Today, July 3, I was reminded of the great events that led to the US declaration of independence, 250 years ago by President Donald Trump himself.
The letter, deposited in my email box, was entitled, Proclamation, reminding us that on July 4, 1776, a motley crew of colonials, meeting in Philadelphia, in the belief that no matter how powerful an oppressor is, in the long run, the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice.
If anything, while true that the US as a country has not always walked the walk, it is their relentless pursuit of the highest ideals that have inspired the whole world.
Zimbabweans will take courage from the noble deeds of these American founders.
What I am about to write below is seditious, and it would behoove you in wisdom to throw away the copy after reading it.
The American founders, suffered mightily from British oppression, they were taxed them heavily without consent. They (the British) felt entitled to carry on this oppression-in Shona-it would be interpreted as Handiende-or else.
A grievous annoyance was the British habit of bivouacking their soldiers on settler plantations and helping themselves to the farm products such as chickens, eggs, and goats as they wished.
The inspiring words of these bandits was that they were of equal status with the British nobility, Lord Cornwallis having landed with 30 000 men on New York island to enforce that oppression.
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Here is another subversive statement-they, the ignoble colonials found that “in the nature of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which connected them with (the British).”
In simple English, they had a right, under natural law to abolish an oppressive government.
The meeting itself, at Philadelphia was illegal. The British high commissioner or some such officer of the crown had not authorised it.
Of the 56 men who signed the declaration, three suffered immediate harm.
Their houses and farms were burned down, as was their property and they were dishonored by hanging.
Freedom is not cheap.
But have courage.
The Frenchman, Marqui de Lafayette, who saw these freedom fighters in the winter of 1777 wrote these words.
“The unfortunate soldiers…had neither coasts, nor hats, nor shirts, nor shoes; their feet and legs froze till they grew black, and it was necessary to amputate them.”
The great freedom fighter, General G. Washington boasted of 28 000 men, but Lafayette said that 2 500 died from the harsh weather and 7 500 were too weak to fight.
But dear reader, the misery of the liberation army is not the issue here.
The inspiration comes from their doggedness. They did not give up. “When governments become destructive… it is the right of the people to abolish it and to institute a new government.”
It was these words that inspired the Afro leader Martin Luther King to make his “Dream Speech.”
It is true that the framers of the American document did not have black people in mind when they wrote these seditious words.
But, Dr. King argues that the inspiration is that they declared that God (not King George 111) endowed humans with “inalienable rights, among these (being) life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.”
Further, in a fight against oppression, the misery of the oppressed is to be expected because the Zvigananda will be fat in their stomachs with ill-gotten wealth.
Ideas of freedom, once rooted in the soul, are difficult to erase. Historian Wilfred McClay reminds us that the British oppressors, who celebrated the Christmas of 1776 with liquid spirits were asleep on the morrow when they were routed by Washington’s rag tag army.
Americans have bequeathed to the world the idea of rule of law. In a society of free people, one goes about doing his business without interference from the authorities.
There is a big difference. Imagine one is traveling in Zimbabwe, one cannot drive ten kilometers free from police interference.
“Zviri kudii baba?” Asks a policeman. “Where are you coming from?” He continues.
Here is another example. During the hot summer, my family drove from South Carolina to Nova Scotia, Canada. There was not a single police interference on this 1 000-mile journey. The Canadian border officials said: “Welcome to Canada.”
“Enjoy the weather,” the officer wished us well.
The Donald Trump era.
The presidency of Donald Trump has exaggerated the weaknesses of American political system.
That weakness, as professors Jeffrey Sachs and Joh Mearsheimer have documented, comes from a fundamental weakness of US education.
The Report of the Commission on Social Studies (1934) on which our modern education is based called for “adaptation (towards) an age of industrialization and technological change.”
Rather than teaching “fragments” of history, geography and economics, these were bunched together as “social studies.”
The result was that US education is very practical, what we call today education for jobs.
This success, however, left Americans seriously ignorant of world cultures. In Iran, the US agent, Shah Pahlavi dynasty (1923-1959) emphasized mini skirts for school girls, as a sign of modernisation.
In Cuba, the US asset there, dictator Jean Batista (1952-1959) paid a blind eye to Chicago based Casino-prostitution tourism. Locals associated with these regimes became very wealthy.
In all the 67 countries where US interference became an issue, there was a disconnect between what Americans propagated as modernisation while the natives saw Americanisation as a danger to social cohesion.
President Trump’s ignorance and surprise that US-Israeli murder of Holy Father Ali Khamenei was not appreciated, is symptomatic of that American disease, complete indifference to foreign cultural values. Trump is not unique.
Former president Barak Obama’s foreign policy forced African countries to legalize gay marriages.
Nevertheless, when all is said and done, the American attitude of “everything is possible” has been an inspiration to the world.
*Ken Mufuka is a Zimbabwean patriot.
