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Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi / AP
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe greets the crowd upon his arrival for the official opening of the Zanu PF Congress in Bulawayo, on Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011. Loyalists of the Zimbabwe president's party are gathering for a party conference in preparation next year's election.
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe – Dancing erratically and singing passionately outside the conference hall, an elderly woman named Grace anticipates the arrival of the president. While many people refer to him simply as a “tyrant” and a “dictator,” she calls him “our liberation hero, Mr. R.G. Mugabe.”
His smiling face is stitched onto her outfit. She sings his name and throws her body from side to side close to the edge of the red carpet. “He is our savior, he freed us from the imperialists,” she says, referring to Britain, the old colonial power.
Suddenly she spots “His Excellency” walking toward the auditorium to open the congress of his party, ZANU-PF, where he is confirmed as a candidate for elections, expected next year. Grace joins the crowd that is following him – a mix of loyal supporters, loyal civil servants and loyal security guards.
Eventually, seven hours after he was due to begin, Mugabe delivers his speech.
Familiar rhetoric
It suddenly becomes obvious where Grace has picked up her language. Her leader defines Zimbabwe’s enemies as “the imperialists,” too – in this case, the American and European powers involved in the NATO campaign in Libya, a “bloody tragedy” motivated by “oil and reconstruction projects.” Only “a dead imperialist” is a good one, he says.
It is a long speech, and some of the slogans about the West are familiar. The apparent evil of the white world, particularly Britain, has formed part of the rhetoric of Robert Mugabe for his whole political life. The ZANU-PF party congress started Thursday with Mugabe’s appearance and continues until Saturday.
Delivering his speech wearing a bright red suit, Mugabe throws his fist around, switching between languages as he works through the address. But the country and the world beyond the heavily armed gates has evolved much faster than the president’s favorite lines.
Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi / AP
Supporters of Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe are seen before his arrival for the official opening of the Zanu PF Congress in Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo, Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011.
For one, Mugabe’s closest enemies are no longer in foreign capitals, but a few blocks from the presidential state house in Harare.
Though he remains an autocrat in control of most organs of the state, the disputed results of elections in 2008 forced him into an uneasy power-sharing agreement with his party’s rival, the Movement for Democratic Change, led by the prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai. “They are a party for women,” said one delegate, emulating part of Mugabe’s speech, though he then named the older enemy, Britain, as Zimbabwe’s true foe.
With school choirs singing celebratory songs in the background, many ZANU-PF supporters are keen to highlight Zimbabwe’s successes. Literacy rates are relatively high; the economy is growing as natural resources are exploited; the terrifying days of 2008, when hyper-inflation forced the economy into free-fall, have passed. But in the run-down townships a few miles from the conference hall, it is clear that extreme poverty and disease haunt many parts of Zimbabwe.
Divisions among the ranks
There, many people no longer accept the president’s claim that they are suffering the destructive impact of international sanctions; some do not believe his proposed solution of ensuring that black Zimbabweans own 51 percent of foreign companies based within the country. And many are concerned that under Mugabe the country will never be far from another explosion of violence.
There are rumors of divisions at the congress – unheard of at previous meetings. Independent newspapers claim that delegates are worried about the ability of the 87-year-old president to fight an election campaign and they have been plotting to find a successor. One loyal supporter rolls his eyes when I mention such concerns. He is frustrated by the very suggestion, but his response suggests that it is one that he is used to hearing. Another senior supporter calls Mugabe “the fittest public figure in Zimbabwe.”
That may be a wildly exaggerated assessment for a man who appears to nod off during some meetings, but he seemed to be healthy as he stormed into the conference hall to speak for more than two hours. However, that will not have convinced some of his opponents. They claim that the octogenarian’s frequent trips to Singapore are not to visit his daughter, as his people claim, but for medical treatment.
The now banned South African Nandos "Last Dictator Standing" ad. The ad was deemed offensive by Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and his supporters - so out of fear of violent reprisals, the ad was pulled from the airwaves.
'Last dictator standing' ad
Then there’s one unexpected issue that has cropped up as a last-minute talking point on the fringes of the congress – a controversial fast food commercial that many see as a humiliating attack on the president. When I mention it to one delegate, he gulps and warns me that “‘Nando’s’ is a dirty word here.”
We’re talking, in hushed tones, about a TV commercial for the restaurant chain that stars an actor depicting Mugabe as “the last dictator standing.” To the soundtrack ‘Those Were The Days’, the look-a-like recalls the president during happier times – laughing uncontrollably during cozy moments with the dictators of the world – playing in the sand with Saddam Hussein and sharing the microphone with Mao Tse-tung at a raucous karaoke evening. After the reminiscing, a lonely “Mugabe” is seen sitting mournfully at the head of a presidential dining table set for his fallen foreign friends. “No one should ever have to eat alone” the voiceover guy tells us, with the final pitch for a family-size portion of fast-food chicken.
The ad, broadcast across southern Africa, was pulled because of fears of attacks on Nando’s restaurants in Harare, but only after raising many laughs and a few questions about Mugabe’s future after this year of revolution.
For Mugabe, heading into a likely election year, the Arab Spring simply teaches Zimbabwe to beware of the West and to consolidate sovereignty. His opponents worry what that might mean. They believe that the pace of democratic reform must accelerate, and the president must accept the need for change.
But Grace, his singing, dancing elderly supporter outside, believes “He must rule forever.”
According to the feverish rhetoric of the Congress, there can be no Zimbabwe without him.
Leave a Comment:
Could somebody just please pop this guy?
Mugabe is a pitiful excuse for a human being.
.
Since you feel so passionately about it, why don't you go over there and do it yourself. Why wait for someone else?
He is pitiful and I HAVE thought about doing it myself. But, I talk a big game and am essentially a coward. I was in old Rhodesia before Mugabe and it was a wonderful, beautiful place, with kind people amd a good economy. They exported tobacco and maize. But then Mugabe took all the white owned farms and gave them to his buddies and now the economy has gone to hell in a handbasket and poor Zimbabweans are heading to South Africa where they are not wanted by other black Africans because they compete for the same scarce jobs.
No dictator stands alone. Even Saddam Hussein had his supporters. Until there are enough people willing to take a stand against the dictatorship (as with the Arab spring) the dictators of the world will find support from sycophants and panderers willing to oppress their fellow citizens for greed and patronage. Mugabe stays in power as long as he has enough paid supporters to keep him there.
United states1776 - what makes him a pitiful excuse for a human being? What do you base this statement on? This article? Have you ever met the man? Have you lived in his country? Are you talking out of the side of your arse? IS it because he describes the western world as Imperialists? The behavior of the Western world over the last 300 years certainly does nothing to contradict these claims.
In the United States we have a knee-jerk negative reaction torwards the word dictator and the concept of dictatorship. This is largely due to the fact that the corporations and billionaires that currently rule our country would have a much harder time excerting their influence in a non-capitalist/federalist society. The truth is that we all would be stongly in favor of dictatorship if we were the dictator. The problem with any form of government is when the ruling forces become single minded in their thinkng and agendas. When a government loses objectivity, creativity, and the ability to consider the long-term greater good of the society, tragedy is just around the corner.
What makes such governmental shortcomings possible is when the majority of the populace loses the ability to think in such ways themselves and simply and simply marches to the beat of the conformity drum. Observe, think, and come to your OWN conclusions. Do not allow the corporate media to think for you.
Well said. And as true as it gets.
Okay, I've observed, thought, and come to my own conclusion. Mugabe is a pitiful excuse for human being and a petty dictator! However, on that note let his own people do what they will with him. He is their problem not ours to deal with!
His successor will be available after Jan 20 2013.
To use words I would not...someone should 'pop' this guy.
He is utterly disgusting and it's sickening that he is still alive.
Mugabe = Zimabwe's version of Adolf Hitler
Mugabe does subscribe to the notion that "Whites" are "subhuman".
Reversing the direction of racism doesn't make you any less racist.
To say that whites are subhuman is not too far from true . i do not know of any other race who went around the world and killed and took away the land wealth of every race on this planet .Something must be wrong with them that the think that they can take away your land and you won't want it back
.
The average white person would be horrified at the atrocities committed back in the day. Do you really think that people haven't changed over the past 100 years?
uhhmerika, Look at Africa & ask yourself what good has the black man done. All the smartest & bravest people migrated out of africa thousands of years ago.
Yo Michael and uhlmerika! Ever hear of the Mongol, Hunnish and Persian Empires? Those are just a few to start with. Please do a little research before making such asinine comments as above. It might make you look just a little less foolish!
What was so beautiful in old Rohodesia ? The white people blacks like animals , taking their land and not giving them the right to vote ..Ian Smith and all of them white rulers in Africh chould have been charged for crimes against humanity...He is still alive and should still be charged..
Ian Smith is dead, you idiot.
Bob has done is the reversal of what the colonialists did to us 100 years back which I perceive as one best solution. He has managed to rervese the land grabs and ill treatment our forefothers had suffered long. It is like a war situation here. If Mugabe had not done it ,someone else was going to do it otherwise in a more bloodier situation. I remember even the opposition had also begun to preach about this it is only that ZANU PF had done so swiftly (fast kreck). It is so simple as (-1) plus (+ 1) = 0 . We are now back to square zero.
So the best solution is total bankruptcy of the country (with debt going into the quadrillions), took away farms from legal citizens of that country all due to skin color, threatened and killed political prisoners, denied AIDS exists, and lives a life of luxury at the intentional expense of the entire country.
Mugabe, like every other African and Asian dictators needs to be taken out and shot in the head. Africa as a whole is a mess. While it was wealthy back in the middle ages, it's dirt poor now, with constant civil wars and AIDS epidemics going on. Mugabe is no saint.
I see how that's working out for you. Your land used to be the breadbasket of Africa. Since "Bob" ran off the white farmers, that is no longer the case. The English also gave you their language and taught you how to integrate with the modern world because when they found you, you were stone-age tribal savages. The inequities of the distant past cannot be cured in the present because the victims are long dead. You also don't kill the golden goose... even if he's a white guy.
The US colonies could also have been said to have been better off under European rule. Independence is a struggle.
The people that tried to vote against Mugabe in previous elections were slaughtered and tortured. But you say that is better than having whites treat you ill. I think it is worse, because the betrayal is worse. He was supposed to be a savior of the people, but he saved only himself, at the expense of his countrymen and of the industry in his country. Keeping the people extremely poor helps to keep a tyrant in power. In America, we are allowed to speak the truth, without fear from Mugabe or his heinous henchmen. It doesnt have to be the lesser of 2 evils. I hope Zimbabwe can one day be the free and safe country that its citizens deserve.
This is the face of the third world that just sucks up our taxpayers aid. Really makes you want to pay your taxes when you know it will go to fools like this moron.
Africa is a total disaster. Every single government needs to be destroyed and be replaced and watched and required to be non-corrupt by a governing body.
Libya was a good place to start, with the death of Gadaffi, but like every other civil war in Africa, will only be replaced by the same thing, if not worse with a false promise of hope.
It's funny how folks don't understand the root cause of Africa's plight. How about all the western nations, along with the nations in the east leave africa, cancel all trade deals and move out ESPECIALLY with THEIR GUNS and AMMUNITION. That is, leave africa to africans without any weapons and see what a remarkably positive difference there is going to be. Truth is, without the guns made by and exported into africa by the west and the east, Mugabe couldn't do squat to anyone.
Africa is the way it is primarily because the west came inside of it in the first place. Who told the West that your way of life is necessarily what Africans would have wanted? Why did the west go ahead and kill African leaders of the 1960s who condoned communishm? For instance Patrice Lumumba, Félix-Roland Moumié, or Thomas Sankara or even Kwame Nkrumah?
Who knows whether Africa would have been a super economy as China rivaling the Western economies had the continent gone the communist route as China? Who is to say that had the west not placed neo-colonial ruler to safeguard their interests, and then armed them complete with military pacts, and crippling economic pacts, who is to say that Africa would not have been a prosperous place rivaling many western economies?
In Khaddafi's Libya, every Libyan citizen had free housing, was given $5000 when you graduated from college, was given $10000 when you got married along with a house, could get interest free loans. 100% of all Americans I speak with wish they had it like that. I'm not defending Khaddafi, but I'm saying that there's an African country with standards of living beating many countries in the West. I'm sure a lot of US citizens would like to have that kind of money so they can start their own businesses.
Every country need not be an industrialized country in order to prosper. That's just the way it is Liechtenstein has not manufacturing industry, they consume what the so called manufacturing countries (Germany, USA, China, Japan, etc) make, but their standards of living on average surpass those of these so called manufacturing countries.
The point i'm making is, there are laborers (manufacturing countries) and then there are consumers who enjoy their life and consume what the laborers make. Dubai is another example. They don't manufacture anything, but they live better than the average US citizen does. In Libya, medicine is free and if it required a procedure not available in Libya, the Libyan government covered 100% of the charges for treatment at a foreign hospital.
In short, have the West rescind ALL pacts that they have with african countries, and leave african countries to themselves ---- taking all guns. Only in South Africa are guns produced in Africa and these are not the guns that are used by the dictators to kill their fellow countrymen. The arms used come from outside of the continent.
His time will come...
Does he dress himself? Is he blind, or just that arrogant?
This guy is "THE MAN". Who is his tailor? I want to show up in Harlem wearing that suit. I could quit my job and work exclusively with women for the rest of my life.
we say the same in irak and now is worst
all the wars are creating for the benefit of the bankers,, just watch lybia sonn they will be slaves of the bankers with the reconstruction
As you are typing, you may notice that from time to time a red line appears under the word you just typed. When that happens, simply right-click on the word and the proper spelling will pop up for you to select.
STFU. People have better things to do that go back and correct what they typed. This is not a dissertation or some thesis. Go crawl under the rock from whence you came, professor!
Great thinking there, guys....this guy's evil because he kills people. Let's kill him!
He hasn't got too much longer...and if you kill him, then the next guy will be killed by his successor, and that guy will be killed by his successor, and so and so forth...violence breeds violence. But hey, if it makes you feel good...
Can Mugabe rule forever? Of course he can! After all, he IS the King of Zimbabwe. He will rule until the day he dies.
Why is it that some dictator, president for life, virtual king, can call himself a "president" and claim to be fairly elected for each term but in fact rigs every election and all the worlds media say YES SIR! Why is it that no one can call a spade a spade?
If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a DUCK. And Mugabe is a DUCK who thinks he's a swan and no one will call him on it.
WOW.......WE , US , HUMANS .........have such a long way to go!! Iam so , very sorry for the way my people (white) , have harmed others . Lets pray for .............PEACE . That peace beyond , all understanding . Evil , is after all..............evil , no matter what face it wears .
I find it absolutely hilarious that Mugabe criticizes the United States as a prime enemy when in fact we couldnt care less about the sh*thole he calls Zimbabwe. Nothing there that we need or want and we barely even have diplomatic relations with them. Guess its just convenient for him to blame us as everyone else does for all their problems. lol.
watch out! these lazy Americans who want eat without doing anything now want take adventage on
Zimbabwe. my concers is why Americans always meddle in others countries affairs? I hope one day A merican will be punished for what it has done.
Haha....I think you africans will starve to death through famine first. We couldnt care less about that sorry excuse for a country you call Zimbabwe. Go away and annoy someone else, kabwa
Just remember the news media is controlled by white racist, the evidence of which you can clearly see in this article. Mugabe is one of the best leaders in Africa right now and shows what needs to be done throughout the African Continent and other lands where there is settler colonialism, inclusive of Israel and South Africa. Europe and America kill hundreds of thousands of people each year in other countries where they have no right being. They are obviously the same barbarians that committed genocide while enslaving Africans and others around the world in the past and are still doing it today with more sophisticated weapons. As a matter of fact they are doing it with weapons of mass destruction and trickery. Embrace true religion now, while you still have a chance to do so. Those of us who seek to know God and are about righteousness need to be taught the truth, because obviously what's going on in the world today has nothing to do with truth. This world of illusions have been created by the people who are seemingly now in charge, ie Europe and America. It is quite interesting that they are the controllers of the world today when satan is "in charge". Could the devil have found them quite fit to do his bidding? Think about it! Thank God that satan will never be more powerfull than God, so what we, that seek righteousness in this world must do is to embrace God, Godly principles and divine law to save ourselves and the world at large. Also to save the same barbarians who are now messing up the world right now. They need to change more than anyone else. God would never tell any people to attack another people because they have weapons of mass destruction and even after invading that country and finding no WMD continue to kill them by the tens of thousands and even dropping nuclear warheads with depleted uranium thus causing many people in Irak to have strange forms of cancer and even babies being born with cancer. That's satan at work not God. One does not have to have a doctorate in common sense to see this. It's a no brainer. Their time is coming to an end. The work of God in the world. Nothing lasts forever. The war is for the minds of people. Fear not my people!
WOW. Totally unhappy people hurling totally unhappy comments at each other. This is what Zimbabwe has boiled down to.
I think the black ancestoral leaders didn't have much more than a barter economy. Then the country was handed back to the same decendants of those people. People don't change, unless that is their will. Now Zimbabwe seems to be going back to that way of life. It seems inevitable to me, with or without Mugabe.
I like his suit...
Why don't we ship the OWS demonstrators to Zimbabwe? If they think there's problems in the U.S., wait until they see Mugabe in action!
Ian Smith and others were 100% right..These African guys are not at all ready to rule..They are used to be ruled*All the white business was demolished by these guys..Lands taken over..People were made homeless**That is what Murgabeee.likes..