By supporting others in the region to gain their independence, he helped to spread assertion of that identity.
By economically empowering his people, he helped to guarantee continuity and the future of the redeemed African persona.
That was the underlying philosophy and teaching of Africa’s founding fathers.
The President is an African statesman that is why Africans love him.
The Herald
By Alexander Kanengoni
PRESIDENT Mugabe’s speech at the Sadc Heads of State and Government meeting in Windhoek, Namibia, last week was one of the finest he has ever made.
Suddenly, standing there in front of the Sadc Heads of State and Government, he was the teacher, just as it was a long time ago at Hope Fountain Mission, teaching them nationalism and politics.
He pleaded with them to safeguard our forefathers’ legacy, the land, because it was the inheritance that our founding fathers bequeathed us.
This writer couldn’t help imagining DRC’s Joseph Kabila shifting in his chair, holding his head in his hand because he knew it was Sadc, based on the principles laid down by our founding fathers that saved his country from descending into civil strife and chaos a few years ago.
He knew it was because of them that he was.
This writer could not help imagining Botswana’s Seretse Khama Ian Khama raising his eyebrows in his usual stoic manner, smiling wryly.
The prize that was being bestowed on eminent African personalities like Kenneth Kaunda and Brigadier Hashim Mbita were named after his father, Sir Seretse Khama, to recognise his sterling effort to help liberate Africa.
It was an occasion the likes of Bishop Desmond Tutu would be ashamed to be seen anywhere near.
Brigadier Mbita, the man from the OAU’s Liberation Committee in Dar es Salaam, this writer remembers him during our time training as guerrilla fighters in Tanzania.
He was still a colonel then.
He brought supplies to the camps and urged us to fight on for our independence.
Africa was speaking. And then KK. What more can one say about this founding father of African nationalism?
It was Ian Khama of all people, who would later call to suspend the infamous Sadc Tribunal where whites were rushing with their cases to get favourable judgments.
Our own judiciary built the legal framework for the implementation of the land reform programme.
Our white farmers took their case to the Tribunal and it nullified that framework!
The Sadc Tribunal made a ruling that superseded our own courts and declared the land reform programme illegal!
That is why this writer is constantly surprised by the naivety of some learned people among us who talk about the sanctity of the rule of law without looking at the people making such judgments and whose interests they are trying to protect.
How long will it be until they see?
President Mugabe then talked about regional co-operation.
He gave the example where a project in Zambia might require Sadc support and another in South Africa that might also require the bloc’s assistance.
And then in a disarming classroom fashion he appealed: "We do not have to do too many things at the same time. We do little by little by little . . ."
And once during the emotional and profound speech, he unconsciously slipped into Shona, as if he had forgotten it was Namibia and not Hope Fountain many years ago when he was still a classroom teacher.
My God, where would one go to find a better teacher?
There was something valedictory about the speech that tinged it with a bit of sadness. Wouldn’t there be another occasion for another finer speech?
Recently, this writer attended a journalists and writers meeting on xenophobia in Johannesburg.
A young journalist from the Pretoria News asked why the demonic picture they paint of Robert Mugabe in the papers was the opposite of the tumultuous reception and standing ovations the man gets each time he comes to South Africa.
The young man wanted to understand why.
Even before some of us eventually provided the answer, it was there written clearly on the walls that even the ordinary man in the street who gave him the tumultuous reception could see.
By leading the struggle to free his country, President Mugabe helped to redeem the African’s trodden past and identity.
By supporting others in the region to gain their independence, he helped to spread assertion of that identity.
By economically empowering his people, he helped to guarantee continuity and the future of the redeemed African persona.
That was the underlying philosophy and teaching of Africa’s founding fathers.
The President is an African statesman that is why Africans love him.
It is therefore not surprising that US president Barack Obama should describe Zimbabwe as a heartbreak as he said recently.
Wait a moment, heartbreak?
There is something romantic about the word it reminds some of us of those days as teenagers writing highly strung love letters to our girlfriends at other boarding schools around the country.
We used the word quite often then to describe the crazy little pain that we felt in our chests because we suspected the girls were double-crossing us.
Could Obama’s sentiment signal a softening of America’s heart towards Zimbabwe?
This writer thinks his sentimentality has a lot to do with his strong African connection.
Deep inside his heart, Obama must be ashamed America has no defence and justification to continue imposing sanctions on Zimbabwe.
There cannot be anything wrong with an African man seeking the empowerment of his people.
There cannot be anything wrong with an African man seeking the celebration of the African identity.
It was the message that permeated Africa’s liberation education.
It was the reason why we went to war. It is what Robert Mugabe has always stood for.
Many books have been written about Robert Mugabe.
The last decade has particularly seen an upsurge from white writers vilifying him.
Among other accusations, they say his policies are racist.
In fact, the judgment by the Sadc Tribunal regarding the farmers who took their case there was based on the premise that Zimbabwe’s land reform programme was motivated by hatred for the whites.
It is unfortunate that in anti-colonial Africa, it is the inevitable appearance the conflict takes.
That is how the fight ends looking like: black versus white.
But that is inevitable because the whites were our former colonisers.
It is their entrenched interests, for example, that the land reform programme sought to address.
There is nothing racist about our land reform programme.
It was the whites who had the land.
It is the same dishonesty they use that the advent of independence automatically eliminated racism and levelled the political and economic playing field.
We were then asked to accept the status quo because we finally had our man in State House and they described that as independence. What hogwash!
If they thought we fought the war just to have our man in State House while they continued to exclude us from their privileged position and participation in the economic mainstream, they were obviously wrong.
In South Africa at the moment, they are labelling affirmative action reverse racism.
It’s the highest form of dishonesty to imagine that someone who has just got the opportunity a few years ago could compete with another who has had the same opportunity for several centuries.
That was why Robert Mugabe ended taking the land by decree.
In that context, whites’ vilification of President Mugabe is understandable.
Indigenisation is not about taking away from the whites but sharing with them what they have.
As Minister Kasukuwere said last week, it is more about creating wealth.
Wealth already created is a finite resource.
Our future lies in untapped resources and tapping them.
As President said in Namibia, our diamonds should be mined by our own people and not by De Beers or Anglo-American.
That we should not allow our continued marginalisation from our own resources.
That we should create our own wealth and add value to our raw materials to create more wealth.
This was the political philosophy of Africa’s founding fathers.
There is nothing racist about sharing.
If I were honoured to write the story of the life of President Mugabe, this writer would tell the story of a withdrawn boy herding cattle in the veld in Zvimba.
I would tell the story of a studious young man poring over voluminous books in quest for knowledge.
I would tell the story of a bespectacled young African teacher in a pin-striped suit with combed hair slightly parted at the side of the head standing in front of a class at Hope Fountain.
I would tell the story of a suburban family man who loved to visit his old mother in rural Zvimba. I would talk of a father who loved his children, especially the last born.
I would tell the story of a man who sometimes received urgent calls to rush home to the village to settle burning family disputes.
I would tell the story of a man who manoeuvred skillfully to smoothen the strained relationship between his wife and his sisters, the age-old vatete-muroora rivalry.
I would tell the story of a man presiding over the marriage proceedings of his niece, often disagreeing with the girl’s father over the lobola, a figure that Robert considers is so low it’s like giving the girl away for free.
And right at the end of the story I would say, as if it was an after thought: By the way, this man is the President of Zimbabwe.
Of course, it is impossible to write such a story leaving out politics because the two are so intertwined in his life it is impossible to separate one from the other.
There is a painful African story that still haunts the people of Ghana.
It took them more than a decade to exhume the body of their founding father, Kwame Nkrumah, from Guinea to give it a befitting hero’s status and burial back home.
Of course, we shall not be forced to endure such embarrassment because we have learnt our lesson from such shameful experiences like that of the people of Ghana.
Robert Mugabe is a true African hero. But above all, he is an excellent teacher.
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