Nothing to weep for
For a long time, I
referred to Robert Mugabe whose demise has been announced by his family as the
Grand Despot of Africa, entrenched as Zimbabwe’s first post-independence
leader, he never transformed from a liberation struggle fighter into a statesman.
[BBC]
When he was kicked
out of office by a coup in 2017, he had already overstayed his welcome,
impoverished Zimbabwe, overseen pogroms against the Ndebele in Matabeleland
before he set on white Zimbabweans, seizing lands which probably with better
political skill and status could have improved the lot of the majority even as
the farmers suffered some material loss.
The state of Zimbabwe is
in today is the legacy of Robert Mugabe, gerontocrats still hold sway clueless
about what needs to be done to turn the ship of state around.
A failed leadership
There is very little
to celebrate about Robert Mugabe beyond leading Southern Rhodesia to the new
Zimbabwe, the many who fell along the way as his insatiable quest of ultimate
power with the vehicle of ZANU-PF kept Zimbabwe from rising from colonialism to
great prosperity, just because one man and his cohort of henchmen had an
entitlement to rule and any challenge to his throne was met with unmitigated
violence.
Three decades into
his rule, Robert Mugabe would still raise his fist like a guerrilla leader and
rail against colonial powers that had long since left things in his care, his
claims to the right of Zimbabweans to govern themselves arrogated solely to
himself as he presided over a corrupt enterprise that led to his wife, Grace
Mugabe being labelled The First Shopper of Africa as his fellow countrymen were
left on the breadline.
Smith and Mugabe both
bad
When I wrote a piece
at the passing of Ian Smith, the last president of colonial-era Southern Rhodesia
in 2007, I inferred that the only difference between Ian Smith and Robert
Mugabe was their race, every other act, policy, idea and implementation was literally
the same, they were evil men.
It is literally
impossible to mourn Robert Mugabe who died at 95, I could easily have replaced
their names in that piece, and it would have read the same.
In 2000, Ian Smith
said, “We have never had such chaos and corruption in our country, what
Zimbabweans are looking for is a bit of ordinary honesty and
straightforwardness.” Sadly, not much has changed in 2019.
Another parable of
the talents
He went on to say, “We
had the highest standard of health and education and housing for our black
people than any other country on the African continent; that was what
Rhodesians did. I wonder if we shouldn't be given credit for doing that.”
This is not to celebrate white oppression, but it was a foundation that could
have been built upon to put Zimbabwe in the class of one of the most prosperous
countries in Africa with its citizenry not having conditions in their country
used against them when they seek to travel abroad.
Robert Mugabe was
given a country of great potential and talent, and he took it like the servant
who was given one talent in the parable
Jesus told in the Bible and buried it in the ground of his atrocious abuse of
power. History must not him judge better for the realities of his misdeeds.
As false eulogies sound
all over Africa, we must never forget, “Zimbabwe will remember Mugabe for
his unrepentant racist attitude and the killing of thousands of innocent people.”
This was said of Ian Smith, it applies to Robert Mugabe too. The evil these men
did cannot afford me the basic good of saying – Rest in peace.
Let the accounting
begin.
