EDITORIAL: Mugabe’s right; liberation heroes deserve better

 

By The Citizen

Posted  Tuesday, August 19   2014 at  11:00

In Summary

• Whatever the shortcomings of Mr Mugabe may be – he is no angel, as no-one else is – the West’s criticism of the now 90-year-old, respect-deserving statesman, is mostly excessive and unjustified.

If someone wants to justify mistreatment of a dog – so goes the moral of an old saying – the person starts off by giving the animal, which, paradoxically, is known as man’s best friend, a bad name. There are, in that saying, echoes of the shabby treatment that  Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe  is subjected to by the Western world.

Whatever the shortcomings of Mr Mugabe may be – he is no angel, as no-one else is – the West’s criticism of the now 90-year-old, respect-deserving statesman, is mostly excessive and unjustified. The West’s holier-than-thou disposition is both laughable and inexcusable, bearing in mind that Western powers introduced colonialism in Africa, the bitterness of which the people of several countries on the continent and elsewhere tasted.

One of them is Mzee Mugabe; a good part of his pre-independence life having been divided between a long, 10-year prison spell, and vanguard leadership of the liberation struggle. Yet, in the eyes of the Western world, Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith was saluted as a hero while Mugabe, an accomplished intellectual, among other attributes, was demonized.

And long after the country had become independent and was renamed Zimbabwe to express its primary belongingness to the Black majority, he is mercilessly vilified.

Understandably, Africa has by and large stood by President Mugabe and Zimbabwe. Tanzania, for one, has a long and cherished relationship with both; the man having been a frequent visitor to our country, which hosted many training camps for various liberation movements in southern Africa.

Tanzania’s role

President Mugabe has been reciprocal, greatly appreciating the role that Tanzania played in the noble cause, by doing which it risked incurring the wrath of Rhodesia’s racist regime, and the broader colonial, racist and imperialist bloc.

It was a risk worth taking, because, as founding President Mwalimu Nyerere often reminded his compatriots, Tanzania’s independence would be complete only after the whole of Africa had become fully liberated.

Against that background, Africa should critically reflect on, and deeply digest President Mugabe’s sentiments at Victoria Falls at the weekend, as he took up the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) chairmanship.

He decried inadequate acknowledgement of, and honour to the bloc’s founder presidents, of whom Zambia’s Dr Kenneth Kaunda is the only survivor.

Mzee Mugabe recalled that, Sadc’s precursor, the Southern African Co-ordination Conference (SADCC) was instrumental in forming the Frontline States entity, whose child, the African Liberation Committee, co-ordinated guerrilla and associated initiatives that ultimately rid the sub-continent of colonialism.

The president was right on cue by stressing the need for Mwalimu Nyerere, Dr Kaunda, liberation committee chairman Brigadier General (rtd) Hashim Mbita, and many other individuals who played sterling roles in the cause, to be given fitting accolades.