Zimbabwe: The Grand Despot of Africa departs

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.

Blog - Between Smith and Mugabe - no difference

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.

Between Smith and Mugabe - no difference

The bastion of white rule

The death of Ian Smith the last minority rule white leader of Rhodesia that then became Zimbabwe is a milestone in the history of that country.

It so happens that it is the regime of Ian Smith that appears to give Robert Mugabe the perverse legitimacy that allows him to be revered as a freedom-fighter, a part of history that is invalidated but current events in Zimbabwe.

I would not go into the history of Rhodesian independence or the liberation struggle, which is well documented in other places.

We know that Ian Smith never believed in black majority rule, but the state of affairs in Zimbabwe today leaves us almost in acquiescence with that view.

White achievement and black squander

In his words, “We have never had such chaos and corruption in our country, what Zimbabweans are looking for is a bit of ordinary honesty and straightforwardness.” And that was in 2000.

Whilst many would see his time as one of the worst in racial oppression, he also said, “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.”

I do not see Robert Mugabe - The Grand Despot of Africa - being able to boast in that manner and really there are very few African leaders that have measured up to the quality of leadership, organisation and governance of the worst of the people they replaced.

In the end, the Zimbabwean state apparatus has nothing good to say about Ian Smith and we have the Information minister saying he was a man who brought untold suffering to millions of Zimbabweans and bidding him “Good riddance”. As if the situation is any different now.

Smith and Mugabe no different

I cannot see how this is not also a prophecy that would read as contemporaneous at the demise of Robert Mugabe, because death somehow has a way of getting at men who believe themselves immortal and so, I view this other statement as poignant - Zimbabwe will remember Smith (Mugabe) for his unrepentant racist attitude and the killing of thousands of innocent people – This came from the state television.

There probably are more similarities between Smith and Mugabe including their dislike of meddling Britain and their radical racist rhetoric; apart from the war that pitched them against each other for independence, they have both lead their country into isolation but I do wonder if life was not better for the blacks in one regime than the other.

No words said against Ian Smith today seem to sound any different from what we should all expect to be said of Robert Mugabe when he departs this mortal coil – they both destroyed their fatherland in the pursuit of a vision that was both evil and unsustainable.

I wait for the day when this chapter of developing history would be closed forever and the people of either Rhodesia or Zimbabwe shall be free to determine for themselves the real course of what should be a prosperous future.