By Prof Artwell Nhemachena
THE EU and the US have for decades now imposed what they called ‘targeted sanctions’ on Zimbabwe’s national leadership on various allegations including undermining democracy, human rights abuses, corruption, redistributing land, perpetrating violence and so on.
And, of course, the Zimbabwean leadership is still suffering what are described by the imposers as targeted sanctions.
Of course, some Africans who are so hapless as to lack clear sightedness get quickly convinced of the necessity of the sanctions once the EU and US qualify them as targeted, as if they are ever justified to impose sanctions whether targeted or not on Africans.
Let us remember that even rapists target the organs of others when they commit wrongs and so qualifying something, whether sanctions or rape, as targeted does not make it right.
Similarly, murderers target the bodies of their victims but the fact that the murder is targeted does not make it right.
Even burglars target the houses of their victims yet the fact that the burglary is targeted does not make it right.
Besides, thieves target the purses of their victims but the fact that the theft is targeted does not make it right.
In any case, Africa, as a continent, has been a victim of targeting since the era of enslavement; and during colonisation, Africa was the target in the discussions at the Berlin Conference. It was a target for colonisation, for dispossession, exploitation, assassinations and make other vices.
Indeed, the fact that Europe and America target African leaders is nothing new. Colonialists have always targeted African leaders such that those that led the anti-colonial wars and revolts were beheaded, hanged, poisoned, eliminated in various ways.
In Namibia, indigenous Namibian leaders who resisted colonisation were targeted and hanged. In Zimbabwe, indigenous leaders who resisted colonisation were targeted and hanged; in South Africa indigenous leaders who resisted colonization were also targeted and hanged.
In fact, colonialists did not only target the bodies of the indigenous leaders who led resistance movements against colonialism but they even targeted the heads of such indigenous leaders as part of colonial incorporation.
For this reason, scholars like Lauren Janes have noted that the French dessert called tete de negre was about the physical and metaphorical targeting and consumption of the colonised African Other represented by African heads.
Now, when African heads are targeted in the 21st Century, we need to ask questions whether they are not being targeted for the historical dissent in the sense of tete de negre, meaning eating African heads.
The nooses of colonial hangmen targeted the heads of indigenous leaders including Mbuya Nehanda, Sekuru Kaguvi, Hwata, Zindoga, Gutsa and others. The point here is that it would be utterly foolish for Africans to celebrate the murder of their leaders simply because colonialists targeted such leaders, and, to be more specific, targeted the heads of such indigenous leaders.
The picture below shows that colonialists targeted the bodies and heads of indigenous African leaders and, of course, these colonialists certainly assured the rest of the African victims of colonisation that they were only targeting the indigenous leaders who subverted the cause of the ‘mission of civilisation’.
The issue here is that colonialists have always targeted African heads, they have even looted Africans heads — both metaphorically and literally — to Europe and America, dead or alive.
The fact that in the 21st Century, the Europeans and Americans tell us that they are imposing targeted sanctions on African heads should not surprise us if we are in good company with our Africans history. Indeed, Europeans and Americans have always, since the enslavement and colonial eras, targeted African heads, and they are keeping countless African heads which they targeted in their vaults and cupboards in their countries in Europe and America.
And history teaches us that when the head is targeted, the feet, the arms, the legs, the body, the palms and fingers have no reason to rejoice because the decapitation of the head necessarily entails the death of everything including that which has not been targeted.
It would be crass stupidity for the feet, hands, body, fingers and so on to rejoice simply because the colonial hangman has decided to target the head for the decapitation.
Of course, the colonialists would assure the body, arms feet, fingers and so on that the decapitation and incapacitation of the targeted head does not necessarily mean the death of the body, feet, arms, fingers and so on.
They could even first persuade the body, the arms, feet, fingers and so on that the head is so ugly, so dirty, corrupt, oppressive, undemocratic and dictatorial that once it is targeted, decapitated or incapacitated them the rest of the body will enjoy freedom.
But it would be extremely foolish for the parts, including the body, to believe the incapacitation, decapitation or death of the head would bring about freedom and liberation to them.
If no African has gone around the world targeting, decapitating or incapacitating the heads of leaders of other countries in the world, why must right- thinking Africans think that it is good for Europeans and Americans to go about targeting, decapitating and incapacitating the heads of other states for whatever reason?
Even after suffering centuries of enslavement and colonisation, African heads have not gone around targeting, calling for the decapitation and incapacitation of European and American heads. Imagine if Africans did this and would go around telling the rest of the Europeans and Americans that they should not worry because the Africans are only targeting their heads or leaders and not the rest of the citizens.
Obviously, Europeans and Americans would not allow Africans to target European and American heads or leaders for whatever faults they have. Europeans and Americans understand the importance of their heads or leaders whatever faults may be levelled against them.
For Africans, it is like a murderer persuades you that your head is a very ugly one, an unruly head which would be good for the rest of the body if the head is targeted, decapitated or incapacitated. Heads of States are like the head that each one has on top of their bodies. It would be utterly stupid to have it targeted, decapitated or incapacitated for whatever faults by those that are not even the African subjects of the heads.
Sanctions, whether targeted or not, are colonial, and Africans must resist and unite against them whatever allegations they spew.
Of course, Mbuya Nehanda and Sekuru Kaguvi’s heads were targeted by the colonialists for leading the rebellion against the colonial projects. Colonialists concocted spurious allegations against them to justify targeting them in the colonial hangmanship.
In fact, Mbuya Nehanda and Sekuru Kaguvi were not leading rebellion but they were leading resistance against colonial robbery. The Africans were being robbed and their leaders in the form of Mbuya Nehanda and Sekuru Kaguvi assisted the African victims of colonial robbery.
Yet the colonial robbers turned around, twisted matters and accused Mbuya Nehanda and Sekuru Kaguvi of leading rebellions. Africans were not rebelling but they were simply resisting colonial robbery.
For resisting and leading resistance movements against colonial robbery, Mbuya Nehanda and Sekuru Kaguvi were targeted by the colonialists and they were hanged.
In fact, despite the fact that it was the colonialists who were thieves in Africa, the Catholic priest who was appointed to convert Mbuya Nehanda and Sekuru Kaguvi renamed Sekuru Kaguvi Dismas, ‘the good thief’, referring the thief who was hanged together with Jesus in biblical history.
Colonialists have a tendency to paint their victims of colonial theft as thieves, as corrupt, as murderers, as bad, as untrustworthy, dishonesty and so on.
It is a case of the actual thieves describing their victims as thieves. A case of perpetrators of neo-colonial corruption, human rights abuses, bad governance, looting and dispossession, describing their African [neo-colonial] victims as corrupt, human rights abusers, perpetrators of violence, looters, and so on.
Let us not forget that many of these NGOs and CSOs in Africa are feeding off the proceeds of neo-colonial corruption because they are funded by the same people and companies that historically dispossessed and exploited Africans.
In other words, the question here is why NGOs, CSOs and other institutions which are feeding off the proceeds of neo-colonial corruption are not being similarly targeted for sanctions.
After all, if Africans are corrupt in the sense of looting resources and selling them overseas, why is it that it is only Africans who are targeted for sanctions supposedly designed to curb corruption. The corruption that happens in Africa has accomplices based in overseas markets, yet sanctions on [supposed] corruption are paradoxically visited only on Africans.
The point here is that it is, indeed, corrupt for those that impose sanctions to target only Africans as corrupt.
Indeed, missionaries corrupted religion by using it as an apparatus for colonising Africans. Colonialists corrupted civilisation by using it as an apparatus to colonise Africans.
Colonialists corrupted education by using it as an apparatus to colonise Africans. There are, of course, varieties of corruption which require an inclusive definition of corruption. After all, democracy is about inclusivity and diversity.
Besides, colonialists corrupted African economies by dispossessing and exploiting Africans. And colonialists corrupted African sexualities by separating African spouses in colonial forced labour regimes such that homosexuality, prostitution, fornication, etc, developed.
The problem is that Europe and America always seek to Africanise corruption, human rights abuses, violence, bad governance when, in fact, Africans are victims of neo-colonial corruption, Euro-American violence, corruption, human rights abuses and so on.
Yet those that commit corruption, human rights violations, bad governance, undermining of democracy at an international level are never targeted for their wrongs.
What I call the coloniality of targeted sanctions allows thinkers and scholars to see parallels between the historical colonial targeting of indigenous African leaders and the 21st Century targeting of African leaders for the so-called targeted sanctions.
Let us remember that Africans were colonised through the targeting of their indigenous pre-colonial leaders.
