Marcel Berlins...
... cannot understand the prime minister's out-of-the-blue ultimatum that he will boycott the Africa-EU conference in Lisbon in December if Robert Mugabe is there. What is he trying to achieve? He cannot really think that his portentous statement of intent will scare or persuade Mugabe into abandoning his own trip; on the contrary, it will merely reinforce his desire to come.
Unlike Berlins, I
can understand this. He might try widening his frame of reference a bit: Gordon Brown's aims could extend beyond the scaring or persuasion of Mugabe. Has Berlins considered how many Zimbabweans will be encouraged by hearing that the British prime minister has refused to participate in the same event as the man responsible for their sufferings, or that he is doing what he can to see Mugabe politically isolated? But Berlins has a different constituency in view:
He [Brown] surely realises that a snub to Zimbabwe's leader will be seen as a patronising and arrogant act by the former colonial power... At a recent summit of southern African states, which leader was given the most rousing acclamation in the conference hall? It wasn't praise for the way he runs Zimbabwe; it was the applause of solidarity.
Solidarity is certainly a relevant consideration here. But solidarity with Mugabe's victims, rather than with him or with those African leaders who, to their shame, treated him to such
a hero's reception. What matters is not whether Brown's act is
seen as patronizing and arrogant by leaders who found it appropriate so to receive a man with Mugabe's odious record, but whether it
is patronizing and arrogant. Only to those declining to understand the motive - and the direction - of the solidarity intended would it appear so.