “responsibility to protect” doctrine, for example, has been flouted and used as a pretext to invade and eliminate democratically elected leaders.
In Myanmar, where there has been a genocide of the Rohingya ethnic group and the alleged killing of civilians by the government there, Western countries have not used the “responsibility to protect” doctrine because that is not where their geopolitical interests lie.
The world has to be cautious! It really needs to be extra careful with the way international Western media wants to interpret Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine.
In hindsight, where was international law when the trio of former USA presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, in their combined 24 years of leadership invaded nine countries, killed eleven million civilians who they termed “collateral damage”? Are they not war criminals?
US a war criminal
Strong countries in the international political system do as they wish while weak nations do as they must. It appears those states that call themselves powerful are having their leaders getting away with murder.
In 2014, former ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda wrote a letter to US officials. The subject was Afghanistan, and the letter described evidence that US personnel had abused more than two dozen detainees held in that country, mostly between 2003 and 2006.
The prosecutor pointed out that the crimes committed by US personnel in combat amounted to crimes against humanity.
Article 5 of the Roman Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) states four crimes within its jurisdiction which amount to one becoming a war criminal. These include the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression.
Basing on the four categories in the ICC Roman Statute, Clinton, Bush, Obama and former British prime minister Tony Blair qualify to be called “war criminals”.
The other biggest war crime committed by the US is the theft of Afghanistan’s money which has been taken as a revenge after losing to the Taliban.
Out of this revenge of stolen Afghan savings, 90 percent of the population is in starvation and since January, some 13 000 Afghan new-borns have died due to malnutrition.
The application of international law, which has become western law, is vehemently contested because of many biases and illegalities. New debates have to be conducted regarding the moral application of international law. As it is at the moment, it is a great power status versus the views of weak states.
Intolerant radicalism
The global trend of labelling and language use to drive narratives occupy large spaces today than before.
The “us versus them” mentality is leading in spaces of debate where there is a politicisation of vocabulary going on. People, politicians and activists are now coming up with social constructions and labels to validate their opinions.
Zimbabwe has not been an exception. In the field of journalism practice among others, terms like “enabler”, “propagandist”, “apparatchik” and “murakashi” have been used to refer to people who work for public media.
Those who work at private media and other online publications have on the other hand been labelled as “agents of change”, “objective”, “truthful” and at times “factual”.
This description follows that some in the private media have been financed and given daily stipends, brazenly, by the opposition politicians to cover them during their addresses.
A choice has already been made by those in the opposition in which they like their “agents of change” and dislike those they call “enablers”.
It has therefore been easy to reach a conclusion on this. Opposition politician Nelson Chamisa made a strong statement recently saying his party, the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), is going to bar public media journalists from covering their events.
His views were certified by his party’s secretary for elections, Ian Makone, who last week appreciated private media journalists for being part of the CCC “struggle”.
On another extreme, deputy spokesperson of the CCC Mr Gift Siziba told a gathering last Friday that the CCC party is ready to protect public media journalists, but “reserves the right and freedom to disassociate with them” in the event they are attacked.
This is a new culture of extremism that is being conceived, breastfed and nurtured without any trace of morality. This is the culture Russia is fighting in Ukraine in which radical elements and neo-Nazis were radicalised and used to commit crimes against humanity in the Donbass region by murdering over 14 000 of Ukraine’s ethnic Russian speaking population.
To this day, historical relations provide empirical evidence that the opposition and some individuals in the private media are now on an accelerated agenda to push interests of those that have captured them. They have become hardened ultra-right elements willing to harm, injure and target anyone holding a view contrary to theirs.
Looking at issues objectively has been defeated by the birth of the money culture through commissariat or transactional journalism. Unfortunately, this is the strategy of the opposition to project itself as a separate civilisation.
Re-arranging the world order
China and Russia are two bastions in the world that the US cannot break through, which is a basic guarantee of a multipolar world. The results of the Russia special military operation in Ukraine have shown a profound effect on all aspects of international relations.
The West remains intolerant to divergent views and are keen to foist their one-sided story on the whole world. But reality is now showing they cannot do much to change the wheels of time and new history chapters.
Their age of domination is drifting away and a new leadership is coming up with a new cycle. It is time to acknowledge that one can have a different opinion without passing any label.
Russia-China relations will form a key component in determining the evolution of a new world order with new friends and partners in the world who prioritise peace and security of other states at a time the West is breeding a neo-Nazist global battalion.
Online Reporter
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