When I read of the garlands (and cash) being thrown at the successful, brilliant Olympics performer, Kirsty Coventry by the despicable Mugabe regime I wondered how they cope with their own internal contradictions. Kirsty, after all is a white Zimbabwean. All Zimbabweans are proud of her achievement, she has worked hard for it and deserves recognition from the country of her birth.
However - and this is a big `however' - the same recognition should go for countless hardworking and once successful people in Zimbabwean both white and black and who are not at all favoured by Mugabe because they support a legitimate opposition party, the MDC. Mugabe blames whites, especially British whites for the existence of the MDC and for all of his own many failures. In exalting white Kirsty, Robert Mugabe is going directly against his announcement that `the only good white is a dead one' and the many other uncharming expressions of distaste he has disgorged from his bilous and uncouth mouth over the past few years.
Surely, if we follow through this argument, Mugabe should wake up to the fact that there is (or was) a huge resource of talent, not only for sports individuals, in Zimbabwe. This was before he either stifled it because of the severe doubts about his own talent, doubts that have led people to reject him at the polls or caused a massive flight of talent out of the country. Kirsty was famous when she lived in Zimbabwe. Now she is an Olympian and travels the world but is based in the US. Mugabe hates the US, he hates whites but he loves success. At this time, unfortunately for him and his henchmen who regard Zimbabwe as their personal fiefdom, the success is not his, nor is it theirs.
As a post script to this rave, I have today read of the elevation of Mugabe's slavishly loyal Minister Aeneas Chigwedere to a position of Provincial Governor (of course, if all goes well in the current talks about power, he might not keep the job). I happened on this same day, to be re-reading Judy Todd's valuable testimony to the lives of the Todd family in her recent book Through the Darkness. I find the same `cognitive dissonance' or call it schizophrenia or split personality - or whatever in regard to race, in the fact that as recently as December 2001, this same Chigwedere delivered himself of a great eulogy, giving fulsome praise to a fine educationist. This was a white woman, Mrs Grace Todd, who he called `a great daughter of Zimbabwe'. He had formerly presented Mrs Todd with his manuscript entitled The White Heroes of Zimbabwe. I ask myself why this MS has not been published. Chigwedere, who stands so high in Mugabe's favour did not protest when Grace Todd's husband, a great, white Zimbabwean man, Sir Garfield Todd was, as a very old man, assaulted by ZANU (PF) thugs. I do not recall and have not read of any effort made by this same pompous historian and former schoolteacher to protest at the disgraceful treatment of the famous Grace's equally famous daughter, Judith who fought hard for black nationalism's cause. I hardly need to remind readers that Judy was virtually exiled by the ruling ZANU (PF), many of whose Ministers and top officials had been educated and even protected in the dark days of racial discrimation by the Todds. Judy, racially discriminated against, has been declared a foreigner in Zimbabwe, the country of her birth. Watch out, still young - and great- Kirsty!
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
No comments:
Post a Comment