 African political thought 6. Today we come on to a moment of contemporary controversy by looking at the political thought of Robert Mugabe. If there's an African leader who has been persistently controversial, then it has been Mugabe. One of the problems of examining his thought is that he leaves behind him no written legacy. Unlike somebody like Kenneth Kawanda, Mugabe has never been given to the writing of books. There are collections of his speeches, but for the most part he is judged on what he has done, not on what he has written. And the interpretation or the misinterpretation of what he has done stands at the root of the debates and the controversies about his thought, its meaning, and particularly its long-term benefit for Zimbabwe. Also, he has been very, very controversial in terms of his longevity, but the lack of longevity of many of his liberation rivals. There have been books written about the deaths of close colleagues. Louise White has written about the death of Herbert Cetepo. Mysteriously killed, well before independence came. People like Heidi Holland have written creative work about the ghost of Jezail Concagarra, a liberation commander who died just before liberation came. There have been recent work on the death of Rexon Hongo, also known as Solomon Maduro. C.B. George's new novel, purportedly examining the death of the Great Liberation General, has been released just recently. All of these stories, all of these tales suggest a ruthless Mugabe who has survived them all and who is somehow implicated in the abolition of his enemies in the same way that he has been involved in the abolition of white ownership of the agricultural lands in Zimbabwe. It's not really quite as simple as that. Mugabe has consistently put forward himself as a nationalist leader. He was a nationalist leader who was involved in the struggle for liberation. He has caused that struggle for liberation, which ended in 1980 with the independence of majority ruled Zimbabwe. He has caused that struggle at Chimoranga. And in the history of what he caused Chimorangas, the first Chimoranga was more than a hundred years ago, a peasant uprising led by a prophetess that tried to make a stand against the white confiscation of lands. The second Chimoranga was the armed struggle for majority rule, which as I said came to fruition in 1980. And the third Chimoranga began in the year 2000 and has really continued to this day. And that is the acquisition of land by force from the white owners for redistribution to a black majority. There's all kinds of controversy as to how well and equitably that distribution has gone, but no one can deny that Mugabe has pulled off a major revolutionary change in terms of ownership of Zimbabwe. To his political nationalism, he can claim that he's added economic nationalism. At the same time, he is a very curious person who is not only ruthless with his political enemies, but is someone who is at great pains to be seen as a democratic victor. The constant conduct of elections, dead on time every five years, allowing an opposition party to stand, allowing quite a large degree of freedom of expression, bespeaks somebody who wishes to be seen not only as a ruler, but validated as a ruler. So the constant use of elections as a means of validation, as a means of trying to secure a legitimacy in the eyes not only of his own people, but in the eyes of the world is something which is a characteristic of his long years in power. On examination, one might see that this is in fact quite cosmopolitan looking outwards to other models of government. If you were to look, for instance, at the example of Singapore, when Mugabe often goes for medical treatment, then you can see precisely the kind of model of democracy that he has brought to Zimbabwe. There's an opposition party in Singapore as well. It gets to stand in the elections. It never gets to win. It never gets to win more than a minority of the seats. It is there precisely so that the government of Singapore can call Singapore a democratic state. It is there very much as an adornment. It is not there as an alternative government. So Mugabe in his looking east, a policy he's long held, has in fact broadened the horizon of what is east. It is not just communist China, for instance, a country that greatly helped the liberation struggle, helped his political party, helped his armed political faction, his army, but also other characteristics of China and other characteristics of other Far East players like Singapore have very, very much infused Mugabe's vision of how Zimbabwe should develop. The land issue however was put on a back burner for a long time. Part of the Lancaster House talks at the end of 1979 that led to the independence of Zimbabwe were very, very much to install a honeymoon, a sunset period in which the issue of land would not be part of Mugabe's agenda. It was however in 1992 when serious drought wracked the country, Zimbabwe, that Mugabe first thought about the benefits of nationalizing land. He put forward a land acquisitions act and in fact called for international donors to come and help pay compensation for the lands acquired. This was not in itself radical. When one looks back to the mid-1970s and to the negotiations unsuccessful at that point in time over the future of Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, led by people like Henry Kissinger, for instance, the issue of land and the amount of money it would take to pay for the acquisition of land from white farmers was very, very high on Kissinger's agenda. It was not high on the British agenda in 1979 and 1980 because Britain was a very poor country at that moment in time. However, the IMF in 1992 persuaded Mugabe not to proceed with his reacquisition of land. It was in 1997 that Mugabe once again raised this issue then with the new Prime Minister of Great Britain, Tony Blair, and was met with such a brusque response, such a brusque rejection by Blair, that the chemistry between the two men never recovered and the beginning of the gazetting of properties by name began to take place. But really it was in the year 2000 when Mugabe felt propelled to move and this proportion was for two key reasons. The first was the advent for the first time of a strong opposition party that looked as if it might win elections. It certainly beat Mugabe at a referendum, for instance, and nailed its colours to the mast as a serious political force. But another serious political force had arisen in 1997 and that was the organisation at high level of the war veterans, seeking compensation and proper treatment for all the years of their actual struggle for the cause of liberation. For benefits and gains they felt they had not received. Mugabe was able to use these people as a shock troops for the re-nationalisation of the land and to put the land issue as a forefront political issue which was able to sidetrack the opposition claims to have better policies for the future of Zimbabwe. All of this begs the question about Mugabe's political thought. Was there thought or was there simply the desire to fulfil his original nationalist ideals? Was it for the sake of land? Was it for the sake of nationalism? Was it for the sake of making sure that this party would remain in power despite the advent of opposition forces?