Africa

The calls for Robert Mugabe’s ouster are increasing in both frequency and intensity. The European Union, the Western media (for example The Washington Post), and Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga have all recently made it clear that it is time for Mugabe to go, preferably voluntarily, but increasingly there are calls for the use of force if necessary.

The flip side to the calls for Mugabe’s removal is that they allow Mugabe to reprise his favorite role as the victim of Western imperialism and outside influence. And so ZANU-PF has declared that Great Britain (which is Mugabe shorthand for all of his outside enemies) is plotting using military force in Zimbabwe. Of course the flip side to Mugabe’s warnings, intended to inspire patriotic defenses of the country’s sovereignty, is that with all that has transpired in recent months, Zimbabweans might just welcome any military intervention, even from the former colonial power with whom Zimbabweans have a rightfully fraught relationship.

For a couple of weeks it looked as if Kenyans has stepped back from the brink and that the worst was over. But such an assessment appears premature. Violence has escalated in recent days. On Tuesday a mob dragged Melitus Mugabe Were from his car and shot him dead. Were was a new member of Kenya’s parliament and many believed that he held out the promising of helping to bridge some of the country’s divides. Instead, mediation appears to have butted up against hard political and social realities, and some observers  see a country on the brink of collapse. Jendayi Frazer, the United States’ top envoy to Africa, believes that ethnic cleansing may be underway in Kenya, and worries about the consequences of the Kenya crisis for regional stability.

Meanwhile at The New Republic, Alvaro Vargas Llosa, who is not a specialist in African issues, argues that colonialism is not to blame for events in Kenya, under the apparent dual misconceptions  that anyone is positing such a reductionist monocausal explanation or that colonialism is not a factor among many in understanding Kenya’s, indeed Africa’s, contemporary straits. I’d simply refer Llosa (and everyone else) again to  Caroline Elkins’ fine recent piece on the historical antecedents to Kenya’s current crises and remind Llosa and all other observers that it is probably not all that useful to create straw persons for the sole purpose of heroically destroying them.

The EU-Africa summit kicks off tonight in grand style. The central figure in the drama that plays out will still be Robert Mugabe whose very inclusion in the meeting has been the source of much debate in the past few months. Still a hero to a few but a pariah to most, the wily despot, who recently announced that only “friendly nations” will be allowed to observe next year’s elections, will almost assuredly be the center of attention for much of the meeting.

Gordon Brown has every right to boycott the summit, and quite a lot of justification, but an even better approach might be for those leaders who do attend the summit to confront Mugabe frontally. This would give Mugabe the platform that many will dread him having, and will inevitably give him a chance to denounce his critics as imperialists and puppets, but he’s likely to do that anyway. What would be most reassuring would be if some African heads of state, even those who believed Mugabe has every right to attend the meeting, broke their silence to condemn Mugabe’s brutal regime.

The Council on Foreign Relations has a fantastic interactive map of Africa’s conflict zones and areas of UN/African Union intervention past and presence, as well as an option to see the contours of former colonial rule and influence. This is a first-rate resource for those who want to understand Africa’s divisions, particularly for students.