Will Robert Mugabe rest in Peace?

WILL ROBERT MUGABE REST IN PEACE?

My late father liked to tell stories. He was the village story teller and was loved and revered by many, because he knew things. As an alumni of Alliance High School he was well respected and his hunger for knowledge was infectious.

As a young child I loved listening to stories so I was the perfect companion, and I often asked him to repeat stories he had told me because I had favorites too. Like stories told by Poet Okot P’Bitek, and when I was old enough, Whispers’ a column penned by the late Wahome Mutahi who was fondly referred to as ‘ Son of the soil’. Whispers was a social commentary that featured on the on Sunday Nation and I was second in line with the newspaper after he had read it.

I remember him telling us stories about Zimbabwe.

Alfred; my dad, was one of the first African Curators of the National museums so stories of first humans in Zimbabwe featured highly, so did the Rhodesian times of white farmers and tobacco exports, and also the evergreen country that was the breadbasket of the Southern African region. Though he told these stories of success, he was fiery about the negative implications of colonialism and felt deeply that they needed to leave Zimbabwe. Many times I was was too young to understand. I remember stories of the then Rhodesia, and read a lot about it later on in life.

This excerpt from a 1964 World Bank report on the issue of independence sets the stage sort of for what Mugabe was dealing with.

“… The European leadership…fears that the installation of an African Government would immediately lead to a serious deterioration in the operation of the economy and in internal security in view of the very small number of Africans with the minimum education and experience required to run the government. The need to find a broadly acceptable compromise between the extreme positions adopted is urgent and important for political stability, the avoidance of civil disturbances and hence economic deterioration. In the absence of such a compromise, the economic prospects must be assessed with considerable reservations”.

The battle was eventually won, and in 1980 on Independence day, Rhodesia became Zimbabwe and the continent went with celebration. The African Liberator, Robert Gabriel Mugabe had earned his place in the league of African Liberators and was installed Prime Minister of Africa’s newest baby.

Zimbabwe quickly became Africa’s favorite child, a country whose schools Africa’s wealthiest took their children to. Africa’s leading light.

About 10 years ago, I bought and savored the book ‘Dinner with Mugabe’’ which I still keep in my home library, and in the first chapters of the book I met Bob, the man whose resolute to liberate his country from white oppression made him a hero in the eyes of Africans across the continent. I admired this Bob.

Bob had 7 university degrees, two of which he achieved while incarcerated. He followed in the footsteps of African Liberation icon Kwame Nkurmah, in his vision to free Africa from colonial power. In my formative years, I was hungry for knowledge and admired their zeal and commitment

Mugabe was an icon then.

But in quick succession, Power & Money showed us a man who would bludgeon anyone on his path to cling to power.

When the coin flipped, boy did everything tumble. In the early 80’s it was Gukurahundi, where it was reported that approximately 10,000 civilians or dissidents as he preferred to call them’, were killed under Bob’s watch.

Subsequently Bob’s obsession with Power and Money, Gucci Grace and everything in between cast a shadow over the gifted orator and liberation icon that Africa had become so proud of. Grace to Grace has never had a better comparison. Poverty, Inflation, Collapse of Industry, Bond Notes now dominated headlines, Africa mourned the Zimbabwe we knew.

On the 6th of September, the world woke up to the news that Robert Mugabe breathed his last.

My emotions are wedged between the iconic liberator and at the brutal tyrant he became more infamously known as. I don’t know what to feel. I don’t know if he will rest in peace or I should wish him a peaceful rest, even.

Goodbye Mugabe, Africa will never forget you.