Online Reporter
Stephen Mpofu, Perspective
YES, Western imperialism has again reared its ugly head in SADC, with the Donald Trump government in America imposing draconian, illegal sanctions on South Africa in response to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s signing of a bill into law empowering the acquisition of part of the 75 percent of land occupied by minority white settlers, whose former supremacist apartheid government oppressed the black majority there.
And the cause of the Trump government’s ire? South Africa joining the Zimbabwe land dance.
In 2000, the Zimbabwean government introduced the fast-track land reform programme for the acquisition of vast tracts of land occupied by minority white settlers, while the black majority scratched on infertile pieces of land for their existence. That move provoked economic sanctions on our country in 2001 by America, an ally of Britain, our country’s former colonial ruler, with the European Union, in which Britain was a member, following suit in 2002 with its own illegal economic embargo to try, but in vain, to remove the Zimbabwean government from power. The embargo remains to this day.
Africans have the right to enjoy the best of the land which God gave them, while white settlers who fled poverty in their native lands overseas and resorted to suppressing blacks should be grateful for the space on which they exist, instead of treating their African hosts as virtual slaves. Otherwise, they should form beelines back to their ancestors’ original homelands for their ingratitude.
In these circumstances, the anger expressed by progressive nations at Trump’s reaction to President Ramaphosa’s government’s move to repossess land from the minority white for reallocation to the black majority, who need that asset the most, should be applauded by all peace-loving people across our global village.
In a book by this writer, entitled Little Hearts Can Also Dance, South Africa is listed among some African countries with more land still occupied by white settlers, while the black masses scratch their backyards for existence because their governments are afraid of joining the Zimbabwe land dance, as it were, for fear of sanctions being imposed on them by their former foreign colonial rulers. Therefore, it is this author’s belief that President Ramaphosa and his government should be celebrated by all progressive nations for the bold step taken in the former apartheid-ruled country to give the majority there a brave new future with the important land asset now in their hands.
The book in point above, Little Hearts Can Also Dance, has been approved and listed alongside veteran author Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart by the Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council in its circular as an African literature read for Advanced Level and should be in print and available anytime for scholars to buy.
