Happiness for Mugabe’s rise has been followed by happiness for his downfall.
You can get an idea about how significant Zimbabwe’s revolution was by listening to black celebrities in the late 1970s and early ’80s. There’s Stevie Wonder singing «Master Blaster (Jammin’)» in 1980: » Peace has come to Zimbabwe / Third World’s right on the one / Now’s the time for celebration / Because we’ve only just begun.» That song is essentially a tribute to Jamaican reggae legend Bob Marley who, in 1979, had recorded a song called «Zimbabwe.» Marley begins, » Every man got a right to decide his own destiny / And in this judgment there is no partiality / So arm in arms, with arms, we’ll fight this little struggle / ’cause that’s the only way we can overcome our little trouble.»
But my favorite take on the revolution that made Rhodesia Zimbabwe and resulted in Robert Mugabe taking power comes from comedian Richard Pryor. » Black people kicked ass over there! » he says in a 1983 routine. «They happy, too! You walk down the street, they just smiling!» He then speaks as a Zimbabwean: «Hello! Oh, they don’t (bleep) with us no more, no.»
How many years ago was it that the promise of liberation gave way to the reality of despotism? Mugabe, the man who led the revolution, showed himself to be vastly more interested in power than freedom. And people all around the world have had to grapple with the reality that the people who seize power are the people you don’t want to have it, the people who won’t let that power go.
Most of us in the United States are currently processing disappointment with somebody. Public figures we respect are being exposed one after another for doing despicable things. But that disappointment can’t compare to the disappointment of one’s liberation movement going kaput and one’s liberator turning oppressor. What happens to our dreams of freedom if the people who fight to free us turn around and make our lives hell?
On Wednesday, Zimbabwe’s military carried out what they are calling a «correction.» (They’re assiduously avoiding the word «coup.») They placed the 93-year-old Mugabe and his 52-year-old wife, Grace Mugabe, under house arres t. They’ve vowed not to harm him. In fact, Mugabe, who serves as the chancellor of Zimbabwe Open University, was allowed to hand out degrees to graduates Friday. Some observers suggest Mugabe’s appearance was meant to reemphasize the military’s position that it’s not a «coup.»
Also, a producer of BBC Africa wrote Friday, Zimbabweans respect their elders. In the international community, Natasha Booty writes, «some see (Mugabe) as nothing more than a despot. But while Zimbabweans have been the ones to suffer first-hand, many still feel a lingering respect for the man who delivered them independence.»
Zimbabwe used to be called the «Breadbasket of Africa,» but under Mugabe’s dictatorial reign, it eventually lapsed into widespread poverty and astronomical inflation. In 2008, when a loaf of bread in Harare was selling for 35 million Zimbabwean dollars, Mugabe ordered his government to begin printing a $200 million bill. Journalist Tinashe Mushakavanhu says that in 1980 a Zimbabwean dollar was equal to a U. S. dollar. But in 2009, Mushakavanhu writes, Zimbabweans began using their country’s currency as toilet paper. And there’s nothing to suggest he meant that figuratively.
It’s amazing that in a country where people were using million-dollar bills to wipe their butts that Mugabe kept getting re-elected. Actually, amazing isn’t the word. After one suspicious election after another, the 93-year-old Mugabe was reportedly making the path clear for his wife, who started out as a typist in his office, to succeed him. She demanded that her husband remove Emmerson Mnangagwa, his vice president, from office.
So he removed Mnangagwa from office, and the military had seen enough.
As the BBC producer notes, it appears that as fed up as Zimbabweans were at Robert Mugabe’s leadership that they at least respected him as the father of their nation. But those same folks seem dead set against letting the woman nicknamed Gucci Grace for her luxurious tastes and Dis-Grace for her violent behavior be their new leader. Maybe there’s some sexism there, too. A military concerned for the people would have bumped Robert Mugabe off the stage a long time ago.
But the dictator’s wife does seem to be particularly awful. One of the latest outrages was reported in August. She reportedly entered a hotel in Johannesburg, South Africa, and found a model was visiting her two sons. According to that model, Grace Mugabe accused her of living with the young men, and she whipped her across her face with an extension cord.
«We want to restore our pride,» a military leader told the BBC. «There’s no going back (to) Mugabe. He must leave.»
Because I remembered Pryor’s story about Zimbabweans strutting, I chuckled Wednesday when an NPR reporter asked the managing editor of the Harare Times to describe the mood on the streets. He said, «People I spoke to on the ground today were extremely jubilant in a reserved way.»
Extremely jubilant and reserved. Who’d have guessed back in 1980 that the fall from power Zimbabweans would celebrate would be Mugabe’s?
Jarvis DeBerry is deputy opinions editor for NOLA. COM| The Times-Picayune. He can be reached at twitter.com/jarvisdeberry or at twitter.com/jarvisdeberry .
