“In the last two decades of
his life, Nelson Mandela was celebrated as a model of how to liberate a country
from the colonial yoke without succumbing to the temptation of dictatorial
power and anti-capitalist posturing,” you wrote.
“That is spot on, hit the nail on the head right there”, I said to myself. But I soon realized that I had spoken too soon!
“Is this, however, the whole story?” you continued. “Two key facts remain obliterated by this celebratory vision. In South Africa, the miserable life of the poor majority broadly remains the same as under apartheid, and the rise of political and civil rights is counterbalanced by the growing insecurity, violence and crime.”
Oh dear, here we go! The contrast of the clarity of the first paragraph with the confused nonsense of the second was stuck and brutal as that between Nelson Mandela and Mugabe, you have set out to compare.
Nelson Mandela was President of South Africa for five years, of course it is nonsense to think that he would have eliminated ignorance, poverty and want of the millions of black South Africans who have been neglected and forced into a life of despair for generations by successive apartheid regimes. Even if Mandela had remained in office until the day he
died, which is what Mugabe paragraph has blacks today – such was the enormity of the task.
If Mandela had stayed in power these last nineteen years; I believe he would have done an infinitely better job of running the country and thus reduce poverty in that country than Thambo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma have done. Such is my confidence in Mandela. But now that Mandela is dead; what kind of future would a significantly richer and prosperous SA now be facing? I will tell you without a shadow of doubt that is would be a really grime one.
Mandela’s greatest legacy to SA is that he gave the nation the confidence to embrace all the principles of a free and independent press, independent judiciary and all the other democratic niceties when the temptation was to reject democracy on the feeble grounds that it is a Western colonial imposition on Africa as leaders like Mugabe have done.
Mugabe wanted to impose a one-party state from the word go. He settled for a de facto one-party state instead of a constitutional one. All he cared about was to have absolute power and look what he has done to Zimbabwe.
Even if Mandela had turned SA into a prosperous nation economically but failed to create a democratic SA; SA under an autocratic Mbeki or Zuma with no democratic checks and balances would be heading one way – economic ruin! If you think just how incompetent and corrupt Mbeki and Zuma have turned out to be; think of how much worse they would have been if ANC was a one-party dictatorship like Zanu PF.
First secure the political rights and the economic rights will soon follow guaranteed. Leaders like Mugabe have promised the masses economic prosperity - “gutsa ruzhinji” mass prosperity –; giving with the left hand and making a big song and dance about each completed project regardless how small and insignificant compare to the need. Meanwhile he has taken for himself and his cronies even more. Mention any political rights and he might as well have spat into his face.
Those who think economic prosperity can ever be achieved with no political rights are as naive as the buck who believes the hyena’s tall-tale call of a peace conference in the middle of the night. Mugabe does not want the people to have their political rights no more than the hyena would want the light of day to show what he really is up!
It is amazing that so many people have been taken in with Mugabe’s propaganda and rhetoric suggesting that he made the lives of the masses in Zimbabwe in anyway better economically. The grim reality is that life expectancy, the best qualitative and quantitative of economic well being, has plummeted from 68 years in 1980 to 34 years today. So where is the economic prosperity Mugabe keeps wittering about?
“That is spot on, hit the nail on the head right there”, I said to myself. But I soon realized that I had spoken too soon!
“Is this, however, the whole story?” you continued. “Two key facts remain obliterated by this celebratory vision. In South Africa, the miserable life of the poor majority broadly remains the same as under apartheid, and the rise of political and civil rights is counterbalanced by the growing insecurity, violence and crime.”
Oh dear, here we go! The contrast of the clarity of the first paragraph with the confused nonsense of the second was stuck and brutal as that between Nelson Mandela and Mugabe, you have set out to compare.
Nelson Mandela was President of South Africa for five years, of course it is nonsense to think that he would have eliminated ignorance, poverty and want of the millions of black South Africans who have been neglected and forced into a life of despair for generations by successive apartheid regimes. Even if Mandela had remained in office until the day he
died, which is what Mugabe paragraph has blacks today – such was the enormity of the task.
If Mandela had stayed in power these last nineteen years; I believe he would have done an infinitely better job of running the country and thus reduce poverty in that country than Thambo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma have done. Such is my confidence in Mandela. But now that Mandela is dead; what kind of future would a significantly richer and prosperous SA now be facing? I will tell you without a shadow of doubt that is would be a really grime one.
Mandela’s greatest legacy to SA is that he gave the nation the confidence to embrace all the principles of a free and independent press, independent judiciary and all the other democratic niceties when the temptation was to reject democracy on the feeble grounds that it is a Western colonial imposition on Africa as leaders like Mugabe have done.
Mugabe wanted to impose a one-party state from the word go. He settled for a de facto one-party state instead of a constitutional one. All he cared about was to have absolute power and look what he has done to Zimbabwe.
Even if Mandela had turned SA into a prosperous nation economically but failed to create a democratic SA; SA under an autocratic Mbeki or Zuma with no democratic checks and balances would be heading one way – economic ruin! If you think just how incompetent and corrupt Mbeki and Zuma have turned out to be; think of how much worse they would have been if ANC was a one-party dictatorship like Zanu PF.
First secure the political rights and the economic rights will soon follow guaranteed. Leaders like Mugabe have promised the masses economic prosperity - “gutsa ruzhinji” mass prosperity –; giving with the left hand and making a big song and dance about each completed project regardless how small and insignificant compare to the need. Meanwhile he has taken for himself and his cronies even more. Mention any political rights and he might as well have spat into his face.
Those who think economic prosperity can ever be achieved with no political rights are as naive as the buck who believes the hyena’s tall-tale call of a peace conference in the middle of the night. Mugabe does not want the people to have their political rights no more than the hyena would want the light of day to show what he really is up!
It is amazing that so many people have been taken in with Mugabe’s propaganda and rhetoric suggesting that he made the lives of the masses in Zimbabwe in anyway better economically. The grim reality is that life expectancy, the best qualitative and quantitative of economic well being, has plummeted from 68 years in 1980 to 34 years today. So where is the economic prosperity Mugabe keeps wittering about?
To judge Mandela on the basis of how many black
South he rescued from poverty in his five years as President is like judging
the majestic size of Mount Everest from the point of view of an ant. Unless you
can see the bigger picture, the value and critical importance of democracy and
the respect for human rights, Mandela's legacy to SA, you will come out with a
meaningless conclusion! Indeed the ant is more likely to be impressed by Mugabe’s
mole-hill than Mount Everest!
3 comments:
Zimbabwe’s MPs have been asked to take French leave because there is no money to pay them.
Some people had estimated that Mugabe had squandered at least $3 billion to finance his vote rigging operations now it seems the tyrant had been taking money away from every sector of government. The Ministry of Higher Education received a misery $50k out of a budget of $ 380 m - i.e. less than 0.002%. Even the ruling elite on the gravy train were robbed blind! There is no money to pay the joy-riders! The Zimbabwe government is indeed broke.
Mugabe must have squandered $ 8 billion dollars, the nation's whole GDP to ensure he "won" the elections. Well he sure spared no expense. Now the chickens have come home to roost, government is broke!
Mugabe is picking a fight with everyone. He has dismissed the West as “white imperialists” and came up with his “Look East!” policy. Now it turns out that his friends in the East have been robbing the tyrant blind.
“Let’s be careful about vana Ali Baba ava. They will cheat us and make us run and run and expect and expect, nothing, nothing, nothing will come our way,” he said.
He has made his fellow leaders in SADC and AU look real foolish by blatantly rigging the elections and forced them to turn a blind eye because none of them had the guts to confront him.
He has shown nothing but contempt for the naive and incompetent Morgan Tsvangirai.
Yesterday he was castigating his own Zanu PF leaders for their disunity and factionalism.
Meanwhile Zimbabwe is in a real economic mess. The vote rigging operation soaked up billions of dollars that even his fellow gravy-train joy-riders the MPs have been told to take French leave because there is no money to pay them.
So we have the nation is deep, deep economic trouble and Mugabe busy picking up a fight with everybody to hide his own failed leadership!
On the political front he rigged the elections only to create a legitimacy problem that is simply not going away! His refusal to release the voters roll, the smoking gun, has made even those who had wanted to take his word for it that he did not rig the elections look really foolish!
@ Tauraichokwadi
Poor Mugabe these crooks made him "run and run" and he got nothing.
I will bet Mugabe paid Nikuv the princely sum of $ 13 million for tampering with the voters roll, something a few high school dropout could have done in three months. No wonder Mugabe does not want to release the voters roll and show the whole world how these crooks have robbed him blind!
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