How to be good bedfellows

Our top chap laying flowers at Chairman Mao’s monument on a state visit to China this week

Putin is our pal. As is Xi Jinping. So is the Supreme Leader in the crucible of radical fundamentalism, Iran.

It goes something like this. The so-called  ‘progressive world’  helped fight against colonialism.

Pay back time. Forty-plus-years on, strong moral support for the fight against  the present-day neo-imperialism and hegemony by the Western military-industrial complex is still required.

However, material support from the ‘progressives’  in return remains pathetic although it does help fill a few already bulging local pockets.

Russian, Chinese and Arab investment boils down to self-interest and pillaging similar to that of others in times past. Putin has donated VIP helicopters and smaller air rescue choppers of no benefit at all to the grass roots.  In sheer numbers more Chinese nationals have been granted free passage to work and steal here than all existing resident minorities put together – those of colonial era descent like me, those of mixed race and those of Asian origin.

Rich pickings have been had in gold, diamonds, lithium and all precious minerals, with little going back into the national fiscus.

A  minor Russian oligarch spends time with us to avoid the implications of Ukraine at home and admits he wants to build a casino and put a super yacht on Lake Kariba. It’s easy to cut through our red tape and bureaucracy if you know where to bung the bucks, he says.

Once upon a time  Robert Mugabe chaired a summit of the 120-nation Non Aligned Movement (NAM) in Harare.

Gadhafi looked around the gathering and said the summit was a waste of time.

 

You, you’re in bed with the Americans, he told Mobutu of Zaire. You, you’re in bed with the Russians, he told the Yugoslavs and Mengistu of Ethiopia. You, you’re in bed with the British, he told Daniel arap Moi of Kenya. You’re all in bed with the French, he told the Francophones. Libya, of course, was the only truly non-aligned country.

Somali president Siad Barre told the summit there were no American military bases in his country.

”We have no intention to allow the United States to have bases in our territories. We only provide facilities for American forces,” he declared. He didn’t explain the difference.

Leaving aside Putin’s imperialist ambitions to regain control of former Soviet territories and China’s phenomenal economic wealth,  their hated Western bastion is still undoubtedly the biggest and most reliable donor of development and humanitarian aid across the world’s poorest countries.

Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. The more things change, the more  they stay the same.

Ronnie’s Rubbers

Admittedly, the Americans are stopping their supplies of free condoms. They say priorities in  regional HIV/AIDS support have changed over the years.

But the US remains the main provider of successful ARV (anti-retroviral) drugs that keep millions alive at little personal cost.

Those free condoms were first known as “Ronnie’s Rubbers” because Ronald Reagan’s administration began sending out huge containers of them at the very start of the AIDS crisis.

Will Putin, Xi or the Ayatollah step in with the condom money the state media is talking about here?