The Stormy Present – Society

You’re probably asking: why is a piece about the Zimbabwe elections in the society section? Well the reason is that there is absolutely nothing political about this election in Zimbabwe. Actually, Zimbabwean elections haven’t really had much to do with politics since 1980 when the black majority of the country was first allowed to vote after a two decade guerrilla war. And before 1980, under white rule, the elections had little to do with politics because the one and only issue was how to maintain white power. My point is that in Zimbabwe, politics is not about politics, it’s about the acquisition and maintaining of power.

A Little History

The 1980 election brought Robert Mugabe into power and he has connived and schemed his way to greater and greater power since then. Initially Mugabe was feared as a Marxist revolutionary, but after his election he put those radical principles aside and hinted to a smooth transition toward a Zimbabwe above the racial fray that had brought the country to war. Things went well initially; schools improved, heath care improved, and blacks were no longer legally enshrined as second class citizens.

But even as these advances were being made, the power grab behind the scenes was carrying on with fanatical fervor and it was Mugabe who was leading that charge. Heading an effectively one party state, he was able to build a patronage network inside the party that lacked any transparency or desire for competence. High power positions were dolled out by the measure of one’s unflinching loyalty rather than ability and as a result machinery of government began to grind to a halt in terms of service delivery as government members looted government finances. Everything that was once promising about Zimbabwe collapsed under the pressure of rampant corruption and ineptitude.

Assigning Blame, Resigning Reason

As dissatisfaction arose in the general public, Mugabe sought to simply blame the country’s woes on his enemies. The Ndebele ethnic group, white farmers, white judges, America, and Brittan were commonly held responsible for everything from rising inflation, a lack of jobs, to drought. There was nothing political about these ridiculous assertions for they have absolutely no bearing to reality. They are just useful scapegoats for problems that had arisen due to Mugabe’s methodology for building and maintaining power.

It would have been one thing if a political ideology had driven Mugabe to centralize power around him, misguided as that would be. It would have been one thing if he had done so because he theorized that development was only possible with a singular power base. But this was not his rationale. He wanted power for power sake. He enriched himself first and foremost, and then enriched the people around him whom he needed to keep on his side in order to maintain his position as chief looter of Zimbabwean treasure.

Therefore, to cover the Zimbabwean elections taking place tomorrow, March 29^th, as if they were just another political race is idiotic. Yet, here in South Africa the news papers and stations wonder aloud about how the rural vote will respond to challengers Morgan Tsvangirai and Simba Makoni’s messages? They speculate that Mugabe’s ruling party is on the verge of a split since Makoni used to be part of the ruling party and has since defected to run for President. How will the urban vote be divided between the three parties and who will benefit? Will Makoni’s involvement split the Zanu or MDC vote? Will it be close enough to necessitate a run-off election? What do the polling numbers suggest (ignoring the fact that the state owned media in Zimbabwe is doing the polling)?

Every time I hear these faux political analyses of a faux election premised by faux politics and faux government, I think of a joke Bill Maher did when Raul Castro was ‘elected’ leader of Cuba after his brother stepped down. Bill asked Bob Odenkirk, from Mr Show with Bob and David, to analyze the Cuban election. Bob pointed out (I’m paraphrasing the joke here) that Raul did well with women voters where he received 99% of the vote. He also did well with his core constituency of middle-aged male voters, receiving 99% of their vote, and surprised some people with how well he did among urban voters, where he got 99% of the vote. Bill then said that he’d hear that the Latino vote had also come out strong for Raul and asked Bob why Raul had done so well. Bob replied, it had to do with his slogan; “What are you fucking crazy? Vote for Raul Castro or die.”

Land as a Racial Landmine

So why do people insist on covering the Zimbabwean race like it is real? To answer this lets look at the issue that has made Zimbabwe infamous; the eviction of white farmers. In case you didn’t know, Mugabe blamed the whites for most of the afflictions blighting Zimbabwe. Key among this complaint was the fact that the whites owned pretty much all the good farming land. In fact, everyone (Brittan, Zanu, Zapu, NGOs and development agencies) agreed after Zimbabwe’s independence that land redistribution was going to have to take place. Nothing was done to this end, however, until Mugabe found himself against a wall with mounting pressure from the so-called war vets and the populace at large. Thus, to quell dissent Mugabe started handing out land to people essentially at random. Farms that were productive, farms that had been bought by whites after independence were seized along with unproductive farms run by absentee landlords. This completely disrupted the already faltering economy. Furthermore, these farms were redistributed to members of Mugabe’s cadre to further entrench his patronage network or they were given to war vets who seized the land, violently sometimes, so as to appease their complaints. Regardless of who got the land after it was taken, the fact was that the recipient had no idea how to farm it. Those farms that were seized by squatters who did have some farming knowledge turned into nothing more than subsistence farms. It is no wonder, then, that Zimbabwe, once the bread basket of Southern Africa, is now on the brink of starvation and dependent on Western food aid. And guess what, when we Westerners give them food aid, Mugabe’s government withholds it from those who support the opposition parties.

Yet if you bring up this issue of land seizures here in South Africa, whether it be at a bar or in an academic setting, people will talk to you about it in terms of lofty, ethereal ideas like redistributive justice or black consciousness or African identity or whatever fancy new buzzword the politicians and ivory towered academics have come up with lately. People ascribe these theories to this situation because they absolutely, unequivocally do not want to talk about the fact that the reality is that Mugabe, once a hero for ousting white minority rule, is now the quintessential caricature of an African tyrant. It all comes back to that Michael Vick piece I wrote a while back and posted here (scroll down for it), where I argued that people today always look for the simplest answer to avoid having to deal with the inevitable complexities of life.

In Zimbabwe’s case, it’s easier to use the standard old template for electoral coverage than to admit that the whole thing is a farce and talk about why that is and what do to about it. The reporters and editors aren’t stupid, they know, just as everyone else does, that Mugabe is going to win, that there will be violence carried out against opposition supporters, that the vote will be rigged, not free, and unfair, and that Zimbabwe’s political scene is totally devoid of substance, instead composed of an association of the ruling party trying to maintain power at any cost while opponents try to usurp that power, and rightfully so, but are never really forced to come up with a policy platform for how they’d deal with that country’s monumental problems (hyper-hyper inflation, commodity shortages, lack of food, astronomical unemployment, etc; it’s basically a country on the verge of collapse).

Why is this pretence easier? Because they’d rather talk about a fake election as if it were serious than talk about the fact that sometimes alumni of the liberation struggle are not the saints they are made out to be. Sometimes, once independence is won, they want a large slice of the spoils of that struggle. Sometimes the black guy is the bad guy.

But why talk about that sort of thing here in South Africa I suppose. Why worry about the repercussions of a one party ‘democracy’ in South Africa? The ANC has your best interests in mind. They love transparency, never play the race card, never conflate present day politics and the liberation struggle. Most importantly, they’d never allow a power hungry self promoter who’ll do or say anything to gain favor, who takes bribes and funnels money to friends, and who therefore doesn’t respect transparency of government or the court system to come to power here in South Africa. Right?

(For all my fellow Americans reading this, Wikipedia Jacob Zuma and you’ll get that last bit of culturally specific sarcasm. Also, if you want to read a really good book about Mugabe and the recent history of Zimbabwe, which I completely glean over in this post, check out Martin Meredith’s book Mugabe: Power, Plunder, and the Struggle for Zimbabwe.)

One of the message boards that I read regularly had a great thread about things that you believed when you were 5.

I always thought that the “est.” on the bottom of a sign or logo meant that the sign was estimated to have been installed in that year. I could never figure out why they couldn’t remember putting the sign up in 1989 and had to estimate it.

I also knew that when I heard the word schedule it meant a list of upcoming events. But when I read the word schedule I pronounced in “she-lude,” and couldn’t figure out why they had two words for the same meaning.

And of course, I thought that girls peed out of their butts

I don’t know that this has to do with society, but I’m just curious to see all the crazy things that everyone else thought.

I wrote this back when the whole Vick thing was going down for a local Spartanburg Magazine called The Root. 

A few years ago there was a famous commercial in which an assortment of people, young and old, black and white, etc, looked into the camera and declared, “I am Tiger Woods.” The point of that commercial, aside from selling more Nike products, was to assert that all of us could revel in the personal and professional excellence that Tiger Woods represented as he played his sport. It was life affirming and reminded us of our inner ability to strike out toward our own greatness.

In 2007, I believe there is a need for a new commercial along similar lines but with the opposite purpose. I believe we need a commercial in which various individuals, young and old, black and white, etc, look into the camera and declare, “I am Michael Vick.”

We all know Vick’s story by now and I assure you this is not another in a long line of articles redundantly repeating the obvious fact that Vick’s role in dog fighting was abhorrent. Instead, this article focuses on a sort of meta-issue surrounding the Vick saga, which is: what does our reaction to Vick’s inhumane behavior say about us as a society?

When news of Vick’s involvement in dog fighting first came out it was immediately met with universal condemnation. From news anchors and pundits on down to folks gathered around the water cooler, there was unanimous agreement that Vick was decidedly in the wrong. Even those that attempted to defend Vick didn’t attempt to defend dog fighting itself. Rather, they simply tried to rationalize Vick’s deeds by saying that they were a product of his culture as an African American man growing up in poor circumstances. So everyone, from his harshest critics to those sympathizing with his plight, agreed that the actions in and of themselves were absolutely, unequivocally wrong.

What is striking about this reaction is that such universal agreement on anything is exceedingly rare. America has always been about individual freedom, which allows for diversity and therein makes a universal opinion concerning just about anything difficult to arrange. I would argue that this is typically a good thing. After all, the framers of the Constitution wanted to legally enshrine the individual freedoms that allow for, and even foster, diversity so as to prevent a tyranny of the majority. And America’s desire for a heterogeneous society with a free and open marketplace of ideas, I believe, is the keystone for the success our country has reaped. However, certain situations arise in which dissent from the majority opinion is nonexistent. Usually these situations present themselves in times of crisis. During World War II for example there was widespread solidarity in regards to the ‘goodness’ of America’s aims and actions. More recently, on 9/11 and the following days there was widespread agreement that the attackers were morally bankrupt, even evil, entities unfit for the moniker ‘human beings’. Of course those instances of solidarity were not only justified, but productive and beneficial. They strengthened the resolve of a nation under pressure from outside threats. Typically only moments as monumental as those two are enough to herd the collective moral conscience of a diverse country into a singular opinion, which is why the Vick case is so strange since it is clearly no where near as monumental as those events. So why then does this bring about the same lack of dissent? What sort of crisis are we undergoing that we need to come together as a people to repudiate, with heightened vigor, an NFL quarterback?

From the onset it was clear that this news item would dominate the headlines of cable news, local news, national news, and sports news. And no matter how many people from various networks and from various journalistic backgrounds weighed in, their verdict was always the same. But it wasn’t just the unanimous opinion concerning Vick that was exceptional; it was the fervor with which people voiced their disapproval. When leveling their criticisms about Vick, people did so with gusto that lends itself only to those who speak with an unquestioned certainty of their viewpoint. Since there was no one defending Vick’s actions, one could rant and rave against those acts to a cartoonish degree and remain undaunted by even the mere possibility that the argument they were spouting might be proven incorrect or over the top. With universal opinion fully entrenched, no disparaging remark was too far, no amount of outrage unwarranted, and no amount of media coverage and punditry about the issue was excessive.

So why did Vick receive such rigorous and universal judgment? The answer is simple, literally. I believe that the reason Vick’s actions drew such immense media coverage, such enormous public outcry, such widespread and universal condemnation was because the case was so utterly simple. It was clear, it was unchallenging, it was easy, and it broke down into a black and white morality. And in a world that is increasingly complex and integrated and confusing, people crave simplicity. To me, that is our crisis as a society, as a country. We feel that things have gone so far, become so global, and fostered such a leviathan of government, economic, and social institutions that things not directly inside our individual autonomous realm of existence are simply out of our control and thereby not of our concern. So in this world where, to quote Yeats, “the falconer can no longer hear the falcon”, we are anxious to latch onto any subject that presents a clear sense of right and wrong. Dog fighting lends itself to the black and white mentality for which we nostalgically long. Vick’s case was simple and that simplicity allowed for a sort of escapism from the far more complex world around us.

In many ways, the history of philosophy is a stream of writers proving through reasoned argument that our moral duties as human beings are vast, far-reaching, not always easily discernable, and, quite frankly, physically and mentally taxing. Our crisis is that we have adopted an aversion to anything difficult or challenging as a response to the realization that the world is increasingly complicated. Therefore, the unanimity and fervor pertaining to Vick’s actions were the result of us reaching out for some semblance of moral certainty without having to do the legwork of sorting out our own moral duties in a complex world.

I recognize that this is quite an assertion, but I think the evidence to support this claim lies in the hypocrisy that is rife in our supposedly easy and irrefutable denouncement of Vick. He drew public ire because he abused animals. Yet, if one looks closely at the way animals are treated on factory farms, then the treatment Vick doled out appears to be somewhat dulled. Large factory farms that are responsible for putting the meat on our dinner plates do not remotely resemble the Steinbeck like images of a farm that we may have. On these large factory farms, animals are kept in pens or cages that severely restrict their freedom of movement. Of course with veal, baby cows will actually have their extremities bound to prevent any movement at all. Chickens are sealed in cages only slightly larger than their bodies and transported across the country. Moreover, these animals are often put on restricted diets, leaving them perpetually hungry. In instance after instance leading up to their deaths, usually performed by slitting the animal’s throat, animals raised for food are treated with intense cruelty.

However, it isn’t as if these factory farms are treating animals with such irreverence for pleasure. Rather, this deplorable treatment is simply the result of cost cutting measures. Better treatment for these animals would increase the cost of productions, thereby increasing the cost of the finished product. And that’s where we come in. We could fight to change the treatment of animals, but we don’t because such a change would hit us in the wallet. As a society we seem to have weighed the options of treating animals cruelly or paying more for meat, and decided to put up with the cruelty. We’ve forfeited morality in order to save a few bucks.

And this is not so unlike what Vick did. Presumably, dog fighting gave Vick some sort of pleasure. He enjoyed it, and enjoyed it enough so that the cruelty inflicted upon the animals in his care was outweighed by his own pleasure. Meanwhile, the same society that enthusiastically railed against Vick remained complicit accomplices in the horrible treatment doled out to animals on factory farms because the alternative would be higher meat prices. Like Vick, the pleasure we derive out of not having to pay more for a meat product is deemed higher than the harm inflicted on those animals.

Given our hypocrisy on the issue of Vick’s cruelty toward animals, clearly something much deeper than just our concern for animal rights is going on. It seems to me that my original hypothesis, we jumped to the moral high ground to run down Vick because it was, unlike just about everything else in the world, simple, is the best explanation for our public reaction to his crime. Our collective and universal demonization of Vick and his actions seemed to validate our own morality and sanctity. The idea that the guilt of one somehow means the innocence of the rest. The idea that that one moment of moral clarity can justify our refusal to see the opaque moral universe for what it is.

Of course, I say all this as someone who derided Vick, who eats plenty of meat despite all the things I know about how it gets onto my plate, and, most importantly, as someone who could do the extra work to find meat products from local and small farms that allow for free-range grazing but doesn’t. And so even though I might be the one pointing out our societal hypocrisy concerning the Vick case and explaining it by pointing to a society wide aversion to moral difficulty, I’m forced to admit: I am Michael Vick.