Dear Bob: Letter to Mugabe, on his birthday

By Realise Mwase

Dear Bob

Hi. Sorry for my lack of decorum, how should I know how to address you when I’ve never been allowed inside the State House?

Happy birthday, Sir.Have a nice one. At least you can afford a party. It’s not like you don’t deserve it while the national treasury is drying up.

I can’t judge you as a person because I can never walk in your shoes and have also failed people as a leader before. And I’m not even past a quarter of your life.

However, I can judge the past 21 years I’ve been alive. You divide opinion more than any other leader I know. You’re a genius and you sometimes inspire me. I’m a genius too but can’t sit on the same table with you. Oftentimes I get sad when I realize I’m here instead of being in my country, contributing through my mental input. Well, you have kinda made it hard for myself and my peers to just stay. Sorry, but you’re at fault there for keeping dumb ministers in your administration.

Our parents helped you steer us to the abyss by not doing what they should have done: give you a rest. I’m not going to pretend there is no possibility the armed forces would have jumped in but shall I also forget that soldiers are citizens as well? And yet our parents talk to these people daily, so the entire generation before mine is offside here. Even a vote could have changed things but to them it was of no consequence. Now look where we are. You deserve a break but now you’re just clutching at straws for strength and sleeping whenever you can. I’m always feeling embarrassed when I see videos of you looking haggard and sleepy. You’re now old, Sir Bob.

Your own party has cowards who still want to keep you in the hotseat, tired as you are, just because they can’t risk losing an election. I don’t understand how powerhorny these fellows are as they seem to derive orgasmic pleasure at remaining on top, not to change things but maintain the status quo. I think they’re masochists who get turned on by the pain of the masses. Their moral compass is as screwed up as the roads in our nation.

Do you approve of that? Aren’t you now a victim of the monster you created, dear Sir? You might have been a revolutionary 40 years ago in Salisbury but now you’re Ian Smith in a chocolate version. And it’s not entirely your fault. Even The First Lady is a foreigner in the land of wisdom and intelligence and it’s beginning to show every time she gets a microphone. It’s clear that the idiocy in your camp is adding to the rot.

I came up an intelligent kid and it made sense. Now I feel my parents wasted money. Your degrees were touted as an example of how education is the solution. But tell me, seeing the graduates sitting at home, do you think I still believe in your philosophy and advice concerning education? I’m torn up because I know of the fate awaiting me after I graduate. Don’t you ever think I enjoy being in another country. Think about my kids who may have to be raised in a foreign land. Your grandson isn’t the only one entitled to enjoying life in Zimbabwe. Give it a thought.

Still I don’t judge. But every movie reaches the credits. Are you sure you’re still the hero or the villain?

May your new age whisper a song of rest in your ear. I’m frankly concerned. You have watched Mandela get to rule, leave and die. Would a vacation in the Far East help to convince you? Wait, you already go there whenever. Or a diamond mine? Wait, you have that too in plural. Man.

But before you go, fire your rubbish cabinet. What 2008 did to the nation will never be erased from your rule. I’m sorry for that.

You don’t need a million dollars for your birthday. Cake and some good food costing under a thousand dollars will do. Do you even have strength to still eat up that much? I don’t know.

Enjoy and try not to be surprised at the tollgates and roadblocks.

Love

• Realise Mwase is a creative writer, poet and thinker fascinated by God, nature, and humanity. Article appears on Khuluma Afrika