Zimbabwe stands once again at a fragile crossroads. Political tensions rise, constitutional questions linger and old wounds quietly shape new decisions.
Beneath all of this lies something deeper, something we have never fully confronted: the psychological and intergenerational legacy of our history.
And so we must ask a difficult but necessary question:
What happened to Robert Mugabe and what continues to happen through us?
Mugabe is often described in binaries: hero or villain, liberator or dictator. Both are true and yet neither is adequate. Because Mugabe was not only a political figure. He was also a psychological case study of something far more unsettling:
A traumatised human being who unconsciously went on to traumatise others.
This is not an excuse. It is an attempt to understand.
The Wounded Child Who Became the State
To understand Mugabe, we must look beyond the presidency and examine the human being.
A child shaped by colonial violence.
A young man formed under humiliation, exclusion and domination.
A political actor forged in war, where violence becomes normal, even necessary.
Colonialism was not just a political system. It was a psychological assault. It generated fear, inferiority, anger and a deep need for control. It taught the oppressed that power is the only protection against vulnerability.
When trauma is never processed, it does not disappear. It reorganises the nervous system. It shapes perception. It becomes identity.
So when Mugabe entered the liberation struggle, he did not enter as a blank slate. He brought unprocessed pain. And the war became a second rehearsal:
- Violence meeting violence,
- Fear meeting fear,
- Control becoming survival.
By 1980, Zimbabwe did not simply inherit a government. It inherited a generation whose inner worlds had been shaped by trauma.
When the Oppressed Become the Oppressor
Paulo Freire once wrote: “For the oppressed, to be, is to be like the oppressor.”
This is not a moral judgement. It is a psychological truth.
Unhealed trauma is repeated.
Mugabe’s trajectory reflects this. A man shaped by oppression rose to power and then reproduced, in altered form, the very patterns he once resisted.
A metaphor might help:
A man fights a vampire.
In the struggle, he is bitten.
He returns home, not as a hero, but as something changed.
And he begins to bite those he loves.
Colonial cruelty was Mugabe’s bite.
And tragically, he passed it on.
The Repetition of Pain
Zimbabwe’s history is marked by unsettling parallels with Mugabe and many freedom fighters in the lead:
Denied dignity under colonial rule, then denying dignity to others.
Humiliated by Ian Smith, then overseeing the humiliation of political opponents.
Denied the right to bury his own son, then denying others the right to mourn, as in the case of Dumiso Dabengwa denied the right to bury his long-time friend, Lookout Masuku, both imprisoned without trail for three year.
These are not coincidences, but psychological patterns and clear ones for anyone who really wants to be honest about these matters.
Trauma does not resolve itself. It reenacts itself.
Even moments that looked like unity, such as the Unity Accord, carried the imprint of fear and control, not true healing. The push toward a one-party state was not only political ambition; it was also the trauma-driven belief that control is safer than vulnerability.
Unexamined fear often disguises itself as authority.
A Broken Man, A Broken Inheritance
Mugabe inherited a broken country, economically, politically and psychologically.
A nation emerging from war.
Communities carrying grief and unspoken pain.
A collective nervous system shaped by violence.
Instead of healing this inheritance, it was amplified.
And trauma, by its nature, becomes intergenerational.
It does not end with an individual.
It passes to children, institutions and culture.
This is the deepest paradox:
In leaving behind a broken Zimbabwe, Mugabe also left a broken inheritance for his own children.
The Unconscious Leader
It is difficult to imagine that Mugabe, in a fully conscious and healed state, and knowing that his own children and descendants would live in that world, would deliberately choose repression, cruelty, or division and in the process, contribute in creating a world so broken and dangerous even to his children.
So, we must ask:
Did he fully understand what he was doing?
In many psychological and spiritual traditions, there is a phrase:
“They know not what they do.”
This does not absolve responsibility. Mugabe must be held accountable for the thousands who suffered under his rule.
But accountability and understanding can coexist.
Viewed through the lens of trauma, Mugabe becomes painfully predictable:
A child shaped by fear, humiliation and dehumanization
A fighter shaped by violence.
A leader shaped by the need for control and extreme power.
The rehearsals of his early life did not vanish at independence.
They became policy.
They became governance.
They became Zimbabwe.
The Warning for Zimbabweans Today
This is not only Mugabe’s story.
It is ours.
Zimbabweans today are angry, hurt, frustrated and disillusioned. These emotions are real and legitimate. But they are also dangerous if left unprocessed. We will die and leave our children in a broken world and things will get worse for them.
It does not matter what advantage or disadvantage one has, because if it was about advantages, Mugabes family would not be in the difficulties they face now, with his childrens behaviour and of course, his widow`s motherly pain of having their kids be known for mischief and the risk of incarceration.
Which mother wants their kids in prison? And who would have thought the kids of the once heroic R.G Mugabe, popularly known as Bob only the lighter note and Gushungo on the praise note, would be arrested and made to face the law?
Because if we do not work through our own trauma, we risk becoming what we are fighting. We may overthrow one system, only to recreate it in another form.
This is the vicious cycle.
A Different Model of Participation
Mugabe’s life offers a model not to emulate, but to learn from. It shows what happens when:
• Trauma is not healed
• Power becomes a form of protection
• Violence is internalised and then externalised
The alternative is not passivity.
It is conscious participation.
To fight injustice while also working on oneself to ensure trauma does not stick and that those who suffer from the tentacles of trauma do not stamp us with their bondage.
To engage politically while regulating one’s inner world.
To resist oppression without rehearsing it internally.
If we fail to do this, we risk entering the struggle as ourselves, and emerging as something else. Something that makes the world worse, for indeed, the world is in a bad state and Zimbabwe is part of it.
What Would It Mean to Break the Cycle?
Breaking the cycle requires something Zimbabwe has never fully embraced:
A national and personal commitment to healing.
This will involve:
• Understanding trauma, individually and collectively. I have had people talk about political education and sing that message like it was the national anthem but no one ever speaks about healing education because to many, we are fine. Are we?
• Making space for reflection, not just reaction
• Allowing accountability without permanent dehumanization
• Building political cultures not driven by fear
And asking deeper questions:
Who am I becoming as I fight? And like an actor, aways taking off the acting costume, putting away the props and deroling, to return to themselves and remember to love and empathize again. Imagine an actor never going back to themselves.
What is driving my actions, clarity or pain?
What kind of Zimbabwe am I rehearsing internally?
Participation is not optional.
Our only choice is how we participate.
The Zimbabwe That Can Emerge
Mugabe’s legacy is full of contradictions:
A hero who resisted Western domination,
yet replicated domination at home.
A liberator who became a controller.
A visionary trapped in fear.
If we reduce him to a villain, we learn nothing.
If we excuse him, we betray justice.
But if we understand him, we gain something vital:
A mirror.
And in that mirror, we may glimpse the Zimbabwe we could become,
or the one we must choose not to repeat.
Conclusion: From Repetition to Renewal
Zimbabwe cannot rewrite its past. Mugabe’s chapter is closed.
But the future remains unwritten.
We can continue the cycle of anger, exclusion and unconscious repetition.
Or we can choose awareness, healing and deliberate participation.
Perhaps if Mugabe had found the tools to process his pain, his leadership might have unfolded differently.
But we are here now.
And the question is no longer about him.
It is about us.
Will we enter the struggle as conscious participants,
or as wounded fighters at the risk of becoming what we hate?
Because the truth is simple and difficult:
Careless, angry, unconscious participation can only produce another Mugabe.
Conscious, reflective, healing participation may produce a new us and a new Zimbabwe.
