Cry The Beloved Zimbabwe

Could it be that Robert Mugabe is not the evil tyrant that he is made out to be? Maybe he is not sole author of Zimbabwe’s economic peril and ‘humanitarian crisis’. Might there be more to it? Perhaps the man is just one ugly head of a larger and much more sinister socio-societal beast.

Thinking broadly about the land question in Southern Africa in the 20th century as a legacy of colonialism and a dispersion of political power in postcolonial Zimbabwe between War Veterans and urban based worker unions, Mamdani thinks there is more going on in a letter to the London Review of Books. But then R.W Johnson (never heard of him before to be honest), response letter finds Mamdani’s arguments selective and altogether spurious. However, Mamdani’s come back letter suggests that his respondents either romanticize Mugabe or demonise him with little room for other more interesting arguments.