An ode to Robert Gabriel Mugabe (1)

On Saturday 14th September 2019, an event took place at Rufaro Stadium, Harare, in Zimbabwe. The body of Robert Gabriel Mugabe was laid in state for an official state funeral. In attendance to pay respects were former and present Heads of State, the President of the Republic of South Africa, and the Vice President of Nigeria. It was a chance for Zimbabwe, and Africa at large, to say farewell to a doyen of the Liberation struggle on the continent.

The stands at the Stadium, notable for hosting footballing encounters were virtually empty, even as speeches rolled among notable Africans who surrounded the grieving widow – Grace Mugabe – in the front rows of the VIP section.

While the officials lauded the departed President to high heavens, the response from Zimbabweans themselves was considerably more muted. The most lively part of the proceedings came up when Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa, was loudly booed as he moved to the podium to give his speech, compelling him to give an abject apology for the xenophobic attacks that had been unleashed on other Africans in his country, a country which, incidentally, owed a lot to Robert Mugabe for its liberation from Apartheid.

It should not have been like this, you reflected.

As you watched the proceedings, your mind went back to 1981, in the same city. Zimbabwe was one year independent. The city was still named Salisbury – the name that had been given to it by the previous white rulers, although the talk in the street was that the name would change to “Harare” in the next year.

On a dusty expanse of land in a suburb of the city, the Prime Minister of the new nation – that was the title Mugabe bore at the time, was inaugurating “Heroes Acre” – a place that would become a monument to the heroes of the Liberation Struggle. There were no stands, no structures yet constructed, only the podium where the VIPs sat to conduct the ceremony. You were, in those days, a wide-eyed admirer of Zimbabwe and its revolutionary leader, and had taken two weeks from your studies in the UK to travel and savour the heady atmosphere of the newest, most dynamic African nation.

You would visit Parliament, and the ruins of Great Zimbabwe. At the Matopos hills, you would survey the burial site of Cecil John Rhodes, the “opposite number” in many ways to Robert Gabriel Mugabe. Standing on the rocky surface where the Englishman stood, which he named “The View of the World”, you would try to feel yourself into how he acquired the delusion that it was the destiny of his people – the white race, to take over all of Africa, not just as “civilising” colonialists but as perpetual owners.

“Your hinterland is there” Rhodes had said, and written, standing on this spot where you stood, pointing at the vista of Africa presented by the rolling hills as far as the eye could see. You would visit “Victoria Falls” – which the locals called “Mosi oa tunya” (the smoke that thunders). In a Salisbury nightclub, late at night, you would hear Abdullahi Ibrahim’s “Mannenberg” for the first time. The music that would continue to reverberate in your head months afterwards.

But the most enthralling of all would be sitting in the dust amidst the huge, excited crowd of Zimbabweans as their leader inaugurated Heroes Acre and supervised the re-burial of Herbert Chitepo – a prominent figure in the struggle. You watched as the cars rolled in, bringing in dignitaries. Mugabe, grim of face as usual, wearing his customary red tie. Joshua Nkomo, burly, swarthy, sweating. Notable among the honoured guests was the plump figure of Oliver Tambo, leader of the ANC. Mandela, the other icon of the ANC was, of course, in prison on Robben Island.

Sitting in the dust, you had felt you were catching a significant moment in African history, and the host on the podium – Robert Mugabe was on the crest, not just of Africa’s present, but also of its future, as embodied by the struggle to liberate the last bastion of racist white rule – South Africa.

Walking the streets of Salisbury at the time, you got the sense that the whites, who owned much of the commerce, were still not quite certain what to make of their new leader. They were in awe of him. Black Zimbabweans walked with a new spring in their steps. You sensed a disturbing unease in the interplay of reality and expectation.

Three years later, you would return to Zimbabwe. This time it was to take up an appointment as the state-run mental health facility – Ingutsheni, in Bulawayo. The staff were very friendly. They had never seen a black African psychiatrist in the country before, and that seemed to mean something to them. One of their own young doctors, they told you proudly, was away in Birmingham, training to be a specialist. You heard stories, which you could not confirm, of how, long ago, patients from “black” wards were corralled to clean the wards in the “white” section of the hospital.

A South African professor who visited from time to time asked you in casual conversation if you thought Adeoye Lambo’s Aro Village Scheme deserved all the hoopla it was attracting internationally. “Yes”, you replied. That was the end of your conversation.

Sadly, over the months, you began to observe in Bulawayo the gradual unravelling of the dream of a strong and prosperous Zimbabwe lifting its people up and leading the rest of Africa into its last great war to dump Apartheid into the sea. Instead, Zimbabwe was consuming itself, and demystifying its leader.

 Femi Olugbile