Who are Africa’s heroes and role models?
By Tanonoka Joseph Whande
When asked to name an African leader or leaders I would like my children to emulate, I have coughed, cleared my throat and wiped my forehead to delay an answer.
The reason is that I am afraid of Africa’s heroes because their heroism has, in most cases, been staged to please people outside their own borders.
What other people call heroes or freedom fighters are known as terrorists in other quarters.
Those labelled extremists by other countries are viewed as nationalists in their nation.
Africa, indeed, has a full complement of terrorists, freedom fighters, extremists and nationalists.
Agreeing on what to call them is as impossible as clarifying what their efforts mean to people who are supposed to have benefitted or suffered from the efforts of these men and women.
It follows, therefore, that Yasser Arafat, for very apparent and obvious reasons, was viewed as both a notorious terrorist but dedicated freedom fighter.
There is also Che Guevara.
Even though South Africans never fought a real war of liberation, the United States considered Nelson Mandela a terrorist because he led “an organized effort by some portion of the civil population of a country to resist the legally established government or an occupying power and to disrupt civil order and stability”.
Mandela vacated the presidency of his country in 1999 but was only removed from the US terror list in June 2008.
In pursuit of their beliefs and convictions, so-called terrorists and freedom fighters follow and chase their beliefs to lengths that win them both friends and foes. Indeed, such individuals always stir emotions among people.
Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, for some reason, finds himself as the stirrer of divided emotions in people both at home and abroad.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with admiring the most wicked of the world’s individuals because they mean different things to different people. Our view of good and bad is controlled by our circumstances and intentions.
I find it infuriating that as soon as I answer that I am originally from Zimbabwe, people smile at me, nod then add, “Mugabe”. The smiles on their faces do not indicate whether or not they admire or loathe me because of Mugabe. In the end, however, it is painful to see that Zimbabwe is more known for Mugabe’s notoriety than for its own wonderful sake.
Through a mixture of exaggerations, propaganda, packaging and lies, Mugabe is known, in and outside Zimbabwe, as a freedom fighter and liberator yet the truth has always been there in plain sight.
How long will it be before someone starts decimating any of his liberation war credentials like they did with Joyce Mujuru and are already doing with Emerson Mnangagwa?
Before we give accolades to any leader, we must, of necessity, take a cue from his people. It boggles the mind why Mugabe is praised more outside Zimbabwe than within.
While his populist rhetoric fooled many outside Zimbabwe, it fools few at home where thousands lost thousands of their relatives and where thousands more are unaccounted for – all lost in one man’s devilish effort to immortalize himself having noticed that his popularity never was.
Zimbabwe is a sorry nation today yet there are those who swear that, because of Mugabe, it is better off today than it ever was.
The nation has suffered abundantly under Mugabe and it continues on its downward spiral because of him.
We lost all we had and failed to even maintain what we inherited from the colonial government.
We used to export just about everything to nations far afield of Africa itself, including agricultural products. Now we beg for thousands of tons of food to feed our people and when Zimbabwe gets the food, Mugabe gives his supporters the food and denies it to those suspected of supporting other political parties.
It is most unfortunate that people outside Zimbabwe do not understand the acrimony between Mugabe and the Zimbabwean people and why there is so much noise about his continued grip on the presidency.
The sight of Mugabe bobbing his head as he dozed off sitting next to Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni last week at the inauguration of John Pombe Magufuli, Tanzania’s new president, makes one want to cry with shame.
Why does Africa keep encouraging this man?
Could it be true that there are people out there who actually believe they can learn something positive from a man who has murdered so many of his own people and who has completely destroyed the once vibrant economy of his country?
Mugabe was in Tanzania to witness the 5th peaceful handing over of power from one president to another while he himself has been in power since 1980 and, at 91, refuses to even discuss who might succeed him but, instead, wants to run for another 5-year term in the next elections.
While other countries hold elections and their leaders serve two-term maximums, Mugabe rigs elections and goes on a violent spree against his own people.
Last week, Tanzania joined a growing list of African countries that have seen peaceful presidential transitions. Countries like Zambia, Malawi and Kenya have given hope that Africa is capable of fairly good elections and peaceful transitions.
These few countries have shown that political thuggery and violence in Africa are isolated incidents perpetrated by rogue individuals, like Mugabe.
It was sad to see him fast asleep during the inauguration ceremony in Tanzania.
What was this violent, out of touch 91-year-old doing there? Was it to congratulate the Tanzanians or to admonish them? Either way, his presence criticized himself. He had no business being there.
Then there is always the embarrassment of falling asleep and tumbling on his way to or from the podium, something he did again in India, a week earlier than the siesta in Tanzania.
Mugabe attended Magufuli’s inauguration ostensibly as Chairman of the African Union and the AU needs to think what this kind of nonsense does not only to itself but to Africa as a whole.
The decisions that the AU makes should be consistent with the intentions of the continent as a whole, not for the pleasure of individual presidents. Picking 91-year-olds as leaders when the continent is bursting with young, intelligent minds is the worst judgment an organization of this stature could make.
There is nothing that Mugabe can teach a nation, let alone a continent.
If the African Union wants to make a difference and justify its existence, it has to get serious and redirect itself.
As of 2013, Africa’s population stood at 1.1 billion and 40 percent of these were under 15 years old. Fifty percent of Africans were born in 1991 or later, 11 years after Mugabe had become president of Zimbabwe. Now, who can teach who a lesson in today’s fast moving world full of technology?
The tragedy in our country must be blamed on us Zimbabweans. The catastrophe in our country and elsewhere in Africa must be blamed on Africa itself.
The African Union and all other continental organisations must take responsibility and start directing Africa in a new direction by ushering in younger minds to keep Africa afloat and in competition.
People like Mugabe have done their part, for better or for worse; the continent must move on.
