The temptation is there to believe that it's all so simple. An evil African dictator sits on a wooden throne somewhere in the jungle, wearing obscure military regalia, with a subtle African touch of course. Perhaps you imagine it to be the leopard skin beret, or it's the acacia walking stick, or perhaps it's the zebra skin in front of his feet. Perhaps it's all three. He kills people because either they are of a different tribe, or perhaps because they are of a different religion. The media has also managed to create some tenuous link between mass-killings and wealth, so perhaps he kills them simply to accumulate even more wealth.

But let's leave that for a while. What's really going on in Zimbabwe ? For starters, Albert Nkomo is sitting on the side of the highway, in the dust, behind his collection of handmade soapstone statuettes, and ashtrays, and of course chessboards. The petrol tankers roar by with an almost rhythmical predictability. I doubt Albert minds the tankers roaring by, flinging dirt at him, and at his art. The real problem for Albert is that drivers of petrol tankers are not known to regularly stop and buy his art. Albert is only there because it wasn't that long ago that foreigners frantically drove up and down these highways, to game lodges, and Great Zimbabwe, and Victoria Falls, flocking for a piece of beautiful (and cheap even then) Zimbabwe, marvelling at Albert's soapstone statuettes before buying them, a token to denote the adventure that was their African experience. And now, far too mature to not be at school yet, Albert's children play a little close to the road. Their bellies are starting to protrude slightly, and their legs are getting thinner. Albert's wife tries to make herself useful. But she is tired and hungry. She tries to manage the thinning goat herd. Another petrol tanker. In synchronised action, the family briefly turn their faces away to stop the dust from getting in their eyes. It's like a helicopter landing, every 5-7 minutes. To buy any of Albert's goods, one must pay in foreign currency. South African Rands are fine, but US dollars are better. In any case, Zimbabwean Dollars are almost useless. Albert and his family aren't going anywhere. They don't have anywhere to go. And all the while, on his presidential throne, President Robert Mugabe makes the decision that his beautiful new wife will be escorting him to Dubai for some shopping. The sheepish shuffling of feet indicates that arrangements are being made.

‘It's the disastrous affect of a disastrous land reform policy', they'll tell you. The Western media is however exceptionally shallow. They rarely answer the question, ‘why has land reform been such a hurried, disorganised and disastrous process in Zimbabwe ?' The Western viewer or reader is left speculating that Mugabe hates those white farmers, and wants nothing more than the illegal acquisition of their farms to be as tormenting for them as possible. A belated ‘one-all' sentiment is invoked. One must remember that in Zimbabwe , legitimacy and land are inextricably linked. Furthermore, Rhodesia , as it was known prior to independence in 1980, was run by a system that catered for the few, at the expense of the many. Even on a superficial, bureaucratic level, it's like moving the population of China to The Netherlands next week. Even the efficient Dutch bureaucracy might experience a blockage or two. Colonialism, and then white rule under the Ian smith regime left a small number of white farmers residing on most of the land, and ‘hordes' of cheap African labour, occupy the small, infertile leftovers. When Africans got the vote in 1980, in a country where, once again, legitimacy resides in the land, any leader who wants to survive must redistribute land to the many. And I can hear you proclaiming already that you and your liberal views have no problem with land redistribution in Zimbabwe , only the manner in which it has been carried out.

In December 1979, representatives of Zimbabwean bush armies and the UK signed the Lancaster House agreement which effectively ended white rule in Zimbabwe . One of the conditions to independence was that the new rulers of Zimbabwe , whoever they would be, purchase the white-owned land for its present value, in the currency of the farmer's choice. In effect, Zimbabweans had to buy back, at market prices, land that was stolen from them. It was no secret even then that the new Zimbabwean leaders could never have afforded to buy back, what was essentially, their legitimacy to rule. It is easy to imagine Mugabe hoping that the problem would go away, or that in time the necessary funds would magically appear. It's easy to imagine because our very own Mr. Blair is doing exactly that with the NHS, and in fact, the whole of Western Europe (including the UK ) is doing exactly that with the entire welfare state. A liberation war also, always, gives a new regime some leeway. The country goes to the dogs and intoxicated by the ecstasy of independence, nobody notices. But a time comes (11 years is a good rule of thumb) when the euphoria wanes, and the people start to ask questions of their liberation heroes. And at this point, Mugabe, with nowhere else to dig for legitimacy, turned to the land of the white farmers.

There are so many ‘buts'. I am certainly not a supporter of Mugabe. I think he was a great liberation leader but what has proven to be so often the case in the post-independence African nation-states, he is an challenging head of state. But one shouldn't revert to the filthiest of all tactics, that is, to explain Mugabe's loss of favour in terms of dementia, as a result of one or other venereal disease, or some ‘Conradian' notion of, ‘power corrupts'. In the actions of Mugabe, one must recognise the, albeit defective , political nature of his decisions.

And can the solution to such a structural problem be regime change? Is the substitution of Mr. Tsvangarai for Mr Mugabe the simple solution? A look at Kenya 's recent history suggests that on its own, it may be another disaster and one step closer to laying all blame squarely at the feet of Africa once and for all. Of course the West wants Tsvangarai in. He wants democracy, he wants to see a strengthened civil society in Zimbabwe , he wants privatisation, and he wants to see Zimbabwe integrated into the international political-economic system. But what on earth does that all mean? It reminds me a little too much of President Bush wanting to see ‘freedom' in the Middle East . Civil society and democracy (and freedom for that matter) are feel-good enough to be the desire of all, but tend to melt in the air like candyfloss. Morgan Tsvangarai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was created only 6 years ago, in 1999. If the MDC has any legitimacy to rule at all, it's more a protest against Mugabe's ZANU PF and its policies, than an actual willingness for the MDC to rule. That's like going to a restaurant and ordering a glass of piss because drinks are compulsory, and the only other drink on the menu is somebody else's vomit. The glass of piss is still awful. Moreover, the war of independence still lives on in the collective consciousness of Zimbabwe . In the US they have never had a non-Christian president. Why not? Because, ‘who the f*** are you in my cultural history?' Well Mr. Tsvangarai, you guessed it, ‘who the f*** are you in my cultural history?'

And then there is the issue of the inept Zimbabwean farmers. Are they really inept? They have been farming longer than any people on the planet. And is it our decision to dictate; what they should farm, or how much, or for whom, or whether they should farm at all? I have a friend in South Africa who recently turned his farm into a golf course. There isn't much on a golf course one can eat. Furthermore , when he turned his farm into a golf course, he never once thought to himself (and I did ask him) that is this in the best interest of the country as a whole. At no point did he declare to me or anyone else, over an ice-cold beer, ‘imagine the positive impact this golf course will have on tourism, which in turn will generate foreign capital and strengthen the Rand !' It is our social right to decide for ourselves what we do with our property. Our entire society functions on the assumption of that right. Our inability to see Africans as distinct human beings with their own individual interests prevents us from allowing, in this case Zimbabweans, to decide for themselves what they will do with there land, as we in West decide.

The perception of Zimbabwean politics is a tremendous disappointment. That it is still so easy for the Western media to conjure up ridiculous imaginations of jungle, warlord regimes is a reflection of the underlying racism so prolific in Western societies. But there exists something far more tragic in this African tale, and that is the story of Albert and his family. Albert and his family's situation goes from bad to worse whilst we sit in our armchairs, at home, in front of the fire, with a steaming cup of tea and disparage the Zimbabwean leadership. Even if the vilification of Robert Mugabe is 100% justified, it makes little difference to Albert and his family. The truth is that we no longer see Albert and his family as real human beings. Some argue that the desensitisation of humankind is a consequence of overexposure to media, others call it racism. Romeo Dallaire in a BBC radio interview suggested that in Rwanda , Western action towards the violation of the rights of Gorillas would far outweigh action taken against the violation of the rights of Rwandans. To be frank, the situation itself is a disgusting embarrassment. It's early 2006 , and somewhere in the world, one Albert and his family are harassed by full-throttle petrol tankers and the sordid stench and humiliation of poverty and hunger, and somewhere else in the world, on one or another high street, a different Albert and his family don't know whether to clothe their children in ‘Baby-Gap', or ‘Baby-Nike'. And while the UK is up in arms over hoody-wearing youths, Zimbabwe tries to find the history which was stolen from it, in order to decipher just who the f*** it is.

The mandate was to write an article about something pertinent happening on my continent. Far more pertinent than the shenanigans going on in Zimbabwe , is the complacency taking place in the West. Where on earth did this high horse come from? How have we forgotten the slave trade, colonialism, and the white regimes in Zimbabwe , South Africa , and the rest of the continent ? We haven't forgotten the Holocaust. We'll never forget 9/11 or 7/7. Is 7/7 a bigger part of our history than 100 years of rape and pillage in Africa ? And how do we possibly overlook the Common Agriculture Policy protecting European Agricultural goods, whilst we sit at WTO summits and proclaim that the way forward is trade liberalisation. How have we forgotten the failure of structural adjustment, and the debt incurred through those programmes, and the ineptitude of the United Nations in Rwanda in 1994, or the US disaster in Somalia in 1991? And all the while we sit on our throne's, congratulating ourselves for the generous debt relief, or a couple million raised through comic relief, and secretly we start to think of Africa, ‘get your s*** together'. In our imaginations the slave trade has disappeared as a phenomenon of any influence in the African crisis, and colonialism too, seems to be on its way out. Soon the West will have won the blame game. Remember that Albert and his family are still sitting on the side of the highway in Zimbabwe , still hoping you'll visit, or help in another way, and remember too that your entire world is a consequence of the slave trade and colonialism. Without it, England and Europe could certainly never offer you that steaming cup of tea.

Instead of berating Africa and its history, and the burden it puts on UK taxpayers, sympathise with Zimbabwe and its people, and before you go to bed tonight, instead of finding clever ways to sink African regimes, think of Albert and his family, and say to your spouse, or to yourself, ‘its f***ing awful the way we treat Africa. For Christ's sake, its early 2006 , and there are people starving to death on the side of the road in Zimbabwe '. It just isn't as simple as you think. And, Albert, ‘go with the baby-gap.'