The Brotherhood Trilogy - Part I (July 6 2003)

In the beginning, in the good book (the Holy Bible), the genesis of the wisdom of the whys and wherefores of being our brothers’ keepers was born when the good LORD, the living God, said to Cain: “Where is your brother Abel?”

And Cain notoriously replied: “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”

And so it is then that a few good men across the African political landscape have had no problems making their choices, in the face of such genesis of brotherly love and the divine wisdom enshrined in the holy book of Genesis 4 verses 9 and 10: from the Osagyfo, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, to the Mwalimu, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, and on to the Madiba, Nelson Mandela of South Africa.

Not so long ago, the Madiba revisited such universal altruism when he addressed the British Labour party on the need for all of us to be our brothers’ keepers.

The Osagyfo’s illustrious contribution to such universal wisdom for the freedom of his fellow African brothers and sisters is legendary; and so is the Mwalimu’s. And lately, in the Great Lakes region of the African subcontinent, the Madiba has lived up to such universal altruism for his fellow African brothers and sisters.

But, on the contrary, the current generation of African leaders are just the opposite: from Botswana’s Festus Mogae to South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki, and on to Nigeria’s one time army Dictator, retired General Obasanjo.

Faced with the prospect of choosing between the victims of one of Africa’s most notorious war criminals (Robert Mugabe, he of the notorious Gugurahundi mass rapes, mass murder and mayhem, and the North Korean trained Fifth Brigade and their notorious Southern Zimbabwe killing fields) and aiding and abetting the prolonged tenure of such notorious illegal brutal regime, such generation of African leaders – seemingly without conscience, without honour and without true dignity – appear to be quick to rise to the challenge of being their brother’s keeper when it comes to defending the illegitimate Mugabe regime against European Union targeted sanctions; but, like men who speak in forked tongues,

they seem to be hypocritically opposed to the brother’s keepers calls from the United States Secretary of State and from the President of the United States – the recent news media reports in this respect refer.

But, be that as it may, perhaps the European Union leaders, the US Secretary of State and the US President would do well to remind this current generation of African leaders of the divine curse for those who dare to defy this brothers’ keepers universal and divine wisdom: Damnation! – the holy book of Genesis 4 verse 10 refers.

By: Thabo Siziba