The Sunday News

For better or worse, @ 95 Robert Mugabe leaves a legacy

Cde Mugabe

Brian Maregedze

I WOKE up early on Friday, 6 September 2019 with the social media buzz on my WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter on the death of Robert Mugabe, the long-time serving former President of Zimbabwe. Previously, during his days as President of Zimbabwe, he “died” many times especially in January of every year. It became common to think Cde Mugabe as one with nine lives. Now he is no more, what else can I think of except to take a retrospection on the life and times of Robert Mugabe? It is against my Ubuntu teachings of course to think negatively especially after the death of an elder. In our Shona vernacular the elders say Wafa Wanaka (we are not to speak ill of the dead). On the contrary, the same Shona elders also say rufu haruzivishe (death doesn’t matter). 

I was born, raised in Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe

In historical terms, grand narratives were interpreted along street parlance of nyika yavaMugabe (Mugabe’s country). Growing up in such a Zimbabwe, I remember vividly my interest in seeing Cde Mugabe at a tender age. I was only 12 years when I successfully made efforts to sneak into Chibuku Stadium back in 2002. Cde Mugabe had come for a political rally and I knew I wouldn’t be allowed entrance into the stadium. At that age I had also learned in Social Studies of his heroism in the independence of the country.

Watching television at that age, I remember I could also sing the famous hondo yeminda jingles. More interesting, behind the hondo yeminda jingles, I was already aware of Cde Mugabe’s sloganeering at Chibuku Stadium which was on Ivhu Kuvanhu (land to the people). I was to learn later on as an undergraduate in the Department of History at the University of Zimbabwe that the theme for the 2002 elections was the land is the economy and the economy is the land.

What I still remember again when I had sneaked into Chibuku Stadium was that Cde Mugabe’s appearance on the stage gave me an intense excitement which I can’t explain its origins even to this day. I was happy to have seen the popular figure who was adorned on many T-shirts, caps and dresses that the party supporters were wearing. It was of course colourful. Green, yellow, green, red and white decorated colours were appealing. And yes, Elliot Manyika (late) also accompanied the President on this occasion. The stadium was packed to full capacity and other people even failed to make it inside. Making his speech, he expressed his joys and challenges with Chitungwiza party cadres (ZANU-PF) towards the impending 2002 elections. His main issue was that Chitungwiza party true cadres were not supposed to disappoint the spirit medium of the great Chaminuka. To avoid disappointing the spirit of Chaminuka, the people had to vote for the ruling party ZANU-PF.

On the same occasion, the now late Morgan Tsvangirai was described as one not to be voted into power. Voting for him was viewed as equivalent to selling out the country to former colonisers. I went home of course happy that I had seen the President in person (I mean of course being among the party supporters). I was also fortunate enough to have seen my elder brother inside the stadium. He was angry that I had followed him into the stadium but it was now too late to take me outside, except to monitor my movements as closely as possible. Our parents had gone to work and they didn’t know about all these movements.

I was to see Cde Mugabe again three years later at an official opening of High school computers at Zengeza 4 High School. I was then attending my secondary education at Seke One High school. By then I didn’t know of political violence. I was to learn that when I was now doing my advanced levels, stories of people involved or caught up in political violence. The 2008 elections which were popularly known with the slogan, 27 June vaMugabe mu office (27 June Mugabe if office). This was prior to the contested harmonised March elections in 2008. I was now learning much faster and better about History as a subject and life in general. My father had passed away a year earlier and my mother, a cross border trader in South Africa would send groceries for us to survive. She was to die in September 2010 back in Zimbabwe (MHSRP).

I was now seeing other young people of my age and below 16 years leading even adults to sing party songs. Public speaking skills as a tool was another feature I remember to have understood at that stage. On his political sleeve were many tools employed to remain in power, the anti-sanctions discourse, religious appeal, the Look East policy, naming and labelling opposition party politics, among others.

All these memories have been revived by the death of the former President. I see in him a leader who was successful and also had a fair share of his failures. Anti-colonial struggle was won with Cde Mugabe playing his part among other founding fathers of Zimbabwe such as Joshua Nkomo, Ndabaningi Sithole, Edgar Tekere, and Herbert Chitepo, among many. Political rhetoric in the fight against imperialism won him international appeal to those of the Global South. Far from the grand narratives which elevated him to demigods during my primary and high school education, l now also accept his shortfalls as a leader. Beyond the excitement I had in 2002, I now look at his legacy in terms of both domestic and foreign policies. These perceptions, perspectives and or views are now a product of my academic training in History as a discipline and one who belongs to Zimbabwe. The economy was to get worse, leading to poor service delivery. His predecessor and long-time protégé, President Emmerson Mnangagwa inherited a poor economy in November 2017 after the operation code named Operation Restore Legacy.

Naming roads in every major city in Zimbabwe has been carried out with the aim of memorialising his life, the National Heroes Acre in Warren Park-Harare is ornamented with Cde Mugabe the colossus, the Robert Mugabe International Airport welcomes every visitor to Zimbabwe. History books have been written celebrating and some denouncing him. There have been contestations over Gukurahundi in the quest for peace and reconciliation, the myths and realities on the land reform, the involvement of Zimbabwe in the Mozambican civil war as well as Democratic Republic of Congo, among others.

It shall be many years in Zimbabwe’s national memory conversing on and about the personality of Cde Mugabe. To some, he is a hero even beyond Zimbabwe borders, a doyen of Pan Africanism, a hero of Africa, a hero of the subaltern. On the one hand, his enemies saw him in bad light, and have accused him of many things. May His Soul Rest In Peace.