Backlash of a blind leap Donald Trump
Donald Trump

Donald Trump

Perspective, Stephen Mpofu
“IT’S a small world,” you (yes, you) often hear someone say when referring to the saturation of more people with information otherwise originally meant for a small circle of friends or family.

Today that saying no doubt rings particularly true for the United States of America when set against the miniaturisation of the world as a global village.

And so what?

The USA is faced with a nightmarish backlash of its government’s ban on travellers to the US from seven majority Muslim countries, three of them in Africa and the rest in the Middle East.

US President Donald Trump’s blacklist of travellers to his country from Libya, Sudan and Somalia on African soil and those from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Yemen may have been well intentioned to protect Americans from terrorists that the seven countries are believed to harbour.

But be that as it may, it seems that the move was prompted by impulse which left no room for rational consideration of the impact the ban might have on other countries within the miniature village that the world has become.

As a result, the US administration is now faced with a nightmarish backlash as people from non-Muslim countries have started to view the US as a no-go or hostile holiday destination, according to information carried by the Voice of America radio this week.

For instance, VOA quoted sources from commerce as suggesting that by the end of this year, America’s commercial capital, New York, will have lost billions of dollars in potential revenue from visitors to the city which is also the main entry point to that vast country.

The radio said that potential visitors cited checks at New York international airport which they said amounted to harassment of innocent travellers regardless of whether these came from countries not on the blacklist of visitors.

Added to the unfriendly security checks at airports were daily street protests by ordinary Americans as statements of disagreements with various issues affecting their lives.

The Voice of America also mentioned a woman from commerce who said when on a recent visit to New Zealand, America’s ally, people there identified her by her American accent and expressed worry at instability caused by frequent demonstrations in her country which might deter more people from visiting the US, with the job security of many Americans who are employed at airports or in jobs that have to do with tourism or travel at stake.

When President Trump assumed power in January, thousands of Americans demonstrated in New York City against his inauguration.

This week, Mr Trump hit back at current-nationwide protests by Americans calling on the president to release his tax returns. Mr Trump demanded to know “who paid” those “small rallies”.

A lawyer also told VOA this week that Mr Trump also faced more legal suites in his personal capacity before and after he came to power than did his predecessors, with the exception of President Bill Clinton who was eventually impeached following a private lawsuit under which he was not protected by his presidential immunity.

Now, in face of the torrid times that the American president faces at home, the question that must naturally come to the minds of many on this side of the earth is whether African countries, at least most of them, will not pale into insignificance in terms of relations with that current super power?

In fact,  that since his inauguration three months ago, Mr Trump has spoken by phone only with the presidents of Nigeria and South Africa would appear to suggest that for him, those two major African economies mean more to America than the rest of the African continent.

But this pen argues strongly that President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria and South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma do not singularly rule their respective countries better than the way other leaders in Africa do.

Nor are they individually more popular with all the people in their respective nations than is the case with the other African leaders for those two presidents to command the respect and honour of Mr Trump above the rest of their African counterparts.

Of course the manner in which America will relate to Africa under Trump — after his decision to slash US aid that also benefits Zimbabwe and other African countries — will confirm or prove wrong this pen’s assumption of the negative manner in which the rest of African states, including our own motherland which remains under American, British and other Western-imposed economic sanctions, is viewed.

Which brings this pen to a comment made by British Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Ms Catriona Laing, in Harare on Tuesday during Zimbabwe’s 37th Independence Anniversary. She was quoted on local radio as talking about the need to improve Zimbabwe’s economic situation by engaging the International Community.

Her own country, America and supported by the rest of Europe imposed sanctions which have crippled the very economy the revival of which she urged.

Now the question that must be asked is whether the ambassador was prompted by impulse to make the remarks that she did for Zimbabweans to embrace her as an innocent sympathiser.

To begin with, Britain and her allies slammed the door shut on Zimbabwe and locked it with their sanctions, so to speak. As such, how is Zimbabwe expected to engage those that have barricaded themselves behind the steel door and stuffed wool in their ears?

Indeed this country’s government has made impassioned pleas to the West for the sanctions to be removed for relations to be re-established, but it seemed the country was engaged in a dialogue with deaf mutes hell-bent on regime change.

Or, on whose terms — regime change or on Zimbabwe’s terms — should that re-engagement with the rest of the world take place?

Certainly not on the regime platform Ms Laing. No ways, no ways.

Otherwise Zimbabwe will soldier on anchored by the progressive world until the sanctions become a spent force on their own.

So the ball is in the West’s court for that magical word re-engagement to take effect.

The problem with bigger powers is that they tend to take smaller countries for granted when taking decisions that eventually prove unpopular and then equally embarrassing for them to wiggle out of.

 

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