On Cecil Rhodes, Ian Smith and Robert Mugabe
From African Chronicles - a memoir
Vol. I, Chapter 44: A Miner with a Difference
Vol. I, Chapter 44: A Miner with a Difference
On a grey November day in Nova Scotia, twenty-two years after the murder of Luke Khumalo, forty-two years after UDI, one hundred and five years after the death of Cecil Rhodes, I found a half-page obituary in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald framing a large photo of a familiar face. Ian Smith, the white supremacist Prime Minister of Rhodesia, had died at age 88. “Good old Smithie!” his supporters used to exclaim.” Suddenly “Good old Smithie”was there for me, and I thank him for that – for helping me to close the gaps, with a minimum of words, not only between 1965 and the present, but also between 1900 and the present.
Ian Smith is the essential link between Cecil Rhodes and Robert Mugabe – between 19th century imperialism and 21st century oppression. For those three men have been the dominant figures in the history of Rhodesia-Zimbabwe to date. Consider their separate and joint legacies, which form a dreadful and ironic continuum.
Rhodes legacy was an absurd blueprint for white supremacy and imperialist ambition that tragically skewed the development of south-central Africa for the whole of the 20th century and beyond. Smith was the penultimate heir to the racism and the delusions of grandeur that had energized Rhodes. He tried to entrench white minority rule in Rhodesia “for all time” – surely, given the
population numbers, a kind of madness. The fall-out from Smith’s foolhardy intransigence was the death through war and privation of 40,000 Rhodesians and the destruction of his country’s best chance for a peaceful, democratic multi-racial future.
The ultimate heir (hopefully the line of descent has reached its bitter end) of Rhodes two 19th century bequests was guerrilla leader Robert Mugabe. That he was a man as black as Rhodes and Smith were white made no difference. Like his white political forebears, the great liberator of the Zimbabwean people also happened to be a racist, a tribalist and a power monger. Beyond all that, he has proven to be something else: a toxic, unpredictable victim of megalomania with a self-appointed “degree in violence.”
What can you say? Good old Bob! Good old Smithie! Good old Cecil! Brothers under the skin! And, politically at least, as mad as
hatters!
Ironically, like his 19th century precursor, Robert Mugabe has now become a diamond magnate himself. His syndicate is not as business-like as the DeBeer’s conglomerate, but it gets the job done. As with Rhodes, Mugabe is a miner with a difference – no
pick and shovel, no pots and pans for him either. His tools are also human beings. Mugabe’s workers – his miners – are truly minors,
some 300 children of eastern Zimbabwe. His lieutenants are truly lieutenants, uniformed officers of Zimbabwe’s national army and
lieutenants of his political party, ZANU-PF. The army recruits the children and forces them to work, and kills villagers and other “entrepreneurs” who try to get a piece of the action. Party officials sell the diamonds and funnel the money into party coffers and their own pockets – and to Mugabe. Everyone profits, except the slave children who do the work, the villagers who own the mine sites and the people of Zimbabwe, black and white.
In the old days, in the old Rhodesia, there were bright prospects. In that outpost of progress, only a few were mad –by which I mean, lethally delusional. But some of the mad ones were not just running car dealerships and butcher’s shops; they were running the country and their madness was infectious: it permeated political and social life. Madness became their bequest to the leaders of the new Zimbabwe. Now all Zimbabwe is infected.
Is it too late or still too early to cry for this beloved country?
For me it is both too late and too early.
Ian Smith is the essential link between Cecil Rhodes and Robert Mugabe – between 19th century imperialism and 21st century oppression. For those three men have been the dominant figures in the history of Rhodesia-Zimbabwe to date. Consider their separate and joint legacies, which form a dreadful and ironic continuum.
Rhodes legacy was an absurd blueprint for white supremacy and imperialist ambition that tragically skewed the development of south-central Africa for the whole of the 20th century and beyond. Smith was the penultimate heir to the racism and the delusions of grandeur that had energized Rhodes. He tried to entrench white minority rule in Rhodesia “for all time” – surely, given the
population numbers, a kind of madness. The fall-out from Smith’s foolhardy intransigence was the death through war and privation of 40,000 Rhodesians and the destruction of his country’s best chance for a peaceful, democratic multi-racial future.
The ultimate heir (hopefully the line of descent has reached its bitter end) of Rhodes two 19th century bequests was guerrilla leader Robert Mugabe. That he was a man as black as Rhodes and Smith were white made no difference. Like his white political forebears, the great liberator of the Zimbabwean people also happened to be a racist, a tribalist and a power monger. Beyond all that, he has proven to be something else: a toxic, unpredictable victim of megalomania with a self-appointed “degree in violence.”
What can you say? Good old Bob! Good old Smithie! Good old Cecil! Brothers under the skin! And, politically at least, as mad as
hatters!
Ironically, like his 19th century precursor, Robert Mugabe has now become a diamond magnate himself. His syndicate is not as business-like as the DeBeer’s conglomerate, but it gets the job done. As with Rhodes, Mugabe is a miner with a difference – no
pick and shovel, no pots and pans for him either. His tools are also human beings. Mugabe’s workers – his miners – are truly minors,
some 300 children of eastern Zimbabwe. His lieutenants are truly lieutenants, uniformed officers of Zimbabwe’s national army and
lieutenants of his political party, ZANU-PF. The army recruits the children and forces them to work, and kills villagers and other “entrepreneurs” who try to get a piece of the action. Party officials sell the diamonds and funnel the money into party coffers and their own pockets – and to Mugabe. Everyone profits, except the slave children who do the work, the villagers who own the mine sites and the people of Zimbabwe, black and white.
In the old days, in the old Rhodesia, there were bright prospects. In that outpost of progress, only a few were mad –by which I mean, lethally delusional. But some of the mad ones were not just running car dealerships and butcher’s shops; they were running the country and their madness was infectious: it permeated political and social life. Madness became their bequest to the leaders of the new Zimbabwe. Now all Zimbabwe is infected.
Is it too late or still too early to cry for this beloved country?
For me it is both too late and too early.
