THE dictator has finally bitten the dust after trying to use every trick in the book to wriggle out of his certain disgraceful — pardon the pun — fall.
By Conway Tutani
Robert Gabriel Mugabe, who lectured to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair: “Blair, leave my Zimbabwe alone!”, was told by the Zimbabweans themselves: “Mugabe, we want our country back!”
Cornered from all directions, Mugabe finally relented this week, resulting in celebrations erupting nationwide and beyond the borders. At 93, Mugabe was — until his resignation — the world’s oldest leader. He once proclaimed that “only God” could remove him. Well, did God send the generals?
In his last public address as President televised live on Sunday, Mugabe cut a forlorn, lone, pitiful figure hemmed in by military generals to ensure he stuck to the contents of the speech. I haven’t seen a person more broken, crestfallen, shattered and woebegone than that. The man who used to boast that “I do things the Robert Mugabe way” was now doing it the generals’ way. The fall was a long time coming, but come it did. Even his staunch foreign allies had ditched Mugabe seeing that he was losing it by handing over his State duties to his wife Grace, whom the Chinese described as “a wanton squanderer”. Now that’s strong language, but a most appropriate description of Grace.
African Union president Alpha Conte said he was “truly delighted” by the news, but expressed regret at the way Mugabe’s rule had ended. “It is a shame that he is leaving through the back door and that he is forsaken by Parliament,” Conte said.
That’s why English author Terry Pratchett said: “In every old person there is a young person wondering: ‘What happened?’”
I was caught between joy at Mugabe’s fall and pity at the sorrowful, diminished man I saw on TV. It reminded me of the images on TV of deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi begging for his life as he was being torn to pieces by a lynching mob in 2011. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. You can call me soft or whatever, but no one deserves to undergo what Gaddafi was subjected to, not even a person I hate — and, I must admit in all honesty, I have been driven to hate a few people in my life, including Mugabe.
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We, as a nation, and, in particular, Mugabe himself and his close ones — such as his spoilt brat of a son, Chatunga, who, in typical like father like son fashion, is living in a parallel universe, mocking Zimbabweans that his dad will return — should thank God that it did not descend into the Libyan horror show as Mugabe was neatly and smartly ousted in a “bloodless correction”, as war veterans leader Christopher Mutsvangwa, vigorously — but not facetiously — articulate as ever, put it. Mutsvangwa did not treat a serious issue with deliberately inappropriate humour. If anything, what he said was pleasantly — not cruelly — humorous. Mutsvangwa did not have to hit or kick Mugabe anymore because the man was down and out. The man was already finished; there was no way back for him despite Chatunga’s arrogant boast. (We ought to forgive Chatunga because, by his father’s own admission, the boy is intellectually challenged, a proper dunce who was always at the tail-end of his class.)
The restraint and tone surrounding the military intervention saved the day. There was not only buy-in across the political divide, but also a sense of ownership of the project at hand: Removing Mugabe swiftly and peacefully. Events leading to that were incidental and accidental, but that did not lessen the validity and urgency of the move. The grounds were there to oust him. What was only needed was a precipitator to make things happen suddenly and quickly. Enter the Zimbabwe Defence Forces and the rest is history.
Not surprisingly, before the dust has settled, the usual suspects — including academic careerists — are trying to drive a wedge among the people to destroy the political goodwill dividend from the removal of Mugabe, using empty soundbites such as “not yet uhuru” (uhuru being the Swahili word for freedom).
Indeed, why are some academic types among us so hasty in criticising and dismissing anything and everything? It’s good that they are not medical doctors because if they were, they would misdiagnose a headache for a foot fracture; and amputate a healthy right leg instead of the gangrenous left leg. And on top of that, they would be sued heavily for damage and banned for life from practicing medicine.
But so-called political experts do not face such penalties because they do not have to have practicing certificates, and so no one can sue them for damage caused to the nation by their “advice” and recommendations. Unlike with doctors, their is no individual liability.
According to Wikipedia: “Academic careerism is that tendency of academics — professors specifically and intellectuals generally — to pursue their own enrichment and self-advancement at the expense of honest inquiry, unbiased research and dissemination of truth to their students and society. Such careerism has been criticised by thinkers from Socrates in Ancient Athens to Russell Jacoby in the present.”
Confirming these naked pecuniary or money-making motives of academic careerists, Rita Nyampinga wrote on Facebook: “Vanetsa vanhu ivava nxaa! Kutsvaga mari nekuda kunyora maacademic paper. Leave us alone isu povo. (These people have become a nuisance — exasperatingly so! They are just after money through writing academic papers. Leave us ordinary people alone.)”
These academic careerists now have allies in media careerists.
Fortunately, the majority of Zimbabweans on the Internet concur with Nyampinga. Wrote Masimba Nyamanhindi on Facebook: “We now hear that the masses were duped on account that Zanu PF is not including them in the post-Mugabe era. Give us a break! The people were not marching to have the MDC in government, but to see Mugabe’s back. Period!”
Precisely. These experts, who were intellectualising that it was impossible for Mugabe to resign as the military had ignorantly and completely botched by taking the unconstitutional move, are now saying “not yet uhuru” after Mugabe stepped down, as they lick their wounds after their predictions fell flat. Under Smith’s closed system, was it constitutional to join the armed struggle against him?
Furthermore, these academic careerists ought to be told that just because ordinary people do not articulate their views in intellectual language does not make them ignorant. And that these ordinary folk have much more intuitive knowledge — which serves them well in the real world where pragmatism is essential — than bookish knowledge for its own sake.
And what’s the use of harping about the unconstitutionality of military intervention when it has become a fait accompli, a done deal? You can’t put toothpaste back into the tube.
There is an English expression that someone has let the genie out of the bottle, meaning that something has happened which has made a great and permanent change in people’s lives. The Zimbabwe Defence Forces is that someone who has made something — the removal of Mugabe — which will make a great and permanent change in Zimbabweans’ lives.
In a televised interview on Tuesday, the day the tyrant resigned, a man who was celebrating on Harare streets said: “We are happy that Mugabe has gone — that is the first step.”
Indeed, military intervention is not a silver bullet, but you have to start somewhere.
“This is not the apocalypse,” said former United States President Barack Obama. “History does not move in straight lines; sometimes it goes sideways, sometimes it goes backward.”
Conway Tutani is a Hrare-based columnist. Email [email protected]
