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African despots and future gazing
Marko Phiri
March 26, 2007

The embattled Zimbabwean president must be enjoying confounding the pundits about the future of the nation. Without him at the helm, the pundits say, the country is set for re-invigoration as a new phase in the country’s history is ushered in. But for this cunning old man who in his later years has turned into an intransigent political fox, watching the pundits bash their heads against the wall has to be the ultimate thrill.

First, it is agreed among the progressive peoples of the world that the starting point to political conversion is the belief that there is a future in whatever political course one decides to chat. Thus the rabid racists have been advocated eugenics for societies where only their kind exists and this based on the firm belief that this is what the gods ordained. Therefore people will only embrace political philosophies they think protect them and naturally the generations which will come after them.

Now, for the Zimbabwean president, these philosophies obviously occur to him as a human being but perhaps from a different worldview. If a politician firmly believes in the course he chats, he pursues it with stunning passion never mind the inconsistencies of his behaviour. An example which comes to mind is the recent revelation – and confession – that former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich who led Bill Clinton’s impeachment over the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal was himself also having an extramarital affair at that same time. Such is the nature of politicians: they do not care much of the future, just the present which will serve their own interests will do just fine.

For the Zimbabwean president who everybody agrees is in his twilight years, the conviction seems to be that what matters is not the future but the present. And the interesting part of this somewhat strange behaviour is that this is a family man. What legacy does he want to leave his children? The pundits will naturally hazard that he has built a nest for his offspring therefore everything else does not matter. But one still has to ask what kind of world will his children’s children be born into if they are to be born and live in Zimbabwe? They too will be heirs of the proverbial poisoned chalice.

It is true that politicians do not necessarily have the aptitude to look into the future as they pursue the more pressing job of holding on to power. It is within that realm of convoluted political thinking that this the last thing Idi Amin ever thought of when his buffoonery provided international entertainment for those who watched while he plundered Uganda. His son has been in the papers recently trying to "put the record straight" about his dad’s life and times after the release of Forrest Whitaker’s celluloid depiction of Amin in The Last King of Scotland.

It is obvious for African dictators that the future does not form part of their political reasoning, though their sons and daughters are condemned to spending their lifetimes defending their fathers’ legacy. What then becomes of a heartless African leader’s children in the formation of a nation’s future after the fall of the dictatorship? These are questions one does not meet regularly in the discussions about the fall and fall of Zimbabwe. It is asked here because in attempting to exhaust the approaches to the resolution of this political equation which has baffled the pundits, the net is cast wide and to areas where the sources expected to offer relief decide they already have their plate full pursing their own national goals and agendas. South Africa for example.

Many a time it has been seen in Africa where deposed dictators have been stripped of the wealth they amassed during their tenure. The disputes and legal battles have not been very beautiful, and one has to wonder what happens to the children for whom the only life they have known is that of unbridled riches. Ask every toiling man, from Bill Gates to an illegal diamond panner in Marange why they are indefatigable in the pursuit of the devil’s coin and they will tell you they want to leave something for the children. "When I die I do not want my children to be paupers," that is the most logical and universally accepted reason one can give about why they wake up in the morning and break their backs to win the family bread.

The case for political power mongers is no different. But for them it goes further than that. This is because they belong to that elite group which holds the world in their hands and therefore their pursuit of the devil’s coin and all the trappings which come with political power have a direct bearing on the course the whole nation takes. Not only that, after they have been called to the abode of the gods, their children still have to continue with the same lifestyle they enjoyed when they belonged to the enviable First Family. Being the finite beings we are, and politicians being the amnesia-prone lot they are, is it baffling then that there are no considerations about how these children will live their lives after the fall of these regimes.

In monarchical societies, this slight detail would not feature as by definition, the power reigns remain within the same bloodline. Then it would mean the monarch is at liberty to do as he pleases because the children will never be stripped of their wealth – unless of course some who think they were themselves stripped of their birthright a century ago decide to force the heir-apparent to abdicate after a bloody coup. Unpalatable stuff you say, but in the natural order of things, the sacrifices people seem to make override what would essentially be what matters most to every family man: the children. But then is what is happening here natural?

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