Mugabe was Africa's superhero but White man’s super-villain

Anybody who has been in jail or detention fighting for his country, democracy, freedom and independence is a hero.

For more than a decade, the White man detained Robert Mugabe as he fought for his country’s land and independence. For that super sacrifice alone, Mugabe was an African hero.

Mugabe was the leader of Zimbabwe, a country that was sharply divided between contradictory interests of Africans on one hand, and the interests of the Whites on the other.

Because Africans and Whites’ interests were contradictory, championing the formers’ land agenda made President Mugabe a superhero of many Africans in Zimbabwe and Africa. While at that, those actions of the greatness of giving land to Africans made Mugabe villain and worst enemy of the Whites in Zimbabwe and many in the West.

African heroism and white enmity in Zimbabwe were Siamese twins that could not survive one without the other outside the great political maturity. Without great maturity, one cannot see the contradiction in Zimbabwe politics, which simultaneously made Mugabe an African hero and Whites’ villain.

When revolutionaries liberate their countries through armed struggle, they imbibe the philosophy and logic of violence to solve problems, and a tendency to disregard democracy and overstay in power.

The logic of resorting to violence to solve problems that made Mugabe overstay in power until he was disposed of in November 2017 is the same logic that made President Paul Kagame fight to overcome genocide and President Museveni fight to destroy Idi Amin’s dictatorship. It is the same philosophy that today persuades the two leaders to overstay in power.

There seems to be a logic that applies to winners of war and armed struggles. Those who come to power by the gun, rule by the gun, maintain and protect it by the gun and eventually lose it by the gun.

However when all things are put on the scale, Mugabe’s liberation against colonial tyranny, Kagame’s armed struggle against genocide and Museveni’s sacrifice against Amin’s mass murders, thus saving millions, outweigh overstaying in power for which Mugabe is vilified in life and death.

We salute Mugabe for saving his country from colonial slavery and giving his people land though he could have done better with democracy.

Jaramogi Oginga Odinga and Jomo Kenyatta were enemies who had great maturity and wisdom that would have allowed them to acknowledge Mugabe as a hero, however much they disagreed with him.

Once, when I visited Jaramogi, I was surprised that he acknowledged Kenyatta as his hero by hanging his picture on the wall of his house alongside that of other African heroes such as Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere and Patrice Lumumba.

When we asked him why, he said Kenyatta was a hero of the struggle for independence, which no force could erase from history. 

On the other hand, Kenyatta displayed greatness by giving jobs to his political enemies, among them Odinga, Bildad Kaggia and JD Kali, who were staunch members of the opposition, in itself a great display of political maturity.

Today, we need maturity to acknowledge that despite his weaknesses, Mugabe was a great African hero. Or shall we have difficulties acknowledging Mugabe’s heroism because the West has judged him otherwise or he is not our tribesman or countryman?

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