Fear is and has always been the corner stone in Robert Mugabe’s rise to power and retaining it.
The fight to end white colonial exploitation and oppression of the blacks was a just cause to which black Zimbabweans right across the nation understood. They lived the injustice of white discrimination and exploitation everyday. Blacks did not fall over themselves to join the various Black Nationalist parties such as Zapu, Zanu, ANC, etc that mushroomed to opposite white rule. Many of those who did, it was with a heavy heart. Because it was blatantly clear the Black Nationalist leaders only paid lip service to common cause of ending white colonial injustice, their real passion was for them to replace the whites as the new masters!
The likes of Robert Mugabe understood well enough that granting the populous their individual human rights and freedoms would serious curtail his ambitious of being the new master and exercise of absolute power. And so, nationally he never ever intended to grant anyone including even those within the leadership of his party, Zanu PF, any fundamental rights or freedoms.
Some people have expressed their surprise and disappointment on how outstanding individuals like the late Bernard Chidzero had let themselves sucked into working for a brutal and ruthless dictator like Mugabe for years and even became a key player in the dictatorship! People like Chidzero have enjoyed commanding positions in society as Ministers, Governors, Mayors, etc. for decades; these are the benefits of the dictatorship but on the negative side they are all as powerless as a old woman when it comes to trying to change the set path of the dictatorship.
It was the promise of a share in the loot that kept political parties like Zanu PF together and the membership blindly loyal to ruthless dictators like Robert Mugabe. As for the general public it was another matter.
The general public had the hopes and aspirations of ending white colonial rule and creating a new political dispensation in which they too enjoy the same freedom, rights, peace and a just share in the nation’s wealth denied them thus far by the white colonial masters. The public were hostile to the Black Nationalists’ selfish agenda of ending oppressive white colonial rule only to have it replaced by an equally repressive new black ruling elite as had happened in so many other African countries after their independence.
Black Nationalists realised they needed wider public support to end white colonial rule. They could get free and unfretted public support if they ditched their self-serving agenda and embraces the common cause. The price of choosing this course was obvious enough; their own hold on power would be tenuous, a far cry from the absolute power they sort. It was a “bridge to far” for a self servicing mercenary like Robert Mugabe who have never cared about the rights, freedoms, sufferings and not even human lives of others – not even of his own fellow Zimbabweans. Mugabe coerced the public into supporting him and his ruling party.
The people’s fear of what Mugabe and Zanu PF would do to them if they are ever found wanting in their support of the dictator is the simple explanation behind Mugabe’s struggle hold on Zimbabwe political power and contradictions his failed leadership throws.
Mugabe has cultivated within the party’s rank and file a ruthless strike of party faithful whose blind devotion to him and his dictatorial rule is comparable to Germany’s SS’s devotion to Adolf Hitler. It is these- the Youth and Woman’s League Members and Fifth Brigade in the 1980s and now the War Veterans and the Green Bombers- Mugabe’s foot soldiers, who are carried the responsibility of mass intimidation, torture and murder of Mugabe’s critics and opponents. They have executed the nationalists demagogue ethos of “Those not with us are against us!” even when their own personal interests are directly harmed by their actions.
To backup the foot-soldiers is multitude low rank Police Officers, Civil Servants and ordinary citizens who have played their part in propping up the Mugabe dictatorship. They understood well enough the injustice of the dictatorship and were acutely aware of the great price the nation has paid in terms of economic melt down and the human suffering and despair it caused. They have directly or otherwise supported the dictatorship for fear they will lose they little they have or worse if they challenged the system.
There are the few, the chosen few; the Ministers, the Augustine Chihuris of this world who can rightly say they had a cut in the loot of the dictatorship. They are defending the status quo because they stand to lose the ministerial car, the former white commercial farm they now occupy, etc.
The Mugabe dictatorship has produced two distinct classes in Zimbabwe: the politically and economically empowered ruling elite with Mugabe as the top dog, his cronies within the party and government and their families, friends and all manner of hangers-on. Soon after independence they numbered in their hundreds of thousands, the country was rich and those at the top were not so greedy so the loot reached far and wide. As the national wealth started to shrink, like a dying camp-fire, many found themselves left out in the cold. Today there are only a few hundred individuals who can be said to be doing well in Zimbabwe. Those who have dropped from the ruling elite class have jointed the “screaming” class.
The “screaming” class has millions of people who have every reason to scream because the ruling elite have always rode rough-shod over them by denying them a political voice. For years they have screamed in pain and anger but no one ever hears them. They live in a glass dome confined there by the Mugabe dictatorship because their economic and/or political condition was contrary harmonious image of Zimbabwe Mugabe want the rest of the world to see.
The years of misrule and rampant corruption have precipitated a total economic melt down in which literally everyone in the country has been reduced into abject poverty and despair. There is widespread shortage of the very basic needs to sustain life; no food, shortage of fuel, electricity and water, a collapsed education and health service, etc. The suffering, anger and despair have turned the screaming into a wail of death.
Fear has kept Mugabe in State House for 29 long years. The down side of that has been the misery he has forced upon the screaming class. The glass dome he closed them in can not hold them for much longer; their suffering has become intolerable and their numbers have swelled and collective scream can now be heard through the thick glass. That the lives of millions should be sacrificed to keep a handful in opulent luxury is simply unsustainable. No amount of terror and murder can silence the screaming class!
After the 29 March 2008 election defeat Mugabe wheeled out his fear machine to intimidate and terrorise the Zimbabwe electorate in preparation for the 27 June presidential run-off with MDC’s Morgan Tsvangirai. By the end of May up to fifty innocent lives have been lost to political violence and hundreds of thousands have been beaten and or had their homes torched and many have since fled from their rural homes. No doubt many more crimes will be committed and lives lost before 27 June 2008. Whatever happens, the fact will still remain; no amount of fear will silence the screaming of the despairing majority.
Mugabe can rig the coming run-off, the chances are that he will; still he will find no where to hide so he cannot hear the cries of Zimbabweans for food and the other necessities of life.
Zimbabweans are dying for want of food and all the other things necessary to sustain life. The country’s standard of living has plummeted and with it life expectancy, from 60 years in 1980 to 34 years in 2005. It is this level of despair and helplessness that force people to find their voice.
People still fear Mugabe’s mad dogs the war veterans and the green bombers. But the daily hardships and despair this dictatorship has forced down their throats has given the people the courage to face the war veterans and all the torment with a renewed grit determination not to be silenced. The danger now is the people scream should shutter Mugabe’s glass dome, sweep his dictatorship aside and, unfortunately, a lot more besides.
No comments:
Post a Comment