Usually, when Americans are faced with natural disasters, their better angels come out of the dark pits shinning like diamonds in darkness. Some of those characteristics are on display as the Russian occupation of Ukraine unfolds.
It appears that the US State Department will allow all Ukrainians reaching the shores of the US, temporary permit to stay (TPS). Since there are many Ukrainian communities in large cities, this will come as a relief to the weary and those Ukrainians burdened by loss of home and hearth. In Chicago the Ukrainian community is taking on the burden of teaching, comforting and guiding Ukrainian children through Zoom platforms. The Eastern Orthodox Churches are also taking up the slack.
Combined with Catholics and Lutherans, the saints have a vast wealth of knowledge that can be shared to ameliorate the suffering of God’s children.
On the political level, US President Joe Biden, dragged by his European compatriots, has cut off Russian petroleum products to the US. These constitute less than 5% of the total product. With the international exchange facility called the Swift Bank, very soon, anybody with a Russian name will find it difficult to travel in Europe and the world.
All these measures are being taken in order to punish Russia for oppressing, invading, and wishing to regime change a neighbour’s government.
By shutting off Russian oil, the US petrol princes have shot up in one day, from US$3 to US$5 As usual, Americans are ingenious. A futuristic plan called Flex-Fuel allows an engine to transmigrate from petrol to alcohol, or even hydro (water) has been recovered from the archives.
Nevertheless, a huge reversal of President Joe Biden’s fortunes is expected in the November mid-term elections.
The lithium battery used on electrical vehicles has become the gold standard of the future. Peru, Mexico and Russia have made this mineral a national security item and have prevented Chinese mining companies from monopolising it. Zimbabwe has yet to wake up.
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The mother of all lies
According to Yale University professor Tim Snyder, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who accuses Ukraine government of genocide, Nazism, gangsterism, and xenophobia is himself the mother of all lies.
The Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky is Jewish. His father fought in the Second World War against the Nazis.
The professor has missed the issue. Great powers take what they can from their neighbours, change governments, replace hostile leaders with puppets and draw a no-go zone around their empires. Former US president George Bush and British prime minster Tony Blair called this benevolent hegemony.
Moral arguments do not weigh with hegemonial powers. The correct answer is simply to say to Russia: “You will not go into Ukraine because we are bigger than you. If you do, we will destroy you. Full stop.”
But great powers must convince their electorates that their cause is just. The Vietnam war was lost because the electorate became aware of the lies that were told. The mother of all lies was the one told by former US president George W Bush (1991) about Iraq.
Writer Bob Woodward says that Bush’s vice-president had a map of Iraq oil fields and was drooling to seize them for his cronies. So, Bush told the American people that Iraq leader Saddam Hussein’s “regime has already used weapons of mass destruction against Iraq’s and against Iraq’s people. Moreover, Hussein has trained and harboured terrorists, including operatives of A-Qaeda (who have) killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country.”
Well over three million Iraqis were displaced and 100 000 killed. No arrangements were made for the refugees and no punishment was carried out against the perpetrators. No reparations were paid. No apologies were ever made. Bush and his cronies are enjoying life.
Race issues
While the Ukrainians struggle for their freedom, their treatment of African students fleeing to safety is disgusting. Queen Alefa, a Nigerian medical student, heard the train guard saying clearly: “This train is for women and children only.” Then the guard turned to her and asked her to leave the train.
Speaking perfect Russian, she asked: “Am I a man?”
Black students have been kicked and beaten in the streets of Kiev by punks and scoundrels.
European and US television spokespersons, with not-so-subtle Freudian slips of the tongue, say that they cannot allow Ukrainian refugees to suffer because they are white. The argument should be no human children should be deliberately exposed to such cruelty, whether Russian or not.
Africa must unite
Contrary to what people believe, Africans are not disrespected because they are black. They are disrespected because they are poor and everywhere one goes, they fill the lists of indigents.
Yet Africa is the richest continent on earth. If Africa is not united, and each little country tries to speak and take advantage of its neighbours, we deserve to be disrespected.
It has escaped African leaders, except Kenya and Rwanda that African refugees flee towards Europe, considering the indignities of racism there worthy of enduring. The African Union has no arrangements for the protection of its own.
It is noteworthy that South African blacks drive away Zimbabwean blacks; a Zulu Dhlamini takes his knobkerrie to drive away a Zimbabwean Hlatwayo and a Sithole and a Nyathi. Are all these not sons of Nguni, across the Mfolozi in Zululand? These same South Africans are advertising for registered nurses in the United Kingdom. So Zimbabwean nurses are driven away from South Africa and flee to the United Kingdom. English nurses come to South Africa and are paid twice the going salaries because they are expatriates.
And these brothers expect to be respected in the world. This is the true challenge for African leadership. They exchange their gold for pieces of US paper, which Americans then guard at Fort Knox with Blue Angels. Zimbabweans have been importing Japanese and Chinese engineers for road resurfacing. Is it truly beyond the capacity of Zimbabweans to resurface a road? And they want to be respected.
Methinks, if we are in this “decolonial mentalite” we deserve every disrespect white people heap on us.
The Ukrainian tragedy has inadvertently exposed Africa’s weaknesses.
- Ken Mufuka is a Zimbabwean patriot and writes from the US. His books are available from Innov Bookshops in Zimbabwe and from kenmufukabooks.com in the wider world.
