Zimbabwe’s head of state, Robert Mugabe, has died at the age of 95 after months of medical treatment in Singapore. He died a world away from the nation that had defined him and whose legacy continues to define Zimbabwe.
His end was far from the glory of his beginning. The recent news revolved around his government’s mismanagement leading to widespread economic and social oppression culminating in his 2017 ousting from the position he held for nearly four decades. As political figures go, Robert Mugabe is among the most polarizing. There is not a shred of insignificance to his impact having been described as many things – revolutionary, liberator, hero, father of a nation, strongman, authoritarian, tyrant and dictator. For Mugabe, he will be the subject of an enduring debate that is attached to myriads of political figures – was he a calculating authoritarian from the beginning or was he corrupted by the glory his ascent to power gave him?
To understand Mugabe, whether as leader or authoritarian, hero or tyrant is to understand the man behind these labels. Born in February 1924, Robert Gabriel Mugabe grew up in Britain’s colonial empire of southern Africa. In life, Mugabe was described as a diligent and intelligent student, devout Catholic and principled in aspiring to doing the right thing. His passion as an intellectual lead him to become a teacher but the future President found his calling as he got caught up in the wave of post-colonial movements to sweep Africa in the mid-20th century. While attending University in South Africa, he joined the African National Congress, was introduced to Marxism but was also inspired by Gandhi. He would later describe this period of his as a “turning point” and upon returning to home in the early 1950s, he now had a more profound perspective of the system he had lived and grown up in and began to openly oppose the white minority rule and its racially driven prejudice. This period is significant to consider in the context of those who view Mugabe in a more positive light. It is difficult to rule out the likelihood that it was these colonial entanglements, ones that still linger across Africa to this day, that impacted him as both a member and leader of a nation.
During the Rhodesian-era, the government of Ian Smith was defined by it’s resistance to the inevitable change sweeping across Africa and his less than cordial engagements with Britain. The Rhodesian government made a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) in 1965 which was considered an illegal proclamation compared to Zimbabwe’s first elections that would see Mugabe’s government sworn into power. In Smith’s view, declaring independence from Britain meant preserving “civilization” and preventing a “communist” take-over. Mugabe, in hindsight when reflecting on the initial de-colonisation period, was what Smith feared most but what the country needed and deserved. For a while, Smith was able to hold onto his questionable ideals in most part due to his government’s close alignment with South Africa. However, the beginning of the end for white-minority rule was the change taking over South Africa itself as international pressure caused a slight softening on social policies which caused the two nations to separate substantially to a point where Rhodesia was truly on its own. In 1975, Portugal lost its hold over its colonial territories when an independent socialist black-led Mozambique emerged on Rhodesia’s doorstep. This gave renewed legitimacy and strength to the guerrillas fighting to overthrow white-minority rule. It was during this time that Mugabe, previously imprisoned for his open opposition to government, acquired a reputation as a prominent and skilled guerrilla leader and negotiator. Mugabe was not only privileged in his position as leader but his general demeanour and aspirations to a point that Margaret Thatcher, who had shared Smith’s view that the future head of state was a “terrorist” had reformed her opinions. Smith’s final downfall lead to Mugabe’s rise as a far more charismatic and popular leader. Mugabe had demonstrated his abilities as a leader and one that Zimbabwe would benefit from – a well-educated, well-travelled, tactful man with initiative. However, the great irony of this saga is how history would go on to repeat itself with Mugabe.
Upon taking office, Mugabe presented himself as an advocate of basic human rights as demonstrated through his change to the constitution to recognise primary and secondary education as free and compulsory. He espoused the importance of a democratic society where the people were defined and recognised by merit and not by race while expressing a desire for reconciliation. The early years of his leadership enabled Mugabe to solidify a positive perception and support which lingers to a degree today. He was an icon, a revered leader who gained respect among many prominent African leaders, including Nelson Mandela, with a view that he represented the promise of a new era for Africa and its legitimacy in the global community.
However, the trouble was began to emerge well into the 1980s with a series of acts that would cripple the nation. According to Zimbabwean lawyer Siphosami Malunga, Mugabe simply wanted everything “his way”. An estimated 20,000 perceived opponents would be killed, and his policies were more ideological than effective as the country fell into a state of decay and desperation. Mugabe had acquired power over a nation and its resources which allowed him the means to acquire a substantial personal fortune while what was left proved inadequate for the people to live on. Shortages in food, petrol and power were commonplace along with the queues outside markets that barely shelved basic supplies. The economic picture has been consistent for at least two decades with employment and a decent wage virtually non-existent. Up to 80% live below the poverty line and the country relies on international food aid to feed the population after their important agricultural sector collapsed.
In later life, Mugabe would attract considerable comment along with criticism regarding his views which were diversely described as left-wing, Marxist and Pan-Africanist. When Zimbabwe won independence, Mugabe had expressed hopes of reconciliation when he was quoted as saying “It could never be a correct justification that because the whites oppressed us yesterday when they had power, the blacks must oppress them today”. However, twenty-years later a different view would emerge when he enacted policy that saw many white-owned farms seized by force. Mugabe had been warned many years earlier that the farms were economically vital to the country’s survival and that he shouldn’t risk a “white flight” from the country. At present, the white population sits under 1% consisting of 28,000 which is a dramatic decrease from the approx. 250,000 that resided in the mid-1970s.
There are those in hindsight who view Mugabe’s uncompromising stance on his leadership as evident of a more calculating man who was inherently concerned with his own interests and vision as leader. His focus on power and the prestige of his past were infinite but not among the people who were struggling and starving from consistently flawed policy. Ultimately, it was this and his focus on suppressing opposition to his rule that was simultaneously weakening the country that lead to the very forces which would dispose him in 2017. In the end, Mugabe only had the glory of his early years to hang to as any form of legitimate reverence even as he presided over his country’s decline.
Robert Mugabe will forever be a paradox in political history. He was more an ideologue than a leader, a picture of the modern downfall that personifies Africa in the global conscious. For many Zimbabweans, the death of Mugabe leaves a strange void as his length of rule meant that his was the most constant figure in their lives. Now he is gone and what is left are mixed feelings. Despite President Emmerson Mnangagwa announcing a period of national mourning on Saturday, many Zimbabweans preferred to work as usual in what could be viewed as continued efforts to salvage what is left of a country that had significant potential when Mugabe took over all those years ago.
While finding a place in the folklore of revolutionary heroes, Mugabe is a composite character within the post-colonial Africa imagination. Indeed, even opposition leader Tendai Biti expressed sympathy by stating “He brought massive destruction to Zimbabwe but was a product of his era”. The product of imperialism who strove to wrench his people out of the slums of political and social repression only to turn the same people into his own subjects, the land into his own ideological front and destroy the very hopes he fought for. In the end he became the very thing he fought against and reinforced a common perception that continues to define modern Africa. As the years go and the world watches Zimbabwe from a distance, the one legacy that will linger is of what could have been.
