Robert Mugabe
Mark Levin|Published
During Robert Mugabe's first term as Prime Minister of newly-independent Zimbabwe, he pushed for the expansion of educational opportunities for all. In 1979, there were only 2401 primary and 177 secondary schools, a majority of which were church-owned and church-run. Over 1400 primary schools had been shut because of the war in the 1970s. By 1990, there were three million pupils enrolled in 4 500 primary and 1500 secondary schools. Some 9000 teachers had graduated from a fast-track, intensive training programme.
One of the beneficiaries of this "dizzying expansion in education" was Percy Zvomuya who was enrolled in one of the newly-built primary schools in 1984. Prospective high school maths and science teachers were sent to Cuba for training. Again, Zvomuya was a beneficiary. His high school maths and chemistry teachers were Cuban-trained. The tertiary colleges and the country's sole university were also transformed, with new faculties being introduced.
The Promise and Collapse of Zim's Post-Independence Education
But by the time Zvomuya enrolled at the University of Zimbabwe in the late 1990s, the sheen was fading. The university had substantially increased the number of students without a corresponding increase in facilities and funding. Student strikes, an exodus of staff and "unprofessional fingers involved in the affairs of the university" had led to the decline in its reputation.
Recognising this, the elite began sending their children to South African universities. It didn't help that the government developed a "distrust of autonomous intellectuals." Mugabe was no different. Despite having accumulated seven degrees, he was intolerant of views different to his own, preferring a collective nodding of heads in agreement with him. Surrounded by increasingly incompetent subordinates, it was quite possibly Mugabe's fatal flaw.
Educated at the University of Zimbabwe and later in South Africa at Wits, Percy Zvomuya is the author of a new biography, Robert Mugabe: The Black Victorian (Jonathan Ball). Born in 1977, three years before Mugabe came to power, he draws on his experiences as a Zimbabwean who had only known one President for most of his life.
As with other biographers, he attempts to understand how a quiet and studious loner rose to a position of power and held onto it for 37 years.
The author was a product of Mugabe's education drive; Mugabe was the product of a Catholic education in the village of Kutama. His reading might have been limited to school and religious texts, but he also developed a deep knowledge of his home language, Shona.
As a boy, Mugabe loved reading. Contemporaries recalled that even when he herded cattle he had a book in his hand, but it was also when his solitary and ruthless character took root. From the priests Mugabe learnt Latin (which was still used in the church) and how to speak good English. This ability was enhanced when he took elocution lessons at Fort Hare University where he obtained a BA degree and that distinctive timbre and inflection in his voice.
One of the few professions available to educated black Rhodesians was as a teacher, a path taken by Mugabe. He was always more comfortable with children, but how good a teacher he was is difficult to assess. He never became a headmaster or even a deputy. Perhaps he moved too much from place to place. One stint saw him in Ghana where he met Sally Hayfron whom he later married in 1961.
The Accidental Revolutionary
His command of the English language was a decided asset when Mugabe entered politics. The liberation movement lacked someone who had "big words, long words, impressive words." He quickly became a platform favourite: people reacted well to the way he delivered his speeches. A young Emmerson Mnangagwa (who would force Mugabe out of office and take over the Presidency in 2017) recalled how fluent and articulate Mugabe was: "we were enthused by his English when he addressed the congress."
His entry into politics was sudden. According to the author, there was no epiphany. There was a sense of an accidental revolutionary, as if a man goes into a shop to buy a pinstriped suit, but opts for a Kente kaftan.
The consequences were real. Arrested in 1963, Mugabe endured a decade-long internment in Rhodesian prisons. During this period, his three-year old son, whom he had seen only twice, died of cerebral malaria. Mugabe's request to attend the funeral was denied.
In 1975 he went into exile in Mozambique, whose President, Samora Machel, gave him refuge but never warmed to him. There Mugabe consolidated his grip on the party and the guerilla movement. Intolerant of dissent, callous and distrustful, there were already early signs of "the dear leader" cult around his personality.
Yet when he came to power in 1980, Mugabe soothed his detractors, established cordial relations with his nemesis, Ian Smith, and backtracked on the Marxist rhetoric. He wore a suit (and expected his cabinet to do likewise) and projected an image of a capable, well-educated leader. Therein is his tragedy.
The Reality of State Violence
He was well-educated but devoid of wisdom. Even if had served just one term in office, his legacy would have been tarnished by the brutality he unleashed through the North Korean-trained 5th Brigade in 1982. (Surely the author's claim that this agreement was entered into in October 1980 is incorrect.)
Much about Mugabe remains unfathomable. Zvomuya calls him a black Victorian, a catchy subtitle, but one without substance. He never offers any basis for this, apart from a lukewarm statement that Mugabe was "almost Victorian in his ways".
He was much more of a throwback to the absolute monarchs who ruled by divine right. In the dying days of his rule, it was his second wife, Grace, who tried to save his throne when she told the party that Mugabe was anointed and therefore irremovable. With her own eyes on the crown, she was equally delusional.
As with Mugabe's other biographers, Zvomuya charts Zimbabwe's descent into chaos, misrule, corruption and violence – the altar on which Mugabe clung to power until, aged 93, he was forced out.
For a while it had seemed that his star would shine, but by the time Nelson Mandela was elected President in South Africa, history had already condemned Mugabe. As Mandela once quipped of the resentful Mugabe: "He was the star until the sun came out."