Understanding Mugabe

By Norbert Osamo

Any attempt to analyze the Zimbabwean situation naturally has to begin with at least a basic knowledge of what exactly is going on there. A recent incident was the assault of Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the opposition party in Zimbabwe. He was beaten up after being arrested. Also, after freelance camera Edward Chikombo smuggled pictures of a badly injured Tsvangirai out of the country, he was abducted from his home in the Glenview Township. His body was later discovered near the village of Darvendale 80 Kilometers west of the capital, Harare. At one stage it became a nightly ritual for scores of opposition activists and their relatives to be attacked by government sanctioned gangs.

The economy has shrunk by 50 per cent from 2000 to 2007. The inflation rate is 2,200 per cent. There are frequent power and water outages. Harare’s drinking water is unreliable and in 2006 an epidemic of dysentery swept across the city. Unemployment in formal jobs is running at a record 80 per cent and there is widespread famine. One-quarter of the population is infected with HIV. Then of course there is the unproductive land policy instituted by the Mugabe administration where land was forcefully taken from white Zimbabwean farmers and given to Black Zimbabwean farmers who mostly do not have the business acumen and technical capabilities to manage the farms productively. Now there it is, the disaster that is Zimbabwe today.

I will start by stating my position on the issue succinctly. Mugabe was a good freedom fighter. He is not a politician, nor is he a capable government executive. His radical nature was useful when Zimbabwe was trying to free itself from the chains of colonial exploitation but now it’s a burden.
Individuals who have turned out to be iconic leaders have simply been in the right place at the right time in a country’s history. Despite his obvious extremities Hitler was a big hit with the Germans, this is because his idiosyncrasies were well suited for the peculiarities of German society at the time. German national pride and ego had been damaged in the aftermath of the First World War; as a result Hitler’s psychotic nationalism was welcomed by a Germany desperate to regain global dominance. In the same way, Mugabe’s eccentricities were well suited for a Zimbabwe burdened with domination, oppression and exploitation of the black population by the white minority.

In an ideal situation, after helping the country gain independence and a considerable amount of political stability, Robert Mugabe would gracefully bow out and be held in high regard globally. This would have accorded him the same reverence suited for the likes of Mandela. Nelson Mandela was a freedom fighter and is by no means an ideal politician or government executive. But he came and left when he was supposed to. Mugabe has refused to do the same and unfortunately all the good things he did for the country are now irrelevant.

Mugabe has turned his freedom fighting persona into a political gimmick. When he is confronted by the international community about the state of Zimbabwe, he simply mentions the words “imperialism”, “western domination” or “interference by the west” and he gains just enough credibility to maintain his brutal and dictatorial regime. Perhaps, the British Empire is to blame for providing the circumstances that created the monster that is Mugabe. Or perhaps the Zimbabwean people are to blame for keeping him in power long enough to amass the influence and power he now has over the country. Or the international community is to blame for doing nothing effective about the situation. The fact however remains that he has become drunk with power and would do anything to hold on to the privileges and comfort his office allows him. He does not care about democracy or the economic and social wellbeing of the Zimbabwean people.

How does he live with himself? How can he sleep at night knowing about the suffering and hardship he has inflicted on helpless and innocent children? He has convinced himself and truly believes he is doing what is best for the country. Its amazing how humans beings can convince themselves about the nobility of their actions even while performing the most barbaric and atrocious acts. So in Mugabe’s selfish philosophy, it is better for Zimbabweans to live in desperate poverty than to be subservient to western powers by being benefactors of western-led globalization. This is how he copes with his conscience.

So what must be done? Unfortunately it is most unlikely that Mugabe will voluntarily vacate his office, the more the international community puts pressure on his government in the form of sanctions and inconsequential public condemnation, the more he hold tight to his office and thus the more brutal he is to whatever little opposition exists in Zimbabwe. So we could all wait for him to die of natural causes, the way most dictators do after inflicting immeasurable hardship on millions of people, or the international community can work towards regime change. It is sacrilegious to even suggest that in public, given that the west especially Britain is ridden with guilt over its own past atrocities thus political correctness is the order of the day. Thus even though the powerful countries all want regime change for Zimbabwe, they would never mention it, so Zimbabweans must continue to suffer because those who can do something about the situation feel too guilty about causing the problem in the first place. But that is the only solution, regime change that would remove Robert Mugabe and his cronies from power. How and when this should be done is dependent on a variety of circumstances that should be the focus of another article.