In Zimbabwe the Africanist tendency led by Robert Mugabe is making one last heave to destroy ‘white farmers’.

The so-called power-sharing deal which is meant to start to pull Zimbabwe out of its crisis leaves the Agriculture Ministry in Mugabe’s hands. So, out they go:

At the meeting in Chegutu, Johannes Tomana, the attorney-general who has himself been allocated a seized farm – is reported to have said there had been "unnecessary delays" in farmers’ trials as a result of their legal representatives challenging the constitutionality of the process.

Party time!

The greatest book written about Africa from a ‘white’ perspective is My Traitor’s Heart by Rian Malan. He describes in gory detail just how far ‘whites’ have to go to reach true acceptance in Africa.

So far so clear.

But read this fine Standpoint discussion about Western assistance to Africa between Dambisa Moyo, Daniel Johnson and Richard Dowden.

Dambisa has written Dead Aid, a book which describes the way Western development aid to Africa has created chaos. She puts a strong emphasis on self-respect:

So how do you get to the place where Africans can walk into a room and they’re equally respected as business partners? They’re not going to get to that point if they continue to depend on aid, where you’re constantly with a begging bowl.

Places like India and China – they still have an enormous part of their population living in poverty, and yet nobody feels sorry for the Chinese, nobody feels sorry for India. We treat them as equal partners on the global stage. We want to hear what they have to say. That’s because they aren’t sitting there, waiting for a big cheque to come in from abroad.

I have long suspected that, bizarre as it may seem, Mugabe is operating in some way according to this logic. He wants to force Zimbabwe to rock bottom as one perverse way to end this dependency on ‘white’/settler thinking in all its forms. To wipe the Zimbabwe slate clean of European values and residual power, as the basis for restarting the country on exclusively African terms.

Of course whatever purist logic might be attractive in this position is far outweighed by the death and corruption his policies have caused. But I confess some sneaking sympathy with the Africanist ideal, since it is just so awful to see the patronising way the West (and the UK) has dealt with Africa for so long.

Mugabe’s own treatment here in London at the hands of New Labour may well have led him to his final ruinous Africanist fundamentalism. The infamous letter sent by Clare Short to the Zimbabwe Land and Agriculture Minister in 1997 is the classic example of what I mean.

How many deaths have resulted from this ponderous, condescending and downright stupid text drafted by priggish DFID apparatchiki who simply failed to understand the psychological issues at stake?