The Sunday Mail
News Editor
Kuda Bwititi
ON January 31, 2022, the founder of “Open Society Foundations”, George Soros, who is a billionaire “political philanthropist”, made a revealing statement about China that should shine a light on recent actions by some civil society players in Zimbabwe.
Soros, who funds a global network of notorious anti-government/establishment organisations, made sweeping remarks on China, attacking its history, governance, policies and standing in today’s world.
It is no coincidence that all this is taking place at a time when there is an unprecedented and concerted effort to smear, fight and destroy Chinese interests in Zimbabwe by the civil society led by the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition.
It is like a dog waging its tail!
Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition is the umbrella body of Western and Soros’-sponsored organisations in the country and has strong links with the opposition and media.
By dint of his control of the civil society, media, opposition parties as well as activists posted in various forums, it is not an overstatement that Soros now commands arguably the biggest anti-Chinese movement in the world apart from the formal policies of the United States, European Union and other Western countries, which have themselves been blatantly formulating positions and policies to oppose China’s influence at home and abroad.
Soros’ influence is not new.
Now in his 90s, he has been able to drive and influence civil society, opposition parties and media across the world since 1979 when he founded the “Open Society Foundations” when his hedge fund reportedly reached US$100 million and personal wealth accumulated to US$25 million.
(Today he is worth billions, has donated over US$30 billion to the foundations and has cemented his position as a “philanthropist”).
Notably, the “Open Society Foundations” have been accused, rightly so, of undertaking globalist campaigns against sovereign bodies while pushing regime change at local level.
Unsurprisingly, they have been banned or censured in a number of countries, including Hungary, where Soros was born.
Russia branded Soros’ movement a security threat and “undesirable”.
Canadian writer Stephen Gowans once described Soros’ agents and beneficiaries as “overthrow activists” and “false left”.
So open, so sinister
Soros’ foundations are anchored on some highly-dubious notion of “open” societies.
“In an open society,” Soros said in his speech to a think-tank on Monday as he made unrestrained attacks on China, “the role of the state is to protect the freedom of the individual. In a closed society, the role of the individual is to serve the rulers of the state. As the founder of the Open Society Foundations, obviously I am on the side of open societies.”
In 1997, predatory hedge funds such as Soros’ Quantum Fund feasted on the bloodbath by shorting the Asian markets and led to a severe financial crisis in Southeast Asia in which a large number of individuals lost their property and sank to poverty.
When Soros led speculative attacks on the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) of China in 1998, he was defeated by the HKSAR government under strong support of Chinese central government and suffered heavy losses. That is why Soros holds a particular grudge against China and constantly attacks it at every opportunity.
Commentators and experts in politics will be quick to realise that this notion of “open society” is an ornate, glittering generality without real form and substance.
Instead, the high-sounding notion is deceptive.
Pursuit for an “open society” has become an excuse to gather people who do not want social, political and global order to oppose the status quo and brew chaos in taking down rules, religion, Constitutions or morality.
China under President Xi has become a beacon of progress, order, stability and State-led prosperity of the people at home through programmes such as poverty eradication and achievement of what is termed a “moderately prosperous society”.
China is also leading a new global order — “a global shared future” — that is alternative to the failed model that the capitalist US has led over the past century.
The rise of China as an entity and its power at home and abroad, including the unique position of President Xi among China’s historical figures, which he has earned through his vision and style, are what unsettles George Soros.
China under President Xi has become a bastion of order and orderliness as well as peace and stability.
China is now rallying the world towards a more unified but rules-based order that is good for all mankind, established uniquely under multilateralism and tolerance.
This is a prospect that scares Soros, as well as his preferred countries such as the United States and Europe, albeit in weakened and chaotic states.
Never-ending crisis: Why Zim has to be wary of Soros’ organisations
One wise scholar and political analyst once mocked Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition for its name, arguing that “crisis” had become its raison d’etre.
Many people agree with this view: The group thrives on crisis, and where there is none, they create it, including internally.
This is the reason why the Soros-funded organisation have created the new “crisis” of China in Zimbabwe.
The gains and economic progress being recorded under President Mnangagwa’s Second Republic threaten the existence of the opposition and its appendages in the civil society and media. China, with its political and economic support for Zimbabwe, has been a key pillar of the Second Republic.
Soros’ agents seek to destroy this relationship, and take down with it economic progress and stability.
Crisis Coalition seeks to designate China as a “crisis” that will be at the centre of elections scheduled for this year and next year.
The civic organisations are bent on mobbing and crowding out China to prevent it from having a foothold in Zimbabwe, and will even lead racist and xenophobic attacks on Chinese interests and people.
True to form, hawks at Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition see themselves thriving in this chaos through creaming money from donors and lining their pockets, which have been hit hard by the pandemic, and which the stable political environment made possible by President Mnangagwa had worked against.
It goes without saying that Zimbabweans better watch out for another August 1 incident whereby political violence will be invoked to mar free and fair elections, like what happened in 2018 when the opposition — facing defeat in elections that had been widely praised as free and representative of the will of the people — contrived violence that came to overshadow the peaceful process that had just been witnessed.
