Andy Young and the Obama feeding frenzy

Like everyone else on the planet, I was interested, first in the election of Barak Obama to the office of President-elect of the United States. I watched it while visiting my family in Connecticut. This state was pretty solidly behind the Democratic candidate and it was a rare event for me to find myself on the winning side. So many times in my former incarnation in Rhodesia and Zimbabwe, I lost. This was because I was, and remain, an unrepentant `liberal'. However, this term is subject to constant re-definition. In Rhodesian-speak this description meant, to those of us who called ourselves liberal, that we were non-racial. I have said this many times before but it bears repeating: in the days of RF rule we were accused of being `commies' and, more ignorantly, by the more racist element of our society `kaffir lovers'.

The term`liberal' if applied to our Rhodesian/Zimbabwean ilk has taken on a negative meaning in the past decade or so because it implies that we were/are bending over backwards to advertise or prove our non-racial outlook, thus offending or irritating people of colour. `Patronizing' is possibly the best word for it.

How to escape all this in the new age of Obama?

I was fortunate to get a copy of Time magazine last week in which leading Afro-Americans gave their views on Barak Obama, before that great `inauguration' event. One of these famous men, Andy Young, visited Rhodesia before it became Zimbabwe: he was a part of the `Anglo-American' thrust to end Rhodesian isolationism and bring Zimbabwe back into the international fold. We `liberals' in Rhodesia's Centre Party were privileged to meet him briefly and so it was with great interest that I read his particular `take' on Barak Obama. Of all the acres of newsprint and media-speak, his words were the first to express something I hoped would eventually be admitted by some guru, some individual whose credentials regarding race are untainted by the historic complexities of a racially unbalanced world order. This, in part, is what he said:

"... He [Obama] never set himself up as the saviour of the world. He set himself up as someone who articulates and represents and can hopefully lead us to be the best Americans that we can be. He isn't just black; he's an Afro-Asian-Latin European. [my emphasis]. That means he's a global citizen.... he defies categorization"

That's an attitude I have long awaited - in the hope that some inspired leader would shape it - as the `new world order' we were promised at the end of the Cold War, in the last decade of the 20th Century.





Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell

WILL MISHEK SIBANDA BECOME CHIEF SECRETARY TO AN ILLEGAL CABINET?

SIBANDA Mishek

I am prompted to write yet another `People I Once Knew’ entry here, having been reminded some time ago by a VOA News report (Jan 2, 2009 - see ZWNEWS Jan 3) of my encounters in Rhodesia and Zimbabwe with Dr Mishek Sibanda. I know that he has served for some years as Zimbabwe’s Chief Cabinet Secretary. At the time of writing, a new cabinet, shortly to be appointed by the usurper, Robert Mugabe, will be an illegal one.

Mishek was my former lecturer at the University of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe in 1978 when I was in my final year of part-time studies for a Masters degree in African History. He was employed at that time as a lecturer in the History faculty along with Dr David Beech, a towering scholar. Now sadly deceased, Beech wrote learned books on Shona history. Sibanda had come fresh out of the University of Sierra Leone to teach in his home country but clearly knew little about the particular aspect of history that I was being taught. David Beech rather showed off his very superior knowledge while Sibanda remained mute most of the time. It was an unusual situation: I was the sole surviving M.A.student (two others having dropped out along the way). There were these two pairs of eyes staring at me while I racked my brains to remember what history had been told to absorb and prepare for the lectures.

Dr Sibanda and I were to meet again several times in different circumstances and this was before he was sent off to Moscow as Ambassador for Zimbabwe. The first reunion came in the eighties while he was employed – presumably by ZANU PF - as the private secretary to President Canaan Banana and was resident at Government house in the eighties. I wanted to present Banana whom I had met years earlier during the seventies – (and this is another story which will be to be found eventually in my memoirs) with a copy of my 1980 update of my Who’s Who of African Nationalist leaders in Zimbabwe. The book included a portrait with a brief, captioned CV of the President. I had contacted Sibanda who, to my surprise (and delight at the time), invited me to tea at government house. I was ushered into the presence of his boss who, even more surprisingly, personally served me tea out of an exquisite filigree patterned china tea set AND offered delicate cucumber sandwiches. I think the Reverend Canaan Banana was still performing in Socialist mode but was somewhat confused by the residual protocol of the old colonial Government House. His secretary, Sibanda looked on quietly while we conversed very formally, the President and I, about our past encounters in Bishop Muzorewa’s office in Harare more than a decade years earlier and we exchanged polite views on the future of a country now freed from Ian Smith’s Rhodesian Front government.

The Rev. Banana lost his job when Zimbabwe’s Constitution changed in 1987. He was removed from the office of non-executive President while Mugabe was anointed (you could say now that he was self-apointed) as the country’s first executive President.

The next time I met up with Mishek (we were always on first name terms) he was ensconced as a civil servant in government offices in Harare’s Central Ave (Compensation House) - as was my civil engineer husband in another department ( Water Development). Mishek worked for a government Ministry whose description I have forgotten for the moment. This time, the ubiquitous Dr Sibanda had undertaken (moonlighting, I suppose) the editing of the history section of an Encyclopedia of Zimbabwe which was being produced by Quest publishers. Among my contacts and friends was Kay Sayce, overseeing the project, and it was she who suggested that I should be asked to submit updates for the encyclopedia of the current political leaders’ biographies. Mishek was to be in charge of the work which I submitted and for which I was paid 5c per word.

It was an age of innocence: I was truly shocked when, in the course of the work, Mishek corresponded with me using government stationery for what was essentially a commercial operation and for which he too was being be paid. “On Government Service”, writ large across big, brown envelopes had replaced OHMS (On Her Majesty’s Service). Formerly, a colonial civil servant would scarcely have dared to use these for anything but government business. Some time later, postage stamps were added because it had become clear to the postal service that it would be swamped, cleaned out perhaps, by new civil servants availing themselves of what they regarded as a free-for-all postal facility (In the final event, even these stamps went out of fashion and I know not how the system worked after that)

Cautiously, I kept my thoughts about Mishek’s irresponsible behavior, or call it petty thievery, to myself because I needed help from his wife who had a job in the National Art Gallery and I wanted her collaboration with an International Artists Workshop which I had been asked (by Mrs Pat Pearce) to organize. But that is a story for another blog. This quiet man, Mishek Sibanda clearly knew which side his bread was buttered: working for the ruling party may have had its glory at the beginning. What a shame that his name, like the rest of them in that dreadful trough will go down in ignomy when the history of a once great country is written.

Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell

WHAT HAPPENED TO HELEN SUZMAN'S INSIGNIA FROM MANDELA

The Late, Great Lady's Gong from Mandela is in a Harare Township
I have admired Helen Suzman for as long as I can remember. I never dreamed that I would meet her - this long-serving champion of justice and freedom for fellow South Africans who expressed herself so calmly and brilliantly in her career in Parliament. But not only did I meet her, but I shared with her an adventure in Harare's Mbare which I am sure she would have been anxious to forget.

The story goes like this: Wilf Mbanga a journalist who had (still has) a talent for persuading the great and famous - Desmond Tutu, Alister Sparks, Wole Soyinka were among his scoops - to agree to address large audiences of their admirers. Helen Suzman flew in to Harare about fifteen years ago, to address Zimbabweans attending a Willie Musarurwa Memorial banquet in Harare on the subject of Freedom of Expression. I served with Wilf on the committee of the Trust and had been involved in the usual planning and organization of this annual event.

I was more than pleased when Wilf called me the morning after Helen had delivered her speech and asked me to join him and a British journalist, taking Helen in his Mercedes on a tour of Harare's places of interest on her way to Harare's airport. We picked her up, together with her light, overnight luggage from her hotel. She was immaculate in a navy blue suit with matching handbag; her silver hair, groomed to perfection did not conceal the expensive gold stud ear rings. I wore my favourite grey tracksuit and carried a large matching, sack-like bag. It was a hot day and Helen removed her jacket as she entered the car and sat beside Wilf on the front seatwhile I (for reasons I cannot explain) sat on my bag beside the Brit on the back seat.

The tour included a visit to the Borrowdale Shopping Centre (Sam Levy's Village) and an uphill walk from the parking lot to the top of Harare's `Kopje' to see the 180 degree view of the City of Harare and the sourrounding countryside. We made small talk as we passed the Law Courts in Rotten Row, when Helen remarked "What I really want to see is a Zimbabwean African township" Okay, Wilf turned off after we crossed the flyover into the crowded lane behind the Rufaro football stadium. The pavements were filled with street vendors and Wilf had to slow down to make his way along the narrow road. Helen had just remarked "Is this your Zimbabwe's Soweto" when Wilf gave an alarmed shout as a strong black arm came through his window. At the same time a young vendor opened the front passenger door, grabbed Helen's handbag and her jacket from her lap and made off with them. It all happened with lightening speed. Wilf leaped out of the car, picked up a large stone and with the Brit gave chase, disappearing among the buildings on the roadside.

Helen was livid. "My insignia! It was on my jacket lapel - its my insignia from Nelson Mandela!" she wailed and she too leaped out of her seat, and stood beside the car calling down some amazing curses on the thief. Rich language, I thought, and perfectly justified. Meanwhile, what was I doing? I was sure she was going to be mugged on her feet. I leaned over and slammed Wilf's door shut, jumped out and hustled Helen back into the car. My own almost invisible handbag was untouched. Wilf and the Brit returned empty handed, matching Helen's language. A a quick u-turn and we were out of there, shouting at a passing police vehicle that we had been robbed.

Helen's stolen handbag had contained her plane ticket, her cash, her glasses, her keys to her house in Johannesburg's Houghton suburb - everything a woman keeps on her person when travelling.

"I have to get that plane, we've only got two hours before it flies" pleaded Helen. The next couple of hours were astonishing to say the least.

First stop after the robbery is the South African High Commission whose official town offices at the time were in the Sanlam Building in the city centre. But it is a Saturday morning and the offices are closed. We dash into a clothing shop on the ground floor, below the offices. In desperate haste we approach a young woman who is holding a telephone to her ear. She does not recognise Helen and, looking annoyed, says we must wait for attention.. "Where is the manager?" I demand. "I am the manager," she says archly. No progress here and we dash off like a bunch of rabbits to a shop beside the Treasure Trove in second street where we know that there is a Chinese who runs an efficient photograpy business. He recognises the urgency in our wild eyes and allows us to jump the waiting queue. Minutes later we have passport photographs of Helen. No mobile phones on us, we decide to split our forces. Wilf and Helen go in one direction to get a new ticket, using his credit card after I am dropped at the gate of the South African Ambassador's suburban home in Kew Drive, just half a block from my own home in Highlands. The iron barred gate is firmly locked and behind them a startled security guard, sees a middle-aged matron in a track suit dancing about like a monkey, clutching the bars, demanding to see the boss and claiming to be a friend of Nelson Mandela. (I knew the young man would not recognise the name of the famous lady we were trying to rescue). Nervously, the guard picks up his intercom phone and calls the Ambassador the estimable Mamabulo. By great good luck he is in the house. Miraculously, I am allowed inside. The ambassador comes running down the stairs, recognises me as I pace anxiously in his reception area. Getting the message pretty damn quick, he moves into action. We roar off in his official car to the SA passport offices in Princess Drive, the High Commissioner instructing some officer to meet us there, open the gates and the doors and get Helen Suzman a temporary passport.

The great lady, her photos, her passport and her ticket home are united. She catches the plane. Well done Ambassador, well done Wilf.

Helen wrote to thank us after she had replaced her lost possessions - but not the the treasured insignia.

With every one of the multitude of her admirers, I mourn her passing.


Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell

REVELATIONS RE RHODESIA FROM 1978 ARCHIVES

KEN FLOWER A `DOUBLE AGENT' AND HICKMAN A WOULD-BE `TURNCOAT'

At last, when most adult and middle-aged Rhodesians who lived through the eventual political and military turbulance of a bush war at the climax of the Rhodesian crisis - which began with Smith's UDI in November 1965 - are dead, I have lived to hear Matthew Parris and David Owen confirm what we `white liberals' suspected, but would not have dared to suggest. Ken Flower, the CIO boss and the military man, Col. John Hickman were no friends of Ian Smith, although at the time, this was not well known.
The opening up of new files (1978) at the British national archives has enabled these sensitive secrets to move into the public domain.
Martha Carney's UK Confidential programme on Radio 4 hosted two men (why never any women, Martha?) who were involved in Rhodesia's history in one way or another. She gave space to Lord Owen (Dr David Owen, the former British Foreign Secretary, as we white liberals knew him when we met him in Rhodesia in 1978), and Matthew Parris (whose mother Terry was partially responsible for setting me on my political path in Rhodesia in 1966). The program was given advance notice of these archival revelations and my ears were bent firmly towards the radio, only to hear mighty little of Rhodesia's history other than the features outlined here, but it was enough. Speculation has given way to documented proof.
Researching through the few books I was able to bring with me into exile in England I find that Godwin and Hancock's " `Rhodesians Never Die' " (Oxford, 1993) were aware of these little hidden truths and gave them their first airing, but with some caution.
I never met Hickman although my husband was at school with his rival, General Peter Walls and knew him well as a boy). But we were friendly with Ken Flower in a careful sort of way (we played tennis on his Hoggerty Hill tennis court, but never discussed politics). His daughter will forgive me for this commentary because she probably knows that I was among those who persuaded her late father to write his memoir `Serving Secretly' about his work as a top man in Rhodesia's Central Intelligence Organization who went on to serve Bishop Muzorewa and eventually Robert Mugabe. (He died before this latter individual turned really nasty). My favourite story about Ken is of how I met up with him during the Independence party to host Prince Charles at Government House in Rhodesia in 1980. He and Emerson Mnangagwa were a little tiddly, to use a polite expression, and were hanging on to a tent pole in a great Marquee, reminiscing over their top security roles on either side of the Liberation Struggle. I boldly asked if they would help me to have access to their files so that I could write more biographies of the leading lights among the political and military of Zanu PF and ZANLA.

They fell about laughing, clutching the tent pole. I don't remember which it was but one of them gasped "We got a lot of our information from your published Whos Who!"
Ah well, so much for all that and God rest you, dear Ken Flower.

Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell

ALL HIS, MUGABE SPEAKS TRUTH

"Zimbabwe is mine" announced Robert Mugabe to his party Congress this week-end.
The Times added "all mine". That was closer to the truth: all the pain, the suffering, the torture, the starvation, the ruined economy, the devastated farming industry, the unholy killings of illegal diamond panners, the collapse of the health and education systems.... the list would fill this page, all these belong to Mugabe. That is all his; that is what this so-called liberator now rules over as Zimbabwe approaches the status of a failed state, HIS failed state. It is his failed state. Somebody must make him give it back to the people and then he must take the punishement for failing HIS Zimbabwe.

Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell

Kirsty's success is something else

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

Deary me, Arthur Mutambara has a problem

`I am coming out of Oxford. None of your prime ministers can challenge me intellectually'

Arthur is in a muddle. He was invited to lead the Welshman Ncube faction of the MDC when the split came in the wake of Mugabe's divisive, tactical move, restoring Senate seats in Parliament in 2005. He was last seen by this writer as a young student revolutionary, braving the teargas and the beatings of the Zimbabwe Republic police because students dared to take issue with the corruption of the Zimbabwe government's ruling ZANU (PF) party.
When he popped up again, he was a rocket scientist - the genuine article. Could he steer into his political laboratory the mass support that Morgan Tsvangirai had built up in the country over seven years? It seems not and clearly, his failure is hurting this vain man.
In his interview with Australian Geraldine Doogue he lost it. After a good start, denying reports that he was cosying up to Mugabe, he proceeded with a credible upstaging of Mugabe's anti-western, Afro-centric, self-regarding trumpet blowing. Trouble is Mugabe had already occupied mount Olympus and laid claim to the highest authority: "Only God can remove me from power" is what the old man revealed to us when he found himself with his back to the wall this year.
As for Mutambara's rudeness, crudeness really, in calling his interviewer stupid - was that really necessary in order to prove his own mental superiority?
Perhaps he should go back to exercising his great mind in the field for which he is best qualified. He is clearly and demonstrably not much good as a politician thus far.
I am sorry for the good people in his party - they are some of the best that the country has to offer and it is a pity that their principles would not allow them to stick with Morgan Tsvangirai. The country needs their integrity and good minds even though they did not go to Oxford.

Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell