Enter two presidents: Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and his Malawian counterpart, Bingu wa Mutharika (not yet Ngwazi Professor). The road itself, a European Union-funded initiative, is aimed at necessitating easier movement for purposes of local and regional trade, mostly with Mozambique.
But the protagonist, Robert Mugabe, is by this time – 2006 – now a well-known detractor of the West, including the European Union who have imposed targeted sanctions on him and his cronies. Therefore, there cannot be a greater insult to the EU than to name this stretch of tar after a man who is presiding over frightening human rights abuses, an economy in the intensive care unit, a record of stolen elections and the hurting of many a citizen.
But Mutharika is adamant; Robert Mugabe is a “true son of Africa,” he declares.
Mugabe himself, claims he is 200% African and does not belong to Europe since he is neither British nor American. Quite a telling statement coming from a man who, once upon a time in his life – before the EU sanctions actually – enjoyed shopping at exclusive shops like Harrods in central London.
Mugabe, in 2006, was a man who was fast running out of opportunities for travel and also for getting his eccentric ego stroked. That road – Midima – is not something a man like him would be easily impressed with, let alone be associated with. Wherever you go; Harare, Windhoek or anywhere with a Robert Mugabe Street/Highway, you will notice that these are around much nicer areas, mostly central business districts.
It could be mere coincidence.
An ‘eyesore’
But, would Mugabe really want to have his name bear witness to the poverty, chaos and poor planning in the Bangwe and Namiyango townships for instance?
This is a man who, a year earlier in the harsh winter of 2005 ordered the demolition of many ‘illegal’ structures in urban areas by insisting they were an eyesore. An eyesore to whom exactly? These structures – mostly houses and small shops built without much approval from municipalities although considered of very low quality – represented a growing housing problem in Zimbabwe that the government was failing to take care of.
Hence, Operation Murambatsvina (Get-Rid-of-Rubbish), for that was the name of the operation, affected an estimated 700,000 people, most of whom endured cold winter nights and mornings in the open since they did not have alternatives.
Fast forward to 2011. In the space of five years, Mutharika has exhibited just how much admiration he harbours for Mugabe. It is not a misplaced admiration. The people I spoke to on the day Mugabe opened “his” road in 2006 expressed such admiration and described the man as a brave freedom fighter and a hero whose stance on the West was inspiring. They were partly right; the West’s relationship with Africa has not yielded the best results for the latter, the nasty result of a painful legacy of colonialism and the West’s imperialist culture.
Pure baloney
Yet they – the supporters of Mugabe disguised as Pan-Africanists – also miss the point that you cannot right a wrong, a colonial wrong especially, with another wrong. The consistent use of colonial structures and machinery of violence against unarmed and defenceless citizens by the Zanu(PF) regime in Zimbabwe should force us to see a traitor in Mugabe; he has become exactly that which he once opposed and fought against, if not worse.
Against that backdrop, therefore, Mugabe’s anti-West rhetoric – “Zimbabwe will never be a colony again” – comes across as empty, hot air and at times pure baloney.
Sadly, this is the example Mutharika has decided to follow it would seem. Forex shortages, long fuel queues, failures to pay civil servants, badly-run municipalities, blackouts, water shortages, rising cost of living, whatever crisis it is, it is the kind of which has been seen before in Zimbabwe. Oh, there’s also that exciting bit of giving diplomats the middle finger and telling them to go to hell because a sovereign nation cannot be told what to do; that too, Zimbabwe has seen. In fact, all that his happening in Malawi chillingly reads like a script authored in Harare.
Even sadder is the disturbing irony that all this is happening under the pretext of this country having reached its apex; the sun is shining, is it not? Well, there ain’t no sunshine in Malawi, Mr President. That full noon joke which influenced Malawi’s flag change from an image of a rising sun frozen at dawn to an awkward full sun might as well have been coined by a Professor Jonathan Moyo wannabe in the Mutharika camp.
At the height of the violent and chaotic land seizures in Zimbabwe, Moyo presided over a comical propaganda campaign which featured, in part, radio and television adverts declaring that since the land was now in the hands of black people, there were going to be guaranteed bumper harvests season after season.
Dynamic and wise leadership does not occur in a vacuum, it has to be tangible, like true evidence of the works of hands that are dedicated to touching lives and building communities organised around practical, selfless and everlasting visions whose mission is to serve Malawi – and indeed any othercountry – in the best way possible because they are borne out of the great and progressive understanding that Malawi belongs to all who live in it and not exclusively to certain tribes, political parties and individuals hell-bent on turning it into a fiefdom.
Bigger than Mugabe
Zimbabwe, through the inspiring resilience of its people, has proved that it is much bigger than Mugabe. That it still stands today is not some heroic act pulled by the octogenarian, as he would want us to believe. Of course, there are those who have swallowed the Mugabe lie and methodology of governance hook, line and sinker. Well, their countries are falling apart and are on the verge of sinking.
Last Wednesday, thousands of Malawians took to the streets in all major cities as an expression of anger at the mismanagement of the economy and declining democratic culture in their country. But soon enough, an unashamed and trigger- happy police force began firing live rounds at the demonstrators, accusing them of public disorder. 19 people lost their lives.
Mutharika says the 19 died in vain because the very demonstrations they had participated in are works of Satan. As if that was not enough, he went on to say he would “smoke-out” any future protestors before they even arrive in the streets. With parliament clearly on his side, making it easy for him to pass laws that can help him strengthen his tight grip on power, it is not hard to see another Zimbabwe coming out of Malawi.
But, SADC does not need another Zimbabwe, certainly not before the crisis north of the Limpopo has been convincingly resolved. Yet, with President Jacob Zuma already being drawn into the developing crisis in Malawi, there is an urgent need for a sincere and brutally honest look the July 20 protests in Malawi.
Therefore, SADC needs to act quickly on the declining democratic culture in Malawi before it has to deal with yet another situation similar to that of Zimbabwe which, by all accounts, badly needs an urgent resolve. – Levi Kabwato, Media & Communications Officer in the Regional Office.
Post published in: News