President Mugabe deserves more credit

As a frustrated and naive Zimbabwean citizen a few years ago, I just assumed that President Robert Mugabe was rotten to the core.

I convinced myself that he was a dishonourable man who cared only for himself and was totally incapable of doing any good.
A few years on, and having had the great opportunity to meet him, I look back at my perception of him with regret and embarrassment. Of course no one could ever claim that President Mugabe is a perfect man.

He has his flaws. But there is nevertheless a compelling case to be made that his political courage to confront the vested interests that dominated our economy for so long makes him by far Zimbabwe's, if not Africa's, proudest possession.

These are the facts. When Robert Mugabe joined the liberation struggle in 1963, at the inception of ZANU, he didn't do so for wealth, power or influence. He did it because he was disgusted by the oppressive and racist regime of the late Ian Smith and was determined to change things for the benefit of everyone.

The fact that only 250 000 whites against a staggering population of five million blacks had access to more than 95 percent of the country's most fertile land left a big mark on him. Mugabe was also angered by the fact that discrimination and deprivation were legalised through the Land Apportionment Act 1930, and latterly the Land Tenure Act 1969. Education was regulated along racial lines.

Exploitation of workers was rife in the mines and in the industries and the only relationship there was between whites and blacks was that of master and servant. Because numerous requests to have these injustices corrected had been ignored, Mugabe encouraged his pals in ZANU to resort to the armed struggle as the only remaining solution of bringing about change.

He was captured in the process and was jailed for 11 long years.  Many people would have understood and even sympathised if he had quit politics at the end of his prison term. But Mugabe was no pussycat; he was a lion (as he still is today) and a great believer in the justness of his actions. Eventually, Zimbabwe became independent in April 1980.

A few years into Independence, however, it became apparent to him that some of the things Zanu had gone to war for had remained largely unfulfilled. Land was still in the hands of a few whites; the country's natural resources were still being exploited with very little benefit accruing to the nation and   social inequality continued to cut right across the Zimbabwean society.

Let's face it. Mugabe could easily have ignored these concerns. After all, he had pretty much everything anyone could ask for: power, influence, money, a motorcade, an official residence and all the other benefits that come with being a head of State. Bear in mind, too, that on the eve of Zimbabwe's Independence, he had delivered a conciliatory speech in which he had promised racial harmony, unity and forgiveness.

This speech had endeared him to many Western nations including Zimbabwe's former coloniser, Britain, which knighted him in 1994. Evidently, then, Mugabe was faced with the tough choice between doing the right thing for his country and acting expediently in the interest of his friends. To his enormous credit, he chose to do the right thing for Zimbabwe.

In 2000, his government embarked on the land reform programme. Considering that many people were strongly opposed to it, this was a huge act of sacrifice as well as political bravery. And there was a price to pay for it. President Mugabe, along with a great number of officials in Zanu-PF and the nation at large, were slapped with sanctions - allegedly for human rights abuses.

But with more than 300 000 families now settled on farms and many of them having so far contributed billions of dollars to the national fiscus through tobacco farming, President Mugabe can look back at the exercise with great pride.

The ongoing indigenisation exercise is another area upon which he can look back at with pride.

When the programme started, he was derided as a self-serving politician who was pushing a populist agenda in order to stay in power.

But today, the picture tells a different story. All these selfless initiatives deserve to be acknowledged and appreciated, yet  President Mugabe has been given very little credit. Instead, he has been treated with almost universal contempt. Rebuke after rebuke has been heaped on him.

I am tempted to compare and contrast his exemplary and visionary leadership with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's odious, sycophantic and dishonourable record, which I feel is   disappointing.

For now, it should suffice to say that President Mugabe deserves much more credit than has been afforded him. He has not shied away from the big issues. He has not run away from the sound of gunfire. He has taken on, without the faintest sign of fear, the vested interests that controlled our economy for many, many years. For that, he deserves a statue in his honour in every province starting with Africa Unity Square in Harare. And we don't have to wait for President Mugabe to die.