The Reign of Robert Mugabe

Upon the occasion of Zimbabwe’s independence, Bob Marley wrote a song unimaginatively titled “Zimbabwe.” Marley may not have been the sage many of his fans take him for, but Zimbabwe’s post-independence decline into bloody tyranny makes these lines from the song seem prophetic : “So soon we’ll find out who is the real revolutionaries / ‘Cause I don’t want my people to be tricked by mercenaries.”

The central figure in Zimbabwe’s fight for independence and the chief author of the nation’s subsequent woes is the mysterious Robert Mugabe. Peter Godwin has written a brilliant piece in Vanity Fair which includes a fascinating description of the African dictator. An excerpt:

If you were casting the role of “homicidal African dictator who stays in power against all odds,” Robert Gabriel Mugabe wouldn’t even rate a callback. To look at him and hear him talk, he’s still the prissy schoolmaster he once was—a slight, rather effeminate figure, with small, manicured hands given to birdlike gestures. The huge banners that span Zimbabwe’s streets do their best to make this 84-year-old into something more heroic—he is seen shaking an arm at the heavens, above the words “The Fist of Empowerment.” The image is marred somewhat by the little white handkerchief often held in Mugabe’s fist, and by the outsize gold spectacles that dominate his face, and that seem to be wearing him.