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Mugabe is not Zimbabwe: Don't confuse President's interests with his countrymen's
Rejoice Ngwenya
June 08, 2007

Either we Africans are blind, selfish and greedy or something worse is holding us back. As a Zimbabwean, I have seen my country turned from breadbasket to basket case and I can tell you that our educated and hard-working people are not fools, but victims.

Although we are an extreme case, these oppressive economic and political policies are not exclusive to Zimbabwe.

The fallacy of Ghanaian Kwame Nkrumah's African dawn of self-rule has been exposed by the brutal failures of governments with a revolutionary history. Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda, Milton Obote and perhaps even so-called models of excellence such as Yoweri Museveni and Thabo Mbeki all espoused Nkrumahism, meaning state control of the economy and even of society.

Just down the road from where I live, there is President Robert Mugabe, who was not only a student of Nkrumah's but taught and married in his country.

Many Africans believe we should co-operate with each other instead of overseas markets to achieve the economic, political and cultural integration that could raise our continent to the level of Europe or the United States. The challenge, however, is not co-operation but how we should learn from history.

When Zimbabwe overthrew white rule in 1980, a pothole on the highway was a disaster. A late train would cause a public outcry. Now we have unfinished roads, bulldozed neighbourhoods and hyperinflation, while our dictator blames the West.

Why is it that when the white man handed over Air Rhodesia to a black manager, the airline had 30 airplanes but now there are only three left? Why is it that before 2000 there were only 4,000 white commercial farmers in Zimbabwe and we were the breadbasket of Southern Africa, yet now there are 40,000 black commercial farmers and we have to import maize from poor Malawi?

I know. There is a fine line between self-criticism and self-loathing. But our problems are not caused by our being black but by authoritarians with incompetent and even murderous policies.

Today, Zimbabwe's health system has totally collapsed. Our main university once had 1,000 staff; now there are 300. A typical high-school teacher now earns about $20 (U.S.) a month. As you read this, my car is grounded due to lack of petrol. Service station owners cannot sell it for the controlled price of 450 Zimbabwean dollars ($1.85 U.S.) a litre when they have to buy it for between Z$30,000 ($125) and Z$40,000 ($165).

My home has neither running water nor electricity. Mr. Mugabe's ZANU-PF government inherited one of the most sophisticated hydroelectric power plants in Africa, Kariba. But because of a gluttonous army, expensive anti-riot gear and military adventures in Mozambique and Congo, Mr. Mugabe has failed to maintain Kariba. It is about to stop completely.

Hwange Colliery Mine has some of the richest coal deposits in the world, yet the thermal power station across the road does not have enough coal because the railway has collapsed.

In Harare, raw sewage flows openly in residential areas, contaminating scarce treated water because of rotten pipes inherited from the white regime 27 years ago.

No private radio or television station is allowed to operate in Zimbabwe, while it is almost impossible to register a private newspaper.

Yet Mr. Mugabe masquerades on the regional stage as the spokesperson for the beleaguered citizens of Zimbabwe. He has absolutely no right to speak on our behalf: Those who do are the citizens protesting in the streets and some judges and lawyers struggling valiantly to hold together the shreds of the rule of law.

The lessons of history include the basic principles of good governance: There are plenty of examples for us to emulate, but the Mugabes of the world ignored them in favour of ideology.

Africans need each other in order to develop, but our ability to learn from each other's mistakes is miserable.

Even our neighbour, the democratically elected South African President Thabo Mbeki, repeats with nauseating frequency that Zimbabweans have the capacity to solve their own problems. But during Mr. Mbeki's protracted struggle against apartheid, he had the front-line states - Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, Mozambique and Tanzania - backing him.

Today, Mr. Mbeki and his ilk treat Mr. Mugabe like a hero but Zimbabweans like dirt. South Africa goes on military "peacekeeping" forays to faraway Sudan and Burundi - why does Mr. Mbeki not believe those countries can solve their own problems?

We Africans will remain smothered in self-deceit until this generation of Nkrumahists, the greedy, the corrupt and the accidental democrats, has expired. Then African citizens may become free to co-operate with each other, economically and politically.

The one form of co-operation we need right now is world pressure on Africa's democratically elected leaders, not the avoidance seen at this week's G8 summit. Only then might they face up to their moral, political and economic obligations to embrace freedom and boot out the gangsters.

Rejoice Ngwenya is a Zimbabwean columnist.

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