Mugabe: Big headed hero forming a Kingdom
By Mazuba Mwiinga
Mugabe may know a lot about African leaders, hence his challenging them 'to see the one with clean hands and point a finger at him'; but what he forgets is that there is always a limit to tyranny.
If lets say one president went into power through ‘illegitimate’ ways, it’s not a pass port to say, that president has no right to tell Mugabe when he is wrong. The truth is the truth, whether told by the Devil or an Angel it’s still the truth.
For instance Zambia’s president Levy Mwanawasa once likened Mugabe’s government to a ‘Sinking Titanic’. Those who have read about the Titanic or watched a film depicting this ship will tell you that it was an Olympic-class passenger liner owned by the White Star Line which on the night of 14 April 1912, during her maiden voyage, struck an iceberg, and sank two hours and forty minutes later killing 1, 517 people on board. At the time of her launching in 1912, she was the largest passenger steamship in the world.
The Titanic used some of the most advanced technology available at the time and was popularly believed to be “unsinkable”, but the death toll has been recorded as one of the worst peacetime maritime disasters in history and by far the most infamous.
Under this background Mwanawasa’s likening of the Mugabe’s regime to this once famous ship, talks volumes of how Zimbabwe’s economy and its leadership used to be. Those who have been to Zimbabwe in the late 80s will give testimony of a country which flowed with ‘honey and milk. But some how Mugabe’s government lost its way, but conceitedly refuses to admit this.
To me it’s a pure show of arrogance and some sort of circus in politics at the expense of the suffering Zimbabweans. Many presidents in Africa may have skeleton in their closets, but most of these leaders have handled their problems maturely and sensitively bearing in mind the people they are leading. Letting thousands and thousands of people exposed to beatings, killings, torture, starvation and fleeing their own mother land just because they detest your leadership doesn’t justify for ‘clean or dirty’ hands challenge.
Yes we are Africans, but should we ‘African’ ourselves and blame the British and the Americans for Zimbabwe’s problems? If Zimbabwe agrees that the US and British are responsible for its suffering, then Mugabe is agreeing that in this global world no country is an Island. We are all dependent of each other and Mugabe’s challenges to see an African president who will point a finger at him is tantamount to losing touch with reality and the way things are done in modern times.
To me his advisors have done their best to lie to him out rightly on what is happening in his country. It’s true that in Mugabe’s lounge in his Office there is a placard on the wall which reads: ‘Mugabe is right’, reminiscent of Hitler’s motto. Such ideas coming from a democratically elected president; calls for a lot questions and serious reflection. Botswana and Zambia spoke out against him not because they hate him I believe, but because they feel the spill over effects on their economies of his people who are running away from his county.
That’s why sometimes I wonder why Mbeki cared less when Zimbabweans were being beaten and burnt in South Africa’s infamous xenophobia attacks. Was it because he knew most of these were opposition sympathizers whom he didn’t have anything to do with, bearing in mind that he is an ally of Mugabe? Or may be Mugabe knows a lot about Mbeki’s hidden secrets which he Mbeki fears, should he betray Mugabe; Mugabe may peal the beans?
The other African countries don’t care whether Mugabe stays on and on thinking that the media pictures are just animations because it doesn’t affect their economies at all. There is what we call a neighbor and a next door neighbor; and they are just neighbors who don’t even hear the cries of their friends.
If anything they are using him against white supremacy for their own internal strategies hence increasing his arrogance and tyranny. Let’s not give excuses and accept that Mugabe has run down his own country. He is just a big headed hero who wants to leave a legacy of a ‘leader who collapsed his own country as a show to America and Britain that he is in charge’. The Zimbabwe issue is more than just Land invasion. Mugabe is forming a Kingdom.
We may not have presidents with clean hands per se but we definitely have ones with cleaner hands than that of Mugabe. But even if they speak against him, what do they gain or lose? Absolutely nothing!
First published on Monday 14 July 2008 - 16:32 on Africanews.com
By Mazuba Mwiinga
Mugabe may know a lot about African leaders, hence his challenging them 'to see the one with clean hands and point a finger at him'; but what he forgets is that there is always a limit to tyranny.
If lets say one president went into power through ‘illegitimate’ ways, it’s not a pass port to say, that president has no right to tell Mugabe when he is wrong. The truth is the truth, whether told by the Devil or an Angel it’s still the truth.
For instance Zambia’s president Levy Mwanawasa once likened Mugabe’s government to a ‘Sinking Titanic’. Those who have read about the Titanic or watched a film depicting this ship will tell you that it was an Olympic-class passenger liner owned by the White Star Line which on the night of 14 April 1912, during her maiden voyage, struck an iceberg, and sank two hours and forty minutes later killing 1, 517 people on board. At the time of her launching in 1912, she was the largest passenger steamship in the world.
The Titanic used some of the most advanced technology available at the time and was popularly believed to be “unsinkable”, but the death toll has been recorded as one of the worst peacetime maritime disasters in history and by far the most infamous.
Under this background Mwanawasa’s likening of the Mugabe’s regime to this once famous ship, talks volumes of how Zimbabwe’s economy and its leadership used to be. Those who have been to Zimbabwe in the late 80s will give testimony of a country which flowed with ‘honey and milk. But some how Mugabe’s government lost its way, but conceitedly refuses to admit this.
To me it’s a pure show of arrogance and some sort of circus in politics at the expense of the suffering Zimbabweans. Many presidents in Africa may have skeleton in their closets, but most of these leaders have handled their problems maturely and sensitively bearing in mind the people they are leading. Letting thousands and thousands of people exposed to beatings, killings, torture, starvation and fleeing their own mother land just because they detest your leadership doesn’t justify for ‘clean or dirty’ hands challenge.
Yes we are Africans, but should we ‘African’ ourselves and blame the British and the Americans for Zimbabwe’s problems? If Zimbabwe agrees that the US and British are responsible for its suffering, then Mugabe is agreeing that in this global world no country is an Island. We are all dependent of each other and Mugabe’s challenges to see an African president who will point a finger at him is tantamount to losing touch with reality and the way things are done in modern times.
To me his advisors have done their best to lie to him out rightly on what is happening in his country. It’s true that in Mugabe’s lounge in his Office there is a placard on the wall which reads: ‘Mugabe is right’, reminiscent of Hitler’s motto. Such ideas coming from a democratically elected president; calls for a lot questions and serious reflection. Botswana and Zambia spoke out against him not because they hate him I believe, but because they feel the spill over effects on their economies of his people who are running away from his county.
That’s why sometimes I wonder why Mbeki cared less when Zimbabweans were being beaten and burnt in South Africa’s infamous xenophobia attacks. Was it because he knew most of these were opposition sympathizers whom he didn’t have anything to do with, bearing in mind that he is an ally of Mugabe? Or may be Mugabe knows a lot about Mbeki’s hidden secrets which he Mbeki fears, should he betray Mugabe; Mugabe may peal the beans?
The other African countries don’t care whether Mugabe stays on and on thinking that the media pictures are just animations because it doesn’t affect their economies at all. There is what we call a neighbor and a next door neighbor; and they are just neighbors who don’t even hear the cries of their friends.
If anything they are using him against white supremacy for their own internal strategies hence increasing his arrogance and tyranny. Let’s not give excuses and accept that Mugabe has run down his own country. He is just a big headed hero who wants to leave a legacy of a ‘leader who collapsed his own country as a show to America and Britain that he is in charge’. The Zimbabwe issue is more than just Land invasion. Mugabe is forming a Kingdom.
We may not have presidents with clean hands per se but we definitely have ones with cleaner hands than that of Mugabe. But even if they speak against him, what do they gain or lose? Absolutely nothing!
First published on Monday 14 July 2008 - 16:32 on Africanews.com
