The death of former Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has been another focus for the many discussions that seek to argue what is revolutionary over what is reactionary.
Many news medias are saying that his life has been one of controversies asking the question of whether the man was a tyranical dictator, or a liberator of “his people.”
There is no doubt that the west will raise a lot of criticism against Mugabe based on their disappointment with not being able to access African rescourses in their former Rhodesia at a particular point of his rule.
Indeed Mugabe was an enemy of the US and British imperialists, particularly in the begining of the 21st century when white settlers lost the lands they had stolen from the currently colonized African people.
It should be safe to state that Mugabe was a Pan-Africanist, and today we are seeing that his life is being celeberated in the Pan-Africanist world.
Our Party, the African People’s Socialist Party, has always criticized Pan-Africanism for its susceptibility to the opportunism characteristic of the radical sector of the African petty bourgeoisie. Therefore we are not Pan-Africanists. We are African Internationalists!
The intention of this article is not to recite the biography of Robert Mugabe by broadcasting what is supposed to be his pros and cons. That is already widely accessible.
What is not accessible however, is a narrative that enables the African working class to realize its historical mission of completing the Black revolution of the 1960s as has been called for by Chairman Omali Yeshitela since the 1970s.
Our intention as African Internationalists at this point of the final offensive against imperialism is to discuss Mugabe, the leader who functioned as a member of a distinct class with aspirations reflecting that particular social force. We want to raise the class question in our ongoing movement for national and class liberation.
The African liberation movement has since suffered from the petty bourgeois assumption that the greatness of a freedom fighter can be measured by comparing his or her good deeds to his or her bad deeds.
While the actions of someone may give us an indication of what they are on about that cannot solely be used to make a conclusion about whether they are revolutionary or not.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela has helped us to understand that African people suffer colonial opression as a whole, including the African petty bourgeoisie.
This means that the African petty bourgeoisie will be seen, at a given point, waging serious struggles against the colonizer who oppresses all of us; peasants, workers and the African petty bourgeoisie alike.
This is why the Chairman says that at certain point the African petty bourgeoisie could comprise a progressive force. Progressive as far as their class interests are concerned within the struggle for national liberation.
This can be seen with Mugabe who fought against British imperialism for the indepenence of Zimbabwe, but later to demonsrate his unwillingless to give power to the people and also turning his back on Nkrumah’s mission of building a one United African Socialist State.
Mugabe was a petty bourgeois leader whose interest could not be realized in a borderless unified Africa. Thus we saw no political education and freedom of discussion afforded to the proletariat in Zimbabwe during the whole of his 37 year rule.
Julius Malema and his political rival Andile Mngxitama in South Africa (Occupied Azania) are not far from what Mugabe was. We hear these forces correctly talking about African unity and taking land from our ignoble colonizers without compensation, but there is no reflection in their work of preparing the workers to govern.
The mistake of leaving the custodianship of the African Liberation Movement on the radical sector of the African petty bourgeoisie must not be repeated.
Everything else has been experimented, it is now the time for the African working class, being the only consistently revolutionary social force since the birth of capitalism to complete the Black revolution for Africa’s independence, unfication, and socialism.
Build the African Socialist International under the leadership of the African working class!
Join the African People’s Socialist Party!
Uhuru!
