Why Zimbabwe's 32 years of independence was doomed to be a nightmare!

Today, 18 April 2012, it is 32 years since Zimbabwe’s independence. It is disappointing to acknowledge that life under Ian Smith was infinitely better than that under Robert Mugabe. Life expectancy, the ultimate qualitative and quantitative standard of life test, before independence in 1980 had soared to 68 years and today has dropped to 34 years.

We have certainly come a very long way in 32 years and, more significantly, in the wrong direction too!

What would you do if a madman was to bust into this room wielding a large stick in his hand? So runs the hypothetical question. Knock him down first and pity him afterwards; is the accepted answer. In life, things are not always that simple and clear cut, of course.

Before independence, the white regime was the madman to be disarmed of the large stick. The whites had denied the black majority a meaningful say in the governance of the country. Deny someone a vote and you may just as well call them an animal because you have stripped them of the very essence of what it means to be human. Those with no vote will soon find they have no voice, are cheated of their fair share the wealth, have no equal protection under the law, have no hope and ultimately have no rights including the right to life itself. It was right and logical that blacks should seek to end the injustice of white supremacy.

The blacks knocked the stuffing out of the white racists alright, unfortunately the same guns were used to knock the stuffing out the masses and deny them the freedom and liberty they were seeking. Mugabe and his fellow black nations championed the fight to end white oppression and exploitation, they suffered these injustices like the rest of us; still they had their own agenda.

Mugabe and his fellow black nationalists wanted the stick taken away from the whites but only so that they can use it themselves. They wanted absolute power for themselves and would have declared Zimbabwe a one-party state from the word go. Still they subverted the country’s democratic constitution and institutions to create a de facto one-party state. In the beginning Mugabe never tired of telling the nation that his rule would bring mass economic prosperity, “gutsa ruzhinji”. Even when it became self evident that Mugabe rule was disastrous for the nation; Mugabe still continued to deny the electorate a meaningful say in who ruled the country.

Mugabe and Zanu PF have cheated, rigged and have used all forms violence against their opponents and the people to return political power. Whilst Mugabe and Zanu Pf have accepted the need for holding period elections they have stubbornly rejected that such elections could result in regime change.

In 1980 Zimbabweans traded in one stick wielding madman for another. Mugabe was to deny Zimbabweans a meaningful say in the governance of country just as Smith before him had done. In Rhodesia blacks did not have a vote, period. In Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, we had a vote but the only vote that counted was a Zanu PF vote!

In March 2008 Zimbabwean mustered enough political muscle to knock the stuffing out of Mugabe. Mugabe visited on the nation the worst election violence in his effort to win the presidential run-off he had crafted after losing the first round. The international community was so outrage by the sham election they refused to recognise Mugabe as the legitimately elected president of Zimbabwe. It was Tsvangirai who got Mugabe off the hook by agreeing forming the unity government with the tyrant in which the dictator returned all his tyrannical powers including the power to continue to deny the people a meaningful say in the governance of the country.

After all the gross human right violations and abuse of power by Mugabe over the years and in the last few weeks it was simply mind boggling why Tsvangirai agreed to let Mugabe have his tyrannical powers. Mugabe offered Tsvangirai and his MDC friends something they simply could not refuse – power and the economic luxuries that go with it. Mugabe offered his Zanu PF friends the same ministerial posts, Mercedes Benz and they readily betrayed their pre-independence liberation zeal to the point of murdering tens of thousands of innocent civilians to keep Mugabe in power. The MDC leaders are only being asked to betraying the common cause and turn a blind eye or at best pay lip service to all the beatings, rapes and murders of their own supporters and the public.

Zimbabweans paid a heavy price, over 300 000 died plus, to end white oppression only to have a tyrant in power. In 2008 alone the nation 500 died to end Mugabe’s rule only for Tsvangirai to bring him back into State House through the back door. The 32 years of black rule has been a total disaster for Zimbabwe. Whilst the urgent need to end the years of corruption and political oppression and thus get the nation out of this hell-hole is self evident. After two costly false starts, Zimbabwe must pay attention on not just wrestling the stick of political power off the madman but even greater attention on what happens to the stick afterwards!