By Stephen Gowans While Patrick Bond likes to create the impression he offers an independent left perspective on Zimbabwe, it’s difficult to reconcile the impression with the reality. Bond has, in the past, recommended that progressives look to two of Zimbabwe’s “pro-democracy” groups, Sokwanele and Zvakwana, to find out what’s going on in Zimbabwe. (1) … Continue reading The Company Patrick Bond Keeps
By Stephen Gowans Patrick Bond and Grace Kwinjeh wrote on article on March 11 for Z-Net on the upcoming elections in Zimbabwe. Titled “Zimbabwe’s political roller-coaster hits another deep dip,” the article took the current government to task, predicted a Robert Mugabe victory “by hook or crook,” and declared civil society to be Zimbabwe’s “main … Continue reading Who is Grace Kwinjeh (and why did Patrick Bond co-author an article with her)?
May 2, 2019 By Stephen Gowans On the heels of another Washington-backed attempt to engineer a coup d’état in Venezuela, Jacobin, a periodical that bills itself as “a leading voice of the American Left,” has published an assault on the Bolivarian Revolution. Following Oscar Wilde’s quip about enemies stabbing you in the back but friends stabbing you … Continue reading Jacobin stabs Venezuela in the front
The next time that empire comes calling in the name of human rights, please be found standing idly by By Stephen Gowans Maximilian C. Forte’s new book Slouching Towards Sirte: NATO’s War on Libya and Africa (released November 20) is a searing indictment of NATO’s 2011 military intervention in Libya, and of the North American … Continue reading Slouching Towards Sirte: NATO’s War on Libya and Africa
By Stephen Gowans A member of the executive committee of the scholars’ organization that has accused Mahmoud Mamdani of falling for what it calls the anti-imperialist rhetoric of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, has volunteered and worked for pro-imperialist organizations and has given briefings to the US State Department and Intelligence Council. (1) Jacob Mundy, who … Continue reading Concerned Africa Scholars’ Jacob Mundy
“…against those who substitute moral certainty for knowledge, and who feel virtuous even when acting on the basis of total ignorance.”* By Stephen Gowans Mahmood Mamdani’s largely sympathetic analysis of the Mugabe government, “Lessons of Zimbabwe,” published in the December 4, 2008 London Review of Books, has been met with a spate of replies from … Continue reading Cynicism as a substitute for scholarship
By Stephen Gowans The US government had a hand in formulating the policy platform of the Tsvangirai faction of the Movement for Democratic Change, Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, and funded community-based newsletters to create a platform to persuade Zimbabweans to accept Washington’s point of view, according to a US government report. The report boasts that … Continue reading US Government Report Undermines Zimbabwe Opposition’s Claim of Independence
By Stephen Gowans Journalist Heidi Holland’s biography of Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe, Dinner with Mugabe, begins with the assumption that Zimbabwe’s long-standing president is a monster. In addition, Mugabe, who recently struck a deal with factions of the opposition MDC to share power, is accused by his biographer of creating “a de facto one party … Continue reading Heidi Holland’s Dinner with Mugabe: Failed Demonography
By Stephen Gowans On May 4, 2008 MRZine published Chido Makunike’s “The Complexities of Zimbabwe.” Makunike’s analysis had originally appeared at the Ford and Soros foundation-funded Pambazuka News, with help from the European Union and British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, partners with another Pambazuka News sponsor, Fahamu. Pambazuka News’ editor, Firoze Manji, is the director … Continue reading Even at MRZine the ruling ideas on Zimbabwe are the ideas of the ruling class
By Stephen Gowans It’s easy to rail against The Times of London, The Telegraph, Canada’s The National Post and scores of US equivalents for being the worst kind of purveyors of right-wing propaganda. These advocates of all that is backward, with their philosophy of unremitting indulgence for the rich and limitless harshness for the poor, … Continue reading Ideological Mine Fields
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