The Sunday News
Richard Runyararo Mahomva, Pivot
Tomorrow, 6 September 2021 marks the second anniversary of the passing on of former President, Robert Gabriel Mugabe, the founding father of Zimbabwe’s independence and a lifetime anti-colonial stalwart.
While celebrated in some socio-political spheres as the darling doyen of the anti-imperialist struggle and an unflinching champion of post-independence economic empowerment, Cde Mugabe’s legacy suffers an equal measure of denunciation. The conflicting images and evaluations of Cde Mugabe represent the contradiction of African independence and the consequent binaries defining post-colonial nationhood and the outlook of African leadership.
To this effect, Sabao, Mvundura and Nauyoma, (2021:77) argue that Cde Mugabe is best remembered as that old “African nationalist, orator, liberator, reformist, decolonialist, pan-Africanist among other praises on the one hand and vilified as a despot, murderer, election thief, gross human rights violator among other colourful indictments on the other, Mugabe remains in death as he was in life, an enigma”.
The contradictions pivoting the political and ideological person of Cde Mugabe calls for diverse reflections on how his leadership style impacted Anglo-American hegemony, various sections of the Zimbabwean populace, the African continent and its diaspora. His anti-colonial stand before and after the independence of Zimbabwe located him as a global anti-imperialist force and not just a Zimbabwean leader.
The former Head of State internationalised the Zimbabwean national question in every defining point of his political career starting from his membership to the nationalist movement; as he rose through the ranks to lead a guerrilla movement and later becoming the chief negotiator at the Lancaster Conference. The victory of ZANU in the 1980 election was very important as it symbolised the triumph of African nationalism over colonial supremacy. Of note is his turn towards reconciliation after independence. Cde Mugabe was celebrated for ushering an inclusive model of social integration.
“The wrongs of the past must now stand forgiven and forgotten. If ever we look to the past, let us do so for the lesson the past has taught us, namely that oppression and racism are inequities that must never again find scope in our political and social system. It could never be a correct justification that because Whites oppressed us yesterday when they had power, the blacks must oppress them today because they have power.”
This policy position gestured the formal elimination of a previous racist social stratification which was enabled by the Rhodesian regime. In as much as Cde Mugabe was applauded for his affirmative stand in promoting conciliatory transition from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, he remains demonised for the Gukurahundi disturbances which rocked Midlands and Matabeleland between 1982 and 1987.
The prominent contradiction emerging from this reality is that his search for reconciliation with the former oppressor was negatively counterbalanced by a raging national crisis which was directly affecting the African majority. Colonial powers were also responsible for engineering this civil unrest which was to be later used to vilify Cde Mugabe as an autocrat who ‘murdered his people’.
Behind the veneer of reconciliation and post-war reconstruction of the newly independent state there was a well-managed system of capital flight. The process of negotiated independence had laid the foundation for the consolidation of the gains of the Rhodesian minority’s looting and economic plunder. Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) sustained by ex-Rhodesians’ firm hold of the economy continued to haemorrhage the newly born state’s fiscal base.
A decade into her independence, Zimbabwe was desperately drawing its economic policy tutelage from colonially owned International Financial Institutions (IFIs). The fiscal management remedies of the World Bank and the IMF only decreased the social base of Zanu-PF — the party of national liberation.
The World Bank and IMF’s austerity position only facilitated jobless growth, ruthless growth and emphasised statistical rather than ontological economics. This type of over-reliance on Western creditor institutions’ inhuman economics depicted the first pitfall of African independence under the late former President Mugabe.
In a reciprocal attempt to attend to the immediate mandates of national liberation, Zimbabwe adopted the Fast-Track Land Reform Programme which in return was shunned and retaliated through the formation of a Western guided pro-democracy opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) led by the late Morgan Tsvangirai.
To the surprise of the newborn neoliberal political party,
Cde Mugabe’s powerbase was strengthened by the majority who became beneficiaries of his administration’s agrarian reform. Pursuant to this land expropriation without compensation trajectory, he was celebrated for being a reclaimer of true African independence within and outside Zimbabwe.
Under the land reform programme, Zimbabwe became a practical model of an authentic post-colonial state that was advancing a realistic balance between political and economic independence.
Meanwhile, Cde Mugabe lost support the White minority that had initially benefited from his 1980 reconciliation policy. However, the unresolved issue of the Gukurahundi continued to dent his political reputation.
The Gukurahundi issue was used to justify the amplification of the human rights crisis narrative which was being used to mobilise sympathies for the displaced Rhodesian landholding minority. International media and local private media accelerated their ‘demonise Mugabe’ campaign.
It is from this perspective that the legacy of Cde Mugabe is entangled in contradictions, the ultimate spiralling effect of these contradictions is mostly noted in the way Zimbabweans remain polarised. At the centre of our polarisation is the struggle between forces of colonial state architecture and redemptive African nationalism.
Cde Mugabe’s legacy floats between praise and condemnation by some. As already established in the discussion, this proves that any recollection on Cde Mugabe is centred on duo philosophical dimensions namely the colonial and the anti-colonial framing.
It must be understood that Cde Mugabe was born into repressive dehumanising conditions as a result of colonialism. His educational and religious orientation made him a subject of colonial conditioning (Hill, 2005).
His worldview is intensely defined in colonial terms. His entry into nationalist politics was driven by his colonial conditioning. Therefore, he is an embodiment of conflicting philosophical personalities. His political career was immersed in the twin contradiction of the colonial and anti-colonial. As a result, the memory repositories interpreting Cde Mugabe’s legacy are determined by pro-African and neoliberal discourses.
His colonial conditioning also explains why sometimes his political career was susceptible to colonial compromises particularly his engagement in the Lancaster Conference (Mpofu, 2020). Again, Zimbabwe’s early independence neo-liberal entrapments substantiate without doubt the colonial pulse which characterised Cde Mugabe’s rule. Just like any other post-colonial African leader, he represented the essence of colonialism’s imposing effect on the self-determination interests of African states.
It is from this perspective that I was engaged alongside other fellow intellectuals in the publishing of the book Re/membering Robert Gabriel Mugabe: Politics, Legacy, Philosophy, Life and Death.
This volume presents an in-depth interrogation and articulation of the post land reform hostile binaries inspired by the life and times of former Zimbabwean President Mugabe. The contributions in this book are a significant step towards the re-articulation of the decolonisation agenda in its most contemporary and futuristic sense.
We see this book as a good start to reframing the true meaning of leadership and governance in Africa.
Re/membering Robert Gabriel Mugabe: Politics, Legacy, Philosophy, Life and Death sets an organic precedent assigning progressive intellectuals to record the political and philosophical path of every African leader from a purely
African and neo-colonial unfiltered perspective. This exercise of memory (re)construction must be pivoted on the sincere will to interrogate the continuities and discontinuities of the African liberation question. The key objective of this route should establish a candid African perspective on what African leadership embodies in a hostile Global-North discursively determined environment.
Therefore, 6 September 2021 should not be confined to mourning the death of Zimbabwe’s former President. The day must be a reminder to all Zimbabweans and anti-colonial loyalists across the globe that there once lived a man called Cde Mugabe whose life was entirely committed to the decolonisation of Zimbabwe and the African continent.
It must also be emphasised that many of his shortfalls were born out of his victimhood to the sophisticated structure of colonialism. However, in the face of all this, Cde Mugabe remains a revered figure of African freedom and for that he will never be forgotten. He will forever remain in the hearts of those who genuinely love Africa and hate imperialism.
