Mugabe's fig leaf has irretrievably slipped

Mugabe's fig leaf has irretrievably slipped

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By Andriata Chironda

ROBERT Mugabe’s Zimbabwe is akin to Orwell’s Oceania. Only those who lavish adoration, standing ovations and chants of ‘Mugabe is Right’ and ‘Long live Mugabe’ are deemed patriotic Zimbabweans.

Since independence in 1980, Mugabe and his cronies have nurtured and exploited some of the unhealthiest dichotomies: Shona v. Ndebele, White v. Black and the West v. Africa. Those who do not subscribe to or pander to these categories or refuse to exonerate Mugabe from blame for the crisis that is Zimbabwe find themselves silenced as instruments of ‘the enemy’.

This Orwellian script, so simple yet so fatal, silenced dissent so thoroughly that the fact that there are voices left willing to challenge Mugabe is a miracle.

Mugabe has been President of Zimbabwe ever since I became conscious of my existence. I belong to the so called ‘born-free’ generation of Zimbabweans -- born after the negotiation of Zimbabwe’s independence. Those of my generation who opposed him were once easily dismissed by Mugabe as young naïve ingrates willing to ‘sell-out’ to a neo-imperialist Britain that wanted to re-colonise Zimbabwe.

Much has been said about the 1980’s “Gukurahundi” in which thousands of people (many of Ndebele genealogy) were massacred by the notorious Five Brigade under the orders of Robert Mugabe. After that tragedy, the government deployed an instrumental myth about the history of Shona and Ndebele animosities in order to divide and rule.

In order to justify the brutality that was Gukurahundi, Mugabe’s regime appropriated a discredited colonial historiography that portrayed the Ndebele as violent warmongers. It was this myth that ZANU peddled in order to justify culling ZAPU strongholds of Matabeleland and Midlands. The massacre of thousands of people was a means for Mugabe to consolidate power in his own hands.

By the late 1990’s Mugabe had ‘found’ Zimbabwe’s ‘real enemies’ were not the Ndebele, but white farmers. Those in the opposition and within civil society who were critical of his policies were conveniently lumped together with these recently re-defined ‘foreigners’. He then broadened his rhetoric to the African as well as international stage. It found a ready audience with many across the world who felt marginalised and were discontented with global inequality. It also found resonance with those who thirsted for a lost Pan-African identity. Within this framework, all those who dared to criticise his conduct were easily lumped with the ‘enemy’ camp.

More recently Mugabe has derided all those who do not vote for him as gullible and naïve turncoats who have succumbed to the wealthy and evil ‘West’. And of course, we have all been privy to what he thinks of state officials and leaders of countries like Britain and other European countries who criticise his record on governance. They are all simply dismissed as white racists and neo-imperialists keen to re-colonise Zimbabwe.

The manner in which he has transferred identity politics from the domestic to the world stage and tried to scapegoat others for all of the nation’s problems is a marvel. Mugabe has re-fashioned himself not only as the liberator of Zimbabwe from its multitude of enemies both within and outside its border, but also as the last true African bastion of resistance to colonial ‘West’.

One thing that Mugabe either refuses or is incapable of conceding is that, the constructed categories and them (West) versus us (Zimbabwe/Africa), which he has hitherto thrived on, have begun to lose their cogency. The rising tide of moral outrage within the African continent itself at Mugabe’s refusal to respect the ballot should he lose, and use of Zanu PF militia to attack ordinary unarmed citizens are proof that Mugabe is losing his once loyal audience. Those who had previously bought into Mugabe’s hateful rhetoric or been hoodwinked by the use of dichotomous smokescreens can now see the kinds of evil that many conscionable Zimbabweans have contended and fought against for a very long time.

The recent denunciation of state sanctioned violence leading up to the presidential run-off on June, 27, 2008, by African heads of state and officials from countries such as Zambia, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Botswana, Tanzania and even Angola tells us that Mugabe’s charade has become obvious. States that have supported him have reluctantly acknowledged as much. Recognising reality is one thing, but doing something about it is another. If the African Union finally does so, it will be the true liberator of Zimbabwe.

As I close my eyes with futile hope and await a lighting bolt to strike and make real the dictator’s assertion that “Only God can remove me”, I will take much comfort in the knowledge that the fig leaf has irrevocably fallen and Robert Gabriel Mugabe now stands naked before the world with all his greed for power exposed.

Andriata Chironda is a student at Toronto University in Canada

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