The European Union has imposed 'smart' sanctions on Zimbabwe - meaning that President Robert Mugabe and his high-ranking officials will be refused visas to travel to EU member states and will have their assets in Europe frozen. The sanctions have generated a lot of anti-colonial rhetoric and gestures of defiance from Mugabe and co, which have dominated news headlines worldwide.

This isn't the first time the international community has meddled in Zimbabwe's affairs. And in Zimbabwe's forthcoming presidential elections, the USA, the UK and the EU have made a list of demands and plan to monitor the elections to see if Zimbabwe passes the democracy test - seeming to have overlooked the fact that democracy imposed from without is not democracy at all.