HomeOld_PostsFestus Mogae sells his soul to the devil

Festus Mogae sells his soul to the devil

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WHILE on a visit to the US recently the former president of Botswana, Festus Mogae, had this to say about gay rights and it is worth quoting him at length:
“President Mugabe has said that he hates homosexuals and is on record as saying they are worse than pigs and dogs. That is still his position. Leadership is not always about you, it is about people and often circumstances. I call upon African leaders to open up to second generation rights…I also believe that we must, as Africans, admit that the world is changing and we must move with the times.”
It is clear from the statement above that Mogae is exercising his right to freedom of speech and to freedom of expression. This freedom includes expressing his personal opinions about other leaders such as President Robert Mugabe. That is as it should be.
The only problem which arises is that Mogae has visited Zimbabwe several times, the most recent one being about a month ago. During that visit his smiles beamed from ear to ear as he was welcomed by some Zimbabwean dignitaries, who included at one stage, President Mugabe.
During that visit and many others before, Mogae never bothered to give us a hint that he was undergoing a conversion of some sort, more or less similar to that which Saul experienced on the road to Damascus before he became Paul.
During the same visit to the US, Mogae makes some startling claims that after his deep and long interaction with lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans-sexual groups and after extensive research he has now come to the conclusion that “our knowledge” is limited and that “we must be open to new discoveries.” He goes on: “I have now been converted, I used to hold the same views as my counterparts…”
How deep, genuine and how long Mogae’s interaction with and conversion to the norms and values of the gay world is a matter which most of us cannot fathom right now. Somehow, however, we cannot help but notice that he is insisting we become converts to homosexuality like him as part of our endorsement of his new discoveries.
A number of observations are in order here:
a) It is interesting that Mogae does not have the courage to announce his gay related discoveries here in Africa. Instead he announces such discoveries only when he visits the US and only when he is no longer president of Botswana.
The timing and context of his startling utterances pursuade many to conclude that he only feels secure and confident to announce his discoveries while in the US and not here in Africa.
And this alone suggests that he knows deep down in his heart that his discoveries are deeply unpopular and unwelcome, not only in his homeland but in Africa as a whole. It is unfortunate that he comes across more like a sponsored and opportunistic voice and not like a genuine convert.
b) Mogae in his wisdom is asking all of us to forego and forget moral boundaries as to what is right and what is wrong, what is acceptable and what is not acceptable, what is life affirming and what is not and all those principles which have shaped our lives and our outlook on life. Why? Because the US with its Western allies say so! From a former president we expect far more than this, surely.
c) Mogae is also trying hard to convince us that those African leaders who refuse to embrace homosexuality are driven more by their egos and are not people-centred. He argues: “Leadership is not always about you, it is about people and often circumstances.” If indeed he means what he says, logic insists that those leaders who are saying no to homosexuality in Africa are in fact reflecting the views of their people and not views preached by Western donors! This begs a number of questions: Who is expressing the views of the people and who is not? Is Mogae being people-centred when he announces his conversion in the US and not here in Africa where we reside? Which people is he referring to when he insists leadership is about people? Is Mogae being honest to himself and to us as well?
Surely as a former president Mogae knows better than what his utterances would lead us to believe. His mission to preach the virtues of homosexuality in Africa is doomed to fail in the same way that Western colonisation of Africa was doomed to fail!
d) In the same interview Mogae makes some puzzling utterances which are bound to baffle many. He says:
“We still have leaders in Africa who think they are indispensable, larger than life and more important than their countries. That must stop. If a leader loses control, the world will and should intervene to save the people.”
The problem here is that Mogae does not bother to specify which leaders in Africa have claimed to be more important than their countries, which leaders have lost control in their countries to justify the intervention of the world and which ones have claimed to be larger than life?
The vagueness concerning those leaders involved is well-matched by the vagueness of the values he is trying to project.
Surely as someone who led Botswana from 1998 to 2008 he should be courageous enough to specify those involved, that is if he believes in the significance of what he is saying.
However, it is important to state that Africa has produced leaders whose achievements and ideas have influenced generations all over Africa. Certainly Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Julius Nyerere and Sekou Toure, Robert Mugabe are some of the leaders who come to mind and who can be regarded as legends in their own right!
Such leaders have in one way or another become symbolic figures whose significance goes far beyond their mundane everyday existence. If indeed this symbolism is what Mogae is fighting against in his own clumsy and baffling manner, then he does not know where Africa is coming from. And that is a sad thing to say, considering that Mogae ruled that sister country, Botswana, for 10 years.
e) In the same interview Mogae makes an emphatic but baffling statement about the need for the outside world to intervene in African affairs. This suggestion which Mogae is insisting should become an obligation of the outside world is breathtaking!
Coming from someone who should know better the kind of havoc which Western interventions have caused in Africa and in other parts of the world, it makes all of us wonder whether we are learning anything from our painful history.
Libya is today full of anarchy, courtesy of Western intervention in its internal affairs in 2011.Syria is in turmoil, again courtesy of the US machinations and intervention in its internal affairs. The same applies to Iraq and Afghanistan.
The same Western culprits tried hard to generate a fake war against Zimbabwe in order to stop the democratisation of land ownership in favour of the majority. This is why in Zimbabwe the principle of sovereignty is not something abstract and negotiable each time some of us go to the Western world begging for foreign direct investment.
As Zimbabweans we feel that it is not necessary that each time we ask for money from the West, we have to sell huge chunks of our soul to the devil in the same way that Mogae seems to be doing here, much to the shame of all of us!

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