The presidential runoff on Friday is… off.

At least the MDC has the majority in parliament to use against Mugabe and ZANU-PF, legally making him a lame duck. But still…not even a Kenyan-style GNU to make dictatorship life a bit harder for Mugabe.

Meanwhile, African nationalism is a wonderful thing.

So does this mean that Mugabe gets to rule for another decade and keep Zimbabwe in a seemingly-perpetual struggle against perceived British colonialism until the Dear Leader dies?

Maybe its clear that there are quite a few Zimbabweans who are content with an economically-interdependent, multiracial nation-state and do not prefer a military solution to economic or political problems?

I personally object to any use of militant means to gain or maintain power. The post about how the AU should pull either an Anjouan or Togo on Zimbabwe in the case of Tsvangirai winning the run-off without Mugabe budging from his presidential residence, and is not in favor of a military solution to the turmoil caused primarily by Mugabe’s military and ZANU-PF militia.

I’ve objected against the militant rebel coup against Aristide in 2004 (I didn’t say anything about Aristide’s militant usage of police against militant opposition and those civilians who happened to sympathize with such militancy), I’ve objected to the use of the U.S. military in the overthrow of the Hawaiian government and maintenance of the same rule in the archipelago to this day (although it took place in 1893), and I object to the usage of the military and militant, violent means by the Mugabe government to maintain his rule in the country. I’ve never seriously countenanced the post-9/11 wars of the U.S., and I objected to how the military was being used to settle an old score between the U.S. and some country in the other large supercontinent of the world that most folks on this continent can’t find on a map.

I’m fairly anti-military in my stance, at least because I view the military (particularly the political use of violent tactics) as a sign that the entity which uses such means is only losing the argument, or losing control of the argument. Furthermore, if an entity which uses the military or militant institutions (insurrectionist or state-sanctioned) to gain control of the relevant institutions does gain control of such institutions (this includes the ZANU-PF, Afewerki’s ascension to power in Eritrea post-independence, the military juntas of Latin America and Caribbean during the Cold War, or even the Communist guerrilas who gained power in Eastern Europe and formed more than a few satellites around the Soviet Union), it only gives the new ex-rebel governors of the nation-state an incentive to use force against those who are less militarily-abled in order to make short order of an argument or conflict between the entities represented by or sponsoring of the rival militancies (or between the ruling militancy and a significant non-militant institution).

Finally, the people suffer in some fashion. Economies go down the toilet, social services decline in quality, civil freedoms are violated, people die, precedents for authoritarianism are ensured for the foreseeable future, rinse and repeat.

It doesn’t matter who or which institution engages in militancy first: things just happen to go wrong for the future generations.

Of course, I can be a bit of a hypocrite to have such a stance when I’m only a few stone’s throws away from one of the larger Air Force bases in the state of Georgia; also, I AM a bit of a hypocrite since I’m still a beneficiary from my father’s 23-year military service (and I have TRICARE, a military health insurance service, when most people in the U.S. can’t afford the decent health care that I and my mother, among others in my immiediate family, can take for granted for as long as we have periodically-updated military IDs for base and AMWR access).

But I don’t intend to serve in the military.

I’ve never been good with authority figures getting in my face to make a point “crystal-clear” to me. Nor do I feel comfortable with the idea of going to a country where others who dwell by the gun in the same way that any military does desire to direct their guns to my head or other body part.

Nor do I feel like returning the favor to others who are percieved as “our” enemies.