I think it is a shame that a progressive and feminist such as Patricia McFadden PhD should descend to the level of arguments that she used against Messrs Bond and Moore (Pambazuka news 202: 14 April 2005). Bond and Moore offer a critical analysis of the Zimbabwe elections, backing up their argument with empirical evidence. Fine, we may not all necessarily agree with their analysis, but if so it is incumbent on us to provide an alternative interpretation of the facts or to supply alternative evidence to counter theirs.

But instead, McFadden's only argument is that as these gentlemen are white (and men?), that disenfranchises them from their right to comment. Is there not an irony here that under colonial (and apartheid) rule, race and ethnicity were caste as political identities, and were thereby used to disenfranchise the majority from having a legitimate voice. I thought we had learned to go beyond that.

To dismiss an analysis merely because of someone's race is to present the same argument that Mugabe uses to silence his critics. And what is the basis of Patricia's claim, herself born in Swaziland, to claim legitimacy to speak on Zimbabwe? Should we dismiss her many excellent contributions merely because we believe that her surname implies that her pure black African blood has somehow been tainted?

Name-calling is the last vestige of the desperate. We are used to such arguments from sycophants like Simon Hinds whose role in life, some would say, appears to be to eulogise Mugabe and Zanu-PF using similar arguments, but to hear the same from Patricia is sad. Is Patricia, a feminist, defending Mugabe's regime? Perhaps Pambazuka News should invite Patricia to present her thesis on why African feminists should defend the Zanu-PF regime.