When Robert Mugabe, the leader of Zimbabwe's former ruling party, ZANU-PF, says that Zimbabwe is for Zimbabweans, he is technically correct.
What he does not tell you is what he really means by this seemingly innocent claim. Just in case you missed it, let me expound for a second on what I know to be the true meaning of his assertion. Remember this is the same fellow who once urged Britain's Tony Blair to "keep your Britain and I will keep my Zimbabwe".
At another time he uttered a statement which remains unexplained to this very day: "Zimbabwe is mine", he claimed, leaving out, somewhat strangely, "says the Lord", as some of his lieutenants have said.Mugabe's claims to ownership of Zimbabwe are deeply ironical given his own clan's thin Zimbabwean roots. After all, this is a fellow whose own ancestors reportedly arrived in Zimbabwe towards the end of the 19th century (irony of all ironies) as human mules to the colonizing white settlers who he now claims to detest!
I do not think that it matters where one's ancestors came from or when they arrived on our fair plateau of Zimbabwe, but the hypocrisy of Mugabe's assertions is difficult to ignore.
Sadly, when Mugabe says Zimbabwe is his and things of that nature, he is saying the bare naked truth. If you are a member of his family, "up to the fourth generation", Zimbabwe indeed, is yours. You get to choose and pick a few farms, plushy jobs in the civil service and lucrative government contracts.
Mugabe's control of the nation's resources is not seriously in question, regardless of the valiant efforts of finance minister Tendayi Biti.Still the question refuses to go away: can the evils of settler colonialism be washed away by simply transferring the settlers' allegedly ill-gotten assets into the hands of one family and its political hangers-on?
I think not.
Posted by allen at 6:05 AM
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