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Mugabe
and Idi Amin - not a fair comparison!
Okello Oculi, Pambazuka News
May 13, 2008
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/48053/print
I must express
deep appreciation to Jeremy Cronin for his piece on the Zimbabwe
election struggle - Why
South Africa will never be like Zimbabwe. His use of the rural
site of struggles (for Zanu PF) in contrast to the urban-township
sites (for ANC combatants), to struggle from, is most helpful in
understanding the possible power of the mass-base to monitor and
discipline their post-freedom leaders.
That analysis does, however,
have problems when compared with the experience of TANU/Chama Cha
Mapinduzi in Tanzania (with its predominantly rural base); as compared
to Kenya, where KANU under Kenyatta's determination to create a
"Kenya aristocracy" (according to an interview he gave
to Sunday Times Magazine in London 1967), met a different fate.
In the former, Nyerere used various devices, including his stepping
down from Prime Ministership for one year to tour among the rural
majority so as to devise strategies for holding elected politicians
accountable and committed to the implementation of "one-party
democratic elections" as well as to "Ujamaa". In
Kenya, Kenyatta ruthlessly demobilized the party and its branches;
and eliminated all effective challengers among the political class,
including Tom Mboya. Pio Gama Pinto and J.M. Kariuki.
In this regard, Cronin's
quip about Fidel Castro not blaming the failure of Americans to
subsidize Cuba's tobacco or sugar-based economy is most apt in highlighting
the role of bold and ideologically focused leadership. He, however,
fails to bring in that invisible but creatively lethal force called
the rump of the White Settler political class that had known power
and political management, including electoral competition ( albeit
within a limited racial electorate), since the 1920s. Their combination
of control of economic power, deep political experience and bitter
but resurgent ambition for power, must not be left out of the picture.
Mugabe had made the mistake
of failing to constantly call attention to this critical mass of
race-located economic and political energy whose critical location
made them a vital entry-point for any external British, American
and European Union "sabotage" initiatives against Mugabe.
As an example, the political skills of this class was demonstrated
during the summit of Commonwealth leaders when they met in Abuja,
Nigeria's capital. The efforts of their agents to capture the debate
on Zimbabwe at sessions held by civil society groups, was formidable;
if crude in parts when white individuals found it hard hiding their
commandist relationship with the black activists in their team.
A critical focus on this
group, and its much larger and more complex sector in South Africa,
must not be hidden by a form of analysis that appears like a form
of 'tribalism by silence' by analysts who share or do not share
their aspirations for a return to the front row in post-Mugabe Zimbabwe
and post-Mbeki South Africa. Such silence inhibits a creative and
continuous engagement of this group for the challenge to undertake
internal regeneration towards contributing to building de-racialized
political and economic cultures in Zimbabwe and South Africa. Seen
in this light, their possible success in exploiting Mugabe's disadvanatges
since 1980, should not be glorified without drawing attention to
poisonous racism that drives it; and their failure to join hands
in creating rehumanized freedom and equality-rooted new societies.
President Obasanjo went
on television in Nigeria to take some of the blame for Mugabe's
difficulties. He told Nigerians that in 1980 and 1990 African leaders
pressurized Mugabe and Zanu PF to stay their hands off land-reform.
In 1990, African leaders begged Mugabe to make it easy for the conservative
white settlers in South Africa to go along with getting Nelson Mandela
out of prison; and for the elections, that gave power to the ANC,
to be held. This information should be put on the table as we judge
Mugabe. That, as Cronin rightly insists, must not exonorate the
policy failures and crimes against the people of Zimbabwe by Mugabe
and the Zanu PF's class of 'primitive accumulationists'. But my
stomach did get some bitter knots when I watched Jacob Zuma on a
BBC interview dismissing the political delays of the election agency
in Zimbabwe while failing to acknowledge shackles that Mugabe was
pressured to wear by other African leaders in the interest of ANC.
I deeply appreciate Cronin's
drawing attention to the gap in the political education that the
ANC went through in comparison to the highly compressed military-combat
dominated schooling of Zanu-PF. A deeper exploration of such factors
would give value to his analysis; and be a useful guide for comparative
studies of experiences with succession traumas in other African
countries.
Finally, it is not honorable
to treat Mugabe as if he had triple machine-gunned MDC challengers.
He is also decades away from Idi Amin's treatment of Asians in Uganda
and Amin's use of massacres of opponents as a form of remuneration
for his killer squads: from the first night of his grabbing power
in 1971 to his last moments of panic and flight in 1979. Put the
credit on the Catholic priests who gave Mugabe education, or Ian
Smith's barbaric refusal to let Mugabe see his sick child when he
was in detention; but do give Mugabe credit where he deserves it.
That will help us build a healthy tradition of critical review of
leadership and governance in Africa while plucking off warts from
out plumes.
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