(with thanks to 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.