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Tsvangirai, the odd man out
Heidi Holland, Cape Argus (SA)
August 19, 2008

http://www.capeargus.co.za/?fSectionId=3571&fArticleId=4566768&ap=1

The three educated but unwise African men plotting Zimbabwe's short-term future with arrogant disregard for the will of the people, President Thabo Mbeki, his Zimbabwean counterpart Robert Mugabe and Arthur Mutambara, are more Western-oriented than any of them cares to admit.

The odd one out in the country's power-sharing negotiations, who neither resembles a British gentleman nor aspires to such an identity, is Morgan Tsvangirai, ironically the man they have sneeringly labelled a Western pretender.

With his humble origins and poor school record, Tsvangirai lacks not only the lofty Western educational qualifications that his three opponents display in their wordy speeches, witticisms and articles, but their sartorial style.

Bulging out of his cheap suits, Tsvangirai seems uncomfortable alongside the three Savile Row dandies, who are said by some close to the negotiations to despise the former trade unionist and principal Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader.

When he stormed out of talks in Harare last week saying he did not understand the language they were using, observers wondered if Tsvangirai was not speaking metaphorically but verifying a widespread rumour that Mbeki, Mugabe and Mutambara, the leader of the smaller MDC faction, talk to each other in French when they do not want Tsvangirai to tune in.

Of course, it is Tsvangirai's Western political support that makes him a stooge to the other three. But it is also his lack of sophistication that incurs the bitter ridicule of Zimbabwe's power brokers.

Some of the words used by negotiators to describe the MDC leader, who is supported by 47% of the electorate, are not only offensive and unworthy of repetition in a space such as this, but also a reminder of the smug superiority that prevails among well-educated African leaders with dictatorial tendencies. What Tsvangirai has had to endure during the recent talks will have been little short of abuse.

Mugabe was in a similarly unnerving position three decades ago in London during the Lancaster House talks that gave birth to Zimbabwe, although he was treated condescendingly in a Tory onslaught of real Brits rather than three scornful black Englishmen.

As the sole leader resisting Britain's plans for the independence of its last and troublesome colony, Rhodesia, Mugabe was subjected to the same bullying and socially humiliating treatment that Tsvangirai will undoubtedly have suffered in closed sessions with the three African snobs over recent weeks.

Britain's foreign secretary, Peter Carrington, 6th Baron Carrington of Bulcot Lodge, holder of the Military Cross and a junior minister under Winston Churchill, lorded it over Mugabe in the hope that the radical black politician with a mass following at home would weaken and give in to British power negotiators.

What Mugabe had in common with Carrington was his sense of superiority. The big difference, though, was in the British aristocrat's effortless loftiness as opposed to Mugabe's version, which has been constructed as a shield.

Carrington's manner is in the blood, a subtle form of intimidation that leaves outsiders feeling wrong-footed, even inferior. He acts superior, believes it and achieves it.

Mugabe's is a means of protection against the humiliation he feels when dealing with those who habitually belittle or denigrate (ie the British in general and their white southern African descendants in particular).

Political deals are often pulled off through sheer psychological pressure. As surely as every trick in the book was used by Carrington to bring Mugabe to heel in 1979, so Tsvangirai will have been subjected to intense threats and promises from three alternately hostile and cajoling power brokers.

Thirty years ago, the British foreign secretary Mugabe referred to as "the good lord" was under strict orders from Margaret Thatcher to achieve a political settlement at any price.

He did so by, among other underhand strategies, carefully fostering a cordial relationship with Rhodesia's army commander, General Peter Walls, and sharing the odd joke and suspiciously quiet moment with terrorist-in-chief Josiah Tongogara, the Zanu military supremo who probably had half an eye on the job Mugabe coveted in independent Zimbabwe.

Imagine the level of taunting pressure brought to bear on Tsvangirai as tweedy, pipe-smoking Mbeki, in desperate need of a legacy-saving Zimbabwe deal, and cricket-loving royalist Mugabe (ever the clever strategist) looked down their noses at him while cosying up to his MDC rival, Oxford-educated Mutambara (whose decision to side with former Zanu-PF politburo member Simba Makoni rather than Tsvangirai during the March election proved decisive in the inconclusive result).

The prestigious and supposedly powerful job of prime minister would have been proffered between the two tantalisingly, one minute being Tsvangirai's and then Mutambara's whenever the irresolute Tsvangirai tried to bolster his side of the paltry partnership Mugabe was offering.

That many observers expected Tsvangirai to buckle under such torment is not only a reflection of his record of inconstancy, but perhaps also a sign that most of the individuals in the international media and diplomatic community who monitor developments in Zimbabwe subconsciously find an unsophisticated populist like Tsvangirai more difficult to understand and relate to than the African elitists.

This is doubtless because politicians such as Mbeki, Mugabe and Mutambara more closely resemble the majority of foreign journalists and diplomats, educated Africans having modelled themselves on Western, not African, values.

Tsvangirai, with neither a shield of superiority nor the easy middle-class sociability to win friends and influence people at a personal level in the international community, presents a lonely figure as we watch the other three trying to stitch up a deal among themselves. What the ordinary people of Zimbabwe desire seems very low on Mbeki's agenda.

Without the Tsvangirai-led MDC, however, any deal struck in Harare will lack international credibility. It will be another false dawn, without foreign funding for reconstruction of the country's shattered economy.

It will be reminiscent, too, of the Springbok captain who, when told that the international sports boycott meant that nobody in the world would play rugby against apartheid South Africa, responded defiantly: "If nobody will play with us, we will play with ourselves."

* Heidi Holland is the author of the book Dinner With Mugabe.

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