[A-List] Commentary on U.S. and U.K. fake concerns for democracy

[Charles Brown]

The repeated attention to Zimbabwe in the U.S. and U.K. particularly 
should not obscure a larger point:  why
is it that an election taking place in Congo-Brazzaville contemporaneously
where the incumbent won about 90% of the vote, after the chief opponent
called for a boycott and other candidates were barred from running due to
constitutional changes--why did this not receive comparable
attention?  Similar events occurred recently in Guinea--why did this not
receive comparable attention?  In Madagascar right now after a recent
election one basically sees the intriguing situation of dual power with
the two chief candidates both claiming victory and sections of the
military
and police, dueling capitals, etc.--why has this extraordinary development
not received comparable attention?  In Zimbabwe's neighbor, Swaziland, the
feudal monarch--who has about eight spouses, as I recall--has jailed the
main opposition figure:  why has this not received comparable attention?

Certainly a critique can be made of the policies of ZANU-PF--and I, among
others, have done so in my recent book, not least by pointing out how ZANU
was favored initially over its then chief rival (ZAPU) by London because
Mugabe's
party was viewed as not close to the then USSR.  However, this does not
obscure the larger point for today, which is that the attention to
Zimbabwe by the U.S. and U.K. particularly is fueled in no small part by a
white supremacist concern about the fate of the European minority in
Zimbabwe--a minority which, by and large, has been spectacularly
retrograde.


Doctor