Martin Luther King Junior said: "Evil triumphs because good men refuse to speak up". Zimbabwe and President Mugabe is a situation we cannot in all good conscience continue to ignore around anymore. It is indefensible that one man, no matter what his contribution to the country, should be holding the people to ransom.
I know that one tree does not make a forest and that Mr Mugabe alone is not responsible for the situation. There are many interests hiding behind him. It is even conceivable that despite all the rhetoric and masochistic belligerence, the old man has become an executive prisoner trapped in a power system he pioneered, which now has him cornered without an escape route.
This kind of structural analysis whilst important, risks however underestimating human agency and individual responsibility. Its primitive determinism may even be used to justify any situation, rendering intervention impossible. If individuals are not important why do we have heroes and heroines? Why do we have leaders? We are neither zombies nor automatons who behave in a predetermined way.
Choices are made and unmade by human beings; accountability is first and foremost individual. Mugabe is no longer merely part of the problem of Zimbabwe: now he is the problem.
The choices that he will or will not make, can either help to resolve the crisis or accentuate it. No one will force him to remain in office if he chooses to step down: neither the dreaded Security Services nor the aged ZANU-PF nomenclatural have the power to force him to remain in the presidential palace. The fact that he has not taken that option is a deliberate personal choice, just as his one-man contest for candidacy of the party has always been his choice.
It is simply unacceptable that weeks after the March 29 general election, the result of the Presidential contest is yet to be declared and meanwhile there is a re-count of the declared Parliamentary results! Even those who were willing to stretch their good will to Mugabe must be finding it ridiculous or running out of excuses. Some of them continue to beg the issue by forcing parallels with other botched elections.
They point out that it took six weeks and the Supreme Court to declare Bush President of the USA in 2001. Why should an avowed Pan Africanist leader vomiting all kinds of anti-imperialist attacks be defended by Washington's non-standard? They also point to the two months it took before the final results of the 2005 controversial elections in Ethiopia could be released.
I am surprised they are not saying that Mugabe is better than Meles, who jailed those who defeated his party! Why should Africans always judge themselves by looking down instead of looking up to higher standards? The hypocrisies and bad manners of others should not justify the mischief making by Mugabe and his hirelings.
It is really sad that President Mugabe who is probably one of the better (if not the best) prepared leaders for the job should end like this. He has seven degrees (not honorary) for goodness sake! A man who acquired a mosaic of degrees in an academic cocktail of humanities and social science disciplines and led one of the most successful liberation movements in Africa, could not be accused of arriving in the State House by accident.
But he is ending his rule and life as a tragic figure hanging on and increasingly sounding and behaving like a man trapped in a time warp. It must sadden all Africans and is good ammunition for all enemies of Africa who believe that nothing good comes from us no matter how well and promising the beginning was.
Unfortunately for Africa, when one of us fails it is blamed on all. No one will blame Americans and other westerners for all the atrocities of George Bush. No one will even blame Brown for Blair's evil fraternity with Bush and other Europeans will quickly wash their hands clean of him. Yet these same people use Zimbabwe and Mugabe to beat our heads with all the time.
Consequently many Africans, whether Presidents or peasants, have become defensive about the situation. The fear of not being seen as echoing London and Washington, has policed many of us into silence which ZANU-PF and Mugabe hardliners have harvested as popular support among Africans. It is moral cowardice and politically irresponsible for us to hide indecision and inertia behind anti-Western postures. It is time to speak out and stand up for what we believe in.
Tajudeen is deputy director, Africa - UN Millennium Campaign.
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Well stated! There must be African solutions forthcoming based on dialogue and compromise in the best African style. It is encouraging to see Africans saying ever more forcefully that the same old status quo of corrupt and brutal leadership can no longer be accepted as the way forward. This westerner who lived many years in the south end of the continent amid the fading vestiges of colonial rule during the 70s and 80s heartily applauds.
Just which evil are we trying to attribute to Mr. Mugabe? Is it being elected my the majority of Zimbabweans election after election? Is is doing the best he can to keep the country afloat inspite of being under sanctions and having the internal control of the country's economy in the hands of the kith and kin of those who imposed these sanctions? Or is it his resistance to foreign attempts to place puppets in place as Zimbabwean "leaders" who will do the bidding of those who put them in power? Or perhaps it's a combination of all of these things and others unstated that makes him evil? Please elaborate!