As the 1970s were drawing to a close, much of the evening news on television in our country was devoted to the rapidly evolving situation in Rhodesia.
In March 1978, Bishop Abel Muzorewa and others signed an agreement with the white racist government of Ian Smith over power sharing.
Elections were held and Muzorewa became president of a renamed Zimbabwe-Rhodesia.
The Muzorewa government did not receive international recognition. Facing crippling economic sanctions, this interim government finally agreed to talks with the terrorists. These began in Lancaster House at St James in London's West End in September 1979.
Our news broadcasts at the time extolled the virtues of Muzorewa's "moderate" coterie over the "terrorists" fighting for the violent overthrow of the Smith regime. Our newspapers followed suit with the common message that the terrorists were extremists who did not enjoy the support of their populace.
As a teenager at the time whose only exposure to news of the continent from across the Limpopo came from dog-eared copies of ANC publications such as Sechaba and Dawn along with crackly shortwave broadcasts of Radio Freedom, I did not give the matter much thought.
The first inkling that I had that our media at the time did not have a clue came from a two-page spread in Scope magazine. It was an aerial photograph of people gathered to welcome one of the terrorist leaders home.
The black-and-white photograph was an endless sea of spectators – hundreds of thousands of them. In the upper left corner of the spread, about the size of an orange pip relative to the orange, was the stage where Robert Gabriel Mugabe, leader of the Zimbabwe African National Union, stood to address his people.
Looking at that picture made me realise that a lot of the conventional wisdom around Rhodesia spouted by our media, even our supposedly enlightened liberal media, was just plain wrong.
By the time you read these words, Zimbabweans will have begun voting in their national elections; 33 years after their first democratic ballot swept Mugabe to power. My prediction is that when the votes are in, Mugabe is very likely to be re-elected president.
The most obvious reason why this is so is that in any election, the ruling party gets to do certain things that stack the cards in its favour. For example, boundaries of electoral districts get drawn in a way that ensures victory in that constituency. Another example, certain people get struck off the voters’ roll while others get added on. A third example: onerous requirements for proof of eligibility to vote get imposed upon certain sections of the populace.
When Americans do that, it's called democratic process. When Africans do that, it's called dictatorship. However you describe it, Mugabe is a master at it.
The fact of the matter is that there is not much he is unfamiliar with. Mugabe is one of Africa's foremost intellectuals. He first graduated with a BA from the University of Fort Hare in 1951. He went on to earn six more degrees: a Bachelor of Administration and Bachelor of Education from Unisa; Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Laws, Master of Science, and Master of Laws, from the University of London External Programme. The two Law degrees were completed while he was in prison, the MSc, while he was Prime Minister of Zimbabwe.
Don't mistake my tone for admiration. The atrocities perpetrated under Mugabe's tenure are well documented; the massacres in Matabeleland in 1983 which saw the mass execution of more than 20 000 supporters of his rival Joshua Nkomo was the most prominent of these. His views on homosexuality would see him jailed for hate speech and incitement to violence if expressed in our country.
But what is the alternative?
The alternative is Morgan Tsvangirai, former general secretary of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions – that country's equivalent to our Cosatu. An ardent supporter of Mugabe in his early days, he clearly nursed political ambitions of his own, leading his union down paths that were at distinct odds with his government. As a result, he became very popular with our media.
(Stop me if this sounds familiar.)
Tsvangirai stood for election against Mugabe in the 2002 presidential elections and lost. He stood again in the 2008 elections pulling 47 percent of the vote against 43 percent for Mugabe; which was not enough to give him an outright majority.
Now at this point, a true leader would have stood forth and said: "I thank the people of Zimbabwe for this victory and extend my promise to the armed forces that their role in defence of this nation will not be undermined."
Instead, Tsvangirai stood bleating at the sidelines that he had been robbed; first agreed to a run off election, then changed his mind, then lost the runoff.
Eventually, in a deal brokered by Thabo Mbeki, a unity government was formed with Tsvangirai as very much a lame duck prime minister.1 Nevertheless, as part of the bargain, Tsvangirai was meant to petition the rest of the world to lift economic sanctions. In fact, he did the opposite.
While pretending to support the unity government, his secret talks with western governments, including US president Barack Obama, entreated them to keep sanctions in place as a means of bringing pressure to bear on Mugabe.
Mugabe believes Tsvangirai to be a lapdog of white interests. It's a convincing argument. I, for my part, find Tsvangirai to be a whinger.
Zimbabwe needs to be free of Mugabe, but they can do better than Tsvangirai. Until they do, expect business as usual north of the Limpopo.
- 1. The print version of this article incorrectly described Tsvangirai as a lame duck "president" instead of "prime minister". I apologise for the error.