On 31 March, the day that Robert Mugabe was predicting a huge mountainous victory for his Zanu-PF party, I spent a very pleasant few hours in London with John, a former pupil of Robert Mugabes.
John was taught history and English by Robert Mugabe at secondary school in the 1950s. In the mornings, before school, he would cycle to the nearest town to fetch Mugabes newspaper. Classes would commence only once Mr Mugabe had read the newspaper. Mugabe also taught the boys to box. Short of role models amongst their peers, African boys at the time admired the Afro-American boxers. John remembers Mugabe as a good teacher, but short-tempered.
He reflects that many of his African schoolteachers are now politicians, though Mugabe wasnt until later. Of the living, John knows Joyce Mujuru quite well. He says she is a feminist who calls a spade a spade. We laugh. She must be doing quite a lot of spade-calling at the moment. Zimbabwe could do with a straight-talking mother. Who knows?
Out of nowhere
John was born in the mid-1930s in what was the self-sustaining British colony of Southern Rhodesia. After missionary school, several other government schools, including the one where Mugabe taught, and teacher training college, he worked for a Christian Association for ten years as a youth leader. John was the first black man to hold this position.
After seven years of studying and teaching in England, he returned to Rhodesia. Frustrated by the constraints and lack of opportunity, John established vocational training for black people. During this time (1976-79) the Rhodesia/Zimbabwe war (the country was renamed after independence in 1980) was accelerating towards its bloody conclusion. John describes the difficult position in which many young African men and women found themselves.
On the one side they felt loyal to the Rhodesia protected by the Rhodesian Security Forces: here, ordinary life and (at least in his case) education continued (a freedom and a rarity in itself); on the other side, the pull of the freedom fighters (guerrilla forces against the white Rhodesian government) to join the chimurenga (liberation war) and liberate Zimbabwe was quite strong. The African population were put into protected villages for their own safety to prevent the freedom fighters from recruiting them or getting them to provide food and other assistance.
This practice, whilst it may have protected them from some of the more grisly tactics employed by the freedom fighters to ensure loyalty, also divided families and communities. John says the freedom fighters and their tactics and were greatly feared, but so too were the security forces.
In 1978, he attended the Geneva peace conference, where he observed the future leader of Zimbabwe taking his place at the world stage to engage with peace talks with the then Rhodesian prime minister Ian Smith, for the first time. Later he attended the Lancaster House talks that led to Zanu-PFs first, legitimate, victory.
The atmosphere was jubilant. How sad, how sad, John says, that Zimbabwe had to go the same way as the rest of Africa. People were so full of hope back then. Mugabe seemingly came out of nowhere, emerging as leader after the assassination of the Herbert Chitepo, the former National Chairman of Zanu-PF. John describes Josiah Tongogara (Commander of Zanla Zanu-PFs military) as a wonderful person. I cant help wondering how things might have turned out if the highly regarded Josiah Tongogara hadnt died so tragically, shortly after the Lancaster House talks.
John still sees Mugabe occasionally at social events often funerals. Mugabe is cordial, as long as the conversation agrees with him. He is still, John says, very short-tempered; also very clever, a loner, and a man who didnt have girlfriends. John said that Mugabes first wife, Sally, whom he met in Ghana, was good for him and would often steer him in the right direction.
I think of the Italian marble mansion Mugabe is building for his second wife, Grace. How different the Marie Antoinette-like Grace Mugabe must seem to the Zimbabwean people: she is more likely to steer Mugabe (or certainly his ill-gotten cash), to Harrods.
Beyond fear
I asked him how people at home feel about the elections. He says they are fearful, there may well be a bloodbath due to tribal splits in the Zanu-PF hierarchy. One only need recall the retribution meted out by Mugabes notorious fifth brigade, ex-Zanla fighters who were deployed to Matabeleland North and murdered over 10-20,000 civilians from 1983-85. Anything could happen. There is an eerie lack of intimidation during this election compared to 2000 and 2002, where intimidation was rife. People are afraid that Mugabe has some ghastly plan stashed in his clenched fist.
Yet there is a willingness to hope. Despite having suffered a miscarriage after being kidnapped, Heather Bennet, whose husband Roy Bennet, a member of parliament (Movement for Democratic Change party), was given a harsh prison sentence for pushing a Zanu-PF MP after he insulted him, campaigned in Chimanimani district in her husbands place. The small percentage of white farmers left in the country are determined to stay. As in the war years when the world imposed sanctions on Rhodesia, they are finding ever more cunning ways to get their products out of the country.
The wonderfully subversive organisation Zvakwana, encourage Zimbabweans to take a stand in innovative, creative, humorous and practical ways. I urge all Zimbabweans to look at and support this site. Also, in a country where a free press is banned and the airwaves are blocked by the regime, ZWNEWS continue to get the news to those of us hungry for information.
Archbishop Pius Ncube, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Bulawayo, has denounced Mugabe for his use of food as a political weapon and has urged Zimbabweans to rise up in peaceful protest. A woman whose son died of starvation started a murmur of hungry, at a Zanu-PF rally: a cry that was taken up by the crowd, forcing Mugabe to leave the rally in embarrassment.
These stories are encouraging; but they reveal a people pushed beyond endurance and thus beyond fear. John says that nowadays people are developing a laissez-faire attitude. Maddened by hardship and empty bellies they are saying Zvakwana! Enough is enough!
I am full of admiration for John, who fought for his education and his childrens educations, and for the education of his people. He looks forward to the day when his children can bring their skills home to a Zimbabwe that will desperately need them. Here is a gentle, wise humorous man who is looking to the future with hope, despite all he and his people have been through. I am hopeful, he says, with a smile, Enough is enough. This spirit is the hope for the future of Zimbabwe.
