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Journal of Southern African Studies Robert Mugabe and the Decline and Fall of Zimbabwe Degrees in Violence: Robert Mugabe and the Struggle for Power in Zimbabwe by David Blair; Robert Mugabe: Life of Power and Violence by Stephen Chan; Our Votes, Our Guns: Robert Mugabe and the Tragedy of Zimbabwe by Martin Meredith Review by: Roy E. Brownell II Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Jun., 2004), pp. 393-399 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4133842 . Accessed: 10/06/2014 03:02 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Taylor & Francis, Ltd. and Journal of Southern African Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Southern African Studies. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 188.72.127.85 on Tue, 10 Jun 2014 03:02:21 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Robert Mugabe and the Decline and Fall of Zimbabwe

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Page 1: Robert Mugabe and the Decline and Fall of Zimbabwe

Journal of Southern African Studies

Robert Mugabe and the Decline and Fall of ZimbabweDegrees in Violence: Robert Mugabe and the Struggle for Power in Zimbabwe by David Blair;Robert Mugabe: Life of Power and Violence by Stephen Chan; Our Votes, Our Guns: RobertMugabe and the Tragedy of Zimbabwe by Martin MeredithReview by: Roy E. Brownell IIJournal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Jun., 2004), pp. 393-399Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4133842 .

Accessed: 10/06/2014 03:02

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Taylor & Francis, Ltd. and Journal of Southern African Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,preserve and extend access to Journal of Southern African Studies.

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This content downloaded from 188.72.127.85 on Tue, 10 Jun 2014 03:02:21 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 2: Robert Mugabe and the Decline and Fall of Zimbabwe

Journal of Southern African Studies, Volume 30, Number 2, June 2004 Carfax Publishing Taylor & Francis Group

Book Reviews

Robert Mugabe and the Decline and Fall of Zimbabwe

David Blair, Degrees in Violence: Robert Mugabe and the Struggle for Power in Zimbabwe London, Continuum Books, 2002, x + 258 pp., $22.95 hardback, ISBN 0-8264-5974-9.

Stephen Chan, Robert Mugabe: Life of Power and Violence, Ann Arbor, Michigan, University of Michigan Press, 2003, xvi + 243 pp., $27.95 hardback, ISBN 0-472- 11336-4.

Martin Meredith, Our Votes, Our Guns: Robert Mugabe and the Tragedy of Zimbabwe New York, Public Affairs, 2002, 243 pp., $26.00 hardback, ISBN 1-58648-128-2.

Introduction

In many ways, the public career of Robert Gabriel Mugabe has been in decline ever since 18 April 1980. That day, the day of Zimbabwean Independence and of his own inauguration as the new nation's first prime minister, Mugabe gave an address worthy of the greatest 20th century liberation leaders: Gandhi, King, Mandela.

If yesterday I fought you as an enemy, today you have become a friend and ally with the same national interest, loyalty, rights and duties as myself. If yesterday you hated me, you cannot avoid the love that binds you to me and me to you... The wrongs of the past must now stand forgiven and forgotten. If ever we look to the past, let us do so for the lesson the past has taught us, namely that oppression and racism are inequalities that must never find scope in our political and social system. It could never be a correct justification that because the whites oppressed us yesterday when they had power, the blacks must oppress them today because they have the power. An evil remains an evil whether practised by white against black or black against white.

The speech was in equal parts, conciliatory, pragmatic and uplifting. It reinforced the moral high ground of the liberators and did not deign to the excesses of the old regime. It pointed optimistically toward a Zimbabwe that could build upon the political, social and economic institutions established during the colonial era by opening up those benefits to the enjoyment of the entire citizenry. With these words, Mugabe seemed to be well on his way towards following the advice given him by fellow liberation leader, President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania: 'You have inherited a jewel. Keep it that way'.

The past 23 years have transformed those expressions of hope and optimism into words of bitter

irony. By 2002, economic mismanagement had exacerbated drought conditions to leave over half of the Zimbabwean population requiring emergency food assistance in what was once the breadbasket of southern Africa. At the time of writing, inflation in Zimbabwe continues to skyrocket, skilled Zimbabweans are leaving the country in droves and sources of foreign exchange and capital are drying up at an alarming rate. At the same time, political repression has left the country's once-vibrant civil society in tatters. In short, Zimbabwe is a country spiralling downward at a dizzying rate.

ISSN 0305-7070 print; 1465-3893 online/04/020393-22 ? 2004 Journal of Southern African Studies DOI: 10.1080/0305707042000215428

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International recognition of Mugabe's central role in Zimbabwe's unravelling, has been somewhat slow to arrive, however, especially among African leaders.' Until recently, Mugabe, despite his autocratic ways, enjoyed a favourable international reputation due to his status as a former liberation leader, his early conciliatory gestures following independence, his efforts to promote a resolution to the Mozambican civil war and his role as a leader of the Front Line States in the anti-apartheid movement.

Prior to 2002, the only biography of the Zimbabwean president in wide circulation (other than children's books and collections of speeches) was a journalistic account by David Smith and Colin Simpson.2 That book appeared in 1981 at the height of Mugabe's international reputation and while not an outright apologia of Mugabe, the work was exceedingly favourable, if not at times naive. Perhaps the authors can be excused for some of their journalistic hyperbole in light of the optimistic Zimbabwean Zeitgeist of the early 1980s but comments such as 'Mugabe's visions of a one-party state is a far, far cry from dictatorship: and the land in question [for redistribution] is only that which has been left to rot' have hardly withstood the test of time.3

Despite the enduring power of his reputation, by the time of Zimbabwe's March 2002 presidential election, the Mugabe regime had finally begun to receive the notoriety it had long deserved. In anticipation of that election, two accounts of Zimbabwean political developments were published with an eye toward the general public: Martin Meredith's Our Votes, Our Guns and David Blair's Degrees in Violence. These were followed in short order by Stephen Chan's Robert Mugabe: Life of Power and Violence, a more academic treatment of Mugabe's reign. All three books, in their own way, provide a corrective to the long-standing Smith & Simpson biographical perspective on Mugabe. They paint a portrait of a man who has helped drive a once-promising African nation into rapid decline; a leader following the course of Mobutu instead of Mandela.

Limitations of Biography

Each of these books to varying degrees uses the public life of Mugabe as a palimpsest of Zimbabwean political history. Biographies, of course, have their limitations as works of history. By definition, biographies describe the life of one person and they refract the description of historical events accordingly. While Thomas Carlyle's belief that the 'history of the world is but the

biography of great men' is quoted today only for use as a straw man, biographers still tend to overly personalise events - events that occurred for a variety of structural and institutional reasons as well as factors stemming from individual human agency. In this way, biographers often tend to magnify the role of their subject, perhaps subconsciously to vindicate their own investment of effort but also because biographies necessarily centralise narrative around a single individual. With that in mind, some biographical subjects lend themselves better than others to serving as historical focal points. In the case of the life of Robert Mugabe, because he has ruled Zimbabwe from the time of independence onward, and because he has done so in large part autocratically, a discussion of his public career in many ways fits nicely alongside a discussion of the Zimbabwean polity.

That does not mean that Mugabe is an easy subject for a biographer. First, Mugabe operates within a closed political system and grants few interviews. Therefore, few objective writers have access to him in a meaningful way. Second, he has left behind few helpful writings that would open up a window into his thinking. The writings that do exist are not particularly revealing. Third, since he is still alive and still fully capable of exacting retribution, Zimbabweans who might reveal insightful information about him are often hesitant to do so. Each of the three authors wrestles with these limitations with varying degrees of success.

1 President Wade of Senegal has been a rare and notable exception among African heads of state. Former South African President Nelson Mandela has criticised Mugabe indirectly and Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa has been openly critical of Mugabe.

2 D. Smith & C. Simpson (with I. Davies), Mugabe (Great Britain, Pioneer Head (Pvt) Ltd., 1981). 3 Ibid., p.217.

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Meredith and Blair

All three interpretations of Mugabe's governance are not only exceedingly timely given Zimbabwe's current state, but they presage what is likely to become the prevailing historical judgement of the Mugabe regime: it has had a decidedly negative effect upon the nation of Zimbabwe. Each addresses this problem in a different manner.

Meredith's Our Votes, Our Guns and Blair's Degrees in Violence are narrative works that sound similar themes. Both authors focus predominantly on domestic developments in Zimbabwe. They trace the post-independence political challenges to the ruling Zimbabwe Africa National Union-Patri- otic Front's (ZANU-PF) authority and the consequent brutality of the Mugabe regime in suppressing them; both reveal the hollowness of ZANU-PF's 'land reform' efforts, pointing out that, despite the real need for an orderly redistribution of land, Mugabe's slipshod approach to the problem has been little more than another form of ZANU-PF political patronage; both authors are relentlessly honest and graphic in their accounts of Zimbabwean political violence; and finally, both point out that the recent spate of intimidation and racialist politics (toward both the Ndebele and white Zimbabweans) are not recent phenomena. Meredith and Blair demonstrate clearly that, throughout his career, Mugabe's modus operandi has been one of intimidation and ruthlessness when confronted with political opposition of any sort. During the Civil War in the 1970s, Mugabe used violence to terrorise rural black African communities into submission, and used similar tactics, it is rumoured, to eliminate rivals within the liberation movement. During the 1980s, Mugabe used the North Korean-trained 5th Brigade to subdue Matabeleland murderously (estimates have put civilian deaths as high as 18,000), and today Mugabe utilises his ZANU-PF 'brown shirts' - the self styled 'war veterans' - to carry out an ongoing assault against his political opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and its allies.

For the generalist, both authors have an engaging style that will draw the reader in. Meredith has an unadorned style that carries the reader along effortlessly. Blair's style is more animated and lively. The vivid descriptions of the victims of ZANU-PF violence that Blair encountered are particularly compelling in their brutal candour.

How badly are you hurt? I asked, inanely. Silence. I asked again, nervously. Silence. Then, with one movement, Beauty [the victim] threw aside the thin blanket. She lay face down and naked. Every inch of her flesh, from heels to shoulders, was criss-crossed with red weals, seeping blood and white pus. Vivid, blue bruises stained the skin in between. No feature of her body could be discerned, beyond one great amalgamation of wounds. She drew deep, exhausted painful breaths. Her wounds had not even been bandaged.4

Descriptions such as this give human form to otherwise cold statistics and numbing recitations of abuses.

In their own way, both books serve as vivid accounts of the political landscape of this once-promising nation. Meredith, who is author of several books on southern African affairs and a former foreign correspondent for the Observer and Sunday Times, geared his work more toward a generalist audience and in some ways his work is more accessible than Blair's in that it takes more of a traditional biographical approach. Meredith focuses considerable attention on Mugabe's early life and career and generally charts a conventionally chronological course. That approach comes at a cost, however, since it short-changes the reader by placing too little emphasis on broader, structural factors affecting the country. Blair's book, Degrees in Violence, is preferable in this respect since it provides much more depth to its discussion of contemporary Zimbabwean politics and, despite its biographical form, does not personalise the country's political history to the extent that Meredith does. Blair's discussion of the land issue in Zimbabwe is particularly well-researched and sophisti- cated.

While the two narrative accounts are very much alike, Blair's Degrees in Violence is superior in most respects. Blair's book certainly better serves the purposes of the academic reader as it is

4 David Blair, Degrees in Violence: Robert Mugabe and the Struggle for Power in Zimbabwe (London, Continuum Books, 2002), p. 118.

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designed for a more seasoned audience than Meredith's Our Votes, Our Guns. Unlike Meredith's book, which relies strictly on secondary sources, Blair's work reflects the author's first-hand experience in Zimbabwe during this traumatic period. Blair, who was a foreign correspondent for the British newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, from 1999-2001, was actually expelled from the country by ZANU-PF for his intrepid reporting and the author's personal experience is woven gracefully into the narrative. As noted above, Blair also interviewed scores of torture victims, detailing in gruesome detail their mistreatment at the hands of ZANU-PF operatives. In addition, Blair witnessed first-hand a number of frightening acts of political intimidation by the ruling party.

Whereas Meredith focuses more attention on a traditional narrative history of post-independence Zimbabwe, which is of less value to scholars, Blair places much greater emphasis on the events of 2000-2001 when ZANU-PF began to escalate its tactics of violence and intimidation. Because these events are so recent and relatively unexplored in book form, and because Blair's work is so thoroughly detailed and researched, his efforts may prove to be a fruitful starting point for future scholars examining this period. In fact, portions of Blair's book in this respect may serve as helpful primary source material for future authors. To assist the interested reader further, Blair also provides footnotes at the end of each chapter.

Despite the overall superiority of Blair's Degrees in Violence from an academic standpoint, Meredith's Our Votes, Our Guns does offer three distinct advantages. First, Blair's strength is also his weakness. He has witnessed the brutality of ZANU-PF's tactics first hand, therefore, at times he seems unable to step back sufficiently to be objective. He cannot resist throwing an occasional, gratuitous barb Mugabe's way as his antipathy toward the Zimbabwean leader boils over. He demeans Mugabe as a man who is 'clearly no intellectual' and concludes that 'what passed for his political thought was indistinguishable from that of any illiterate rebel' (p. 24). In fairness to Mugabe, he has never held himself out as a political philosopher. Digs such as this one by Blair needlessly devalue his work and distract from the litany of abuses Blair so ably reports. Meredith, who lives and writes in England, brings more detachment to bear upon his subject.

Second, Meredith discusses in much greater detail the Zimbabwean mischief that has taken place in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the parallel financial corruption that ZANU-PF has encouraged at home. Zimbabwe's military intervention in DRC played a major role in hobbling the Zimbabwean economy while enriching ZANU-PF members in the process. Here again, Blair is on the ground reporting the domestic scene in Zimbabwe. Blair is generally more focused on political repression within Zimbabwe and his discussion does not detail this aspect of the Mugabe regime as closely as perhaps it should. Meredith, on the other hand, has the benefit of distance and that perspective helps provide him with a more detached albeit less immediate narrative. Third, Meredith provides a helpful bibliography while Blair does not.

These three factors are the exception rather than the rule, however. Overall, the thoroughness and sophistication of Blair's Degrees in Violence are likely to appeal much more to Africanists than will Meredith's Our Votes, Our Guns. While both books can be read with profit, given a choice between the two, both the academic and the generalist should seek out Blair's account of the Zimbabwean tragedy. Although Blair's book is perhaps not as widely distributed in the United States as Meredith's book, those who take the trouble to track it down will generally be rewarded for their efforts.

Chan

Stephen Chan's book is distinct from the two more narrative accounts in a number of respects. Not surprisingly, given Chan's status as Professor of International Relations and Dean of Law and Social Sciences at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, his book is tailored more toward an academic audience than the other two. Chan provides, for example, an expansive annotated bibliography. Chan is also adept at combining not only a review of primary source documents and secondary literature but also insights from Chan's many contacts within the African diplomatic corps.

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Chan's approach is not aridly academic, however. He writes with a good deal of punch. He refers to Rhodesian white attitudes toward black Africans as 'both Boerish and simply boorish'5 and their 'pointed (and sometimes pointless) atrocity'.6 That said, Chan's style does at times come across as overly self-conscious and he occasionally stumbles in his efforts to write cleverly.

As far as biographical treatment, Chan's book is the least focused of the three on Mugabe's life story per se. Mugabe's youth and years as a liberation leader are left unexplored. Aside from this book's more academic bearing, the main point of departure from the Blair and Meredith books is the emphasis it places on Zimbabwe's place within the international arena. Here, Chan is fully within his element, reflecting his earlier career in the Commonwealth Secretariat. In this vein, Chan does not fall prey to focusing just on Western-Zimbabwean or African-Zimbabwean international relationships. Chan covers both with equal skill.

While Chan places more emphasis on the international aspects of Mugabe's political career, he also strives to portray Mugabe as fairly as possible. Repeatedly, Chan maintains that he does not wish to 'demonize' Mugabe. And to that end, Chan succeeds in ways that Blair and Meredith do not. Chan acknowledges Mugabe's achievements in international affairs and they are not insubstantial. Were it not for Mugabe, the peace between the warring Mozambican factions of the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO) and the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) would most likely not have been consummated as soon as it was. Initially, Mugabe's envoy conducted shuttle diplomacy between the warring factions. Then Mugabe himself intervened at a pivotal juncture to bring FRELIMO's Joaquim Chissano and RENAMO's Afonso Dhlakama together to the bargaining table in Rome. During this process, Mugabe offered critical assurances to RENAMO to maintain the momentum behind the peace process.

In the mid-1980s, during the international movement against apartheid, Mugabe served as Chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement and pushed what became known as the Harare Declaration on South Africa - arguing forcefully for sanctions against the apartheid regime. This was an act of some political courage in light of South Africa's ruthless policy of 'Total Strategy'. Mozambican President Samora Machel's plane crash, following a summit of front-line countries, may well have been the result of this South African policy and Mugabe could not have been unmindful of the personal and political risks he was inviting by taking such a stand.

Chan also dispassionately recognises the shrewd Machiavellian political side of Mugabe. Chan acknowledges the political success of Mugabe's posturing on the land reform issue. Although Chan recognises the short-sightedness of this policy, he also concludes that Mugabe has effectively framed the issue both domestically and internationally. Both his political opposition within Zimbabwe and his fellow African leaders have been loathe to be seen as siding too closely with white landowners against black Africans.

Chan also illustrates - better than Meredith and Blair - that all political events in Zimbabwe are not exclusively linked to Mugabe. Chan deftly unpacks the various elements of ZANU-PF; demon- strating that the ruling party is a fractured entity. He also notes correctly that Mugabe does not exercise absolute power in Zimbabwe, that he has political constituencies to satisfy and that part of 'land reform' was to appease agitating members within ZANU-PF.

At the same time, Chan is balanced in his portrayal of the charismatic Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC. Too often Tsvangirai and the MDC are viewed in the Western media as the saintly alternative to the villainous ZANU-PF. Chan does not fall prey to that temptation. He does not spare Tsvangirai and the MDC from criticism for their many stumbles and self-inflicted wounds.

At times, however, Chan's attempts at fairness to Mugabe are overly charitable. With respect to the HIV/AIDS crisis in Zimbabwe, Chan states that 'there is little' Mugabe 'can do'.7 This is almost certainly not the case. As fellow autocrat, Yoweri Museveni, has demonstrated in Uganda, a powerful president can play a very constructive role in educating the public about the dangers of HIV/AIDS even if his government lacks the resources to combat the disease directly. In Uganda, Museveni's public efforts have resulted not only in a decline in the stigma of HIV/AIDS but, perhaps

5 S. Chan, Robert Mugabe: A Life of Power and Violence (Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2003), p. 7. 6 Ibid., p.31. 7 Ibid., p. 134.

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more importantly, it has made him a donor darling, permitting millions of dollars of HIV/AIDS assistance to flow into the country. This is a course that Mugabe could have chosen. Instead, he has chosen silence as approximately one-third of Zimbabweans now suffer from the virus. From a Machiavellian standpoint, he also missed an important opportunity since, as has been the case with Museveni, outspokenness on HIV/AIDS can insulate African leaders from a great deal of the Western political pressure on issues such as open elections, human rights and military involvement in DRC.

While at times Chan may be overly generous to Mugabe, he does not minimise Mugabe's atrocities. Unlike many academics, Chan refuses to be blinded by Mugabe's liberation credentials.8 Chan hits the perfect note, for example, when he describes how the Matabeleland massacres should have been the major issue in the 1985 Zimbabwean presidential election. He notes acidly that 'the world was still determined to respect Mugabe'.9 At a later point, he notes that 'academic commentary conspicuously played down what it seemed to suggest was a minor "dissident problem"'.'o Chan is brutally honest about the 5th Brigade calling them for what they were: 'officially trained and legitimised terrorists, not special forces or commando units'." At the end of the day, Chan succeeds in avoiding the outright demonisation of Mugabe but he is too good a scholar to conclude anything other than that Mugabe has been disastrous for Zimbabwe.

Another criticism of Chan's effort, albeit a minor one, is that the book at times jumps jarringly from topic to topic. For example, a chapter on intellectual debates in Zimbabwe sandwiched between chapters on Mugabe's second wife and on Mugabe's political problems seems out of place, especially in a book dedicated primarily to the public life of country's long-time ruler.

Finally, given Chan's focus on Zimbabwe's participation in the international arena, it is somewhat surprising that he gives short shrift to two areas. First, like Blair, Chan pays surprisingly little attention to the country's involvement in DRC. The deployment of 11,000 Zimbabwean troops to DRC was, after all, the most tangible manifestation of Zimbabwean foreign policy in recent memory. Second, perhaps some discussion on Mugabe's impact on international African bodies such as the new African Union (successor to the Organisation of African Unity) and its relation, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), would have been warranted. The AU's attempt, through NEPAD, to break with the OAU's reputation for coddling African despots has been greatly hampered by its failure to criticise Mugabe. While the long-term impact on the prestige of both bodies is still an open question, reflections on this problem from someone of Chan's stature would have been most welcome.

Taken all in all, Chan's book is a commendable piece of scholarship and it fills important gaps left by the other two narrative works: by addressing Mugabe's internationalist credentials and by providing a more scholarly and balanced approach to his public career.

Land and Race in Zimbabwe

An underlying theme in each of these biographical accounts is the enduring power of black/white race relations in post-colonial southern African politics. When the question of land reform is overlaid against the historical backdrop of racial discrimination and oppression, the theme becomes particularly resonant. One thread that is implicit in these books is that the 'race card' at its core has been an ambivalent political gambit on Mugabe's part. On the one hand, the Zimbabwean land tenure situation was clearly untenable and cried out for orderly redress. More importantly to Mugabe, the issue of land and race offered a convenient, if short sighted, and blunt political instrument for him to use to hold on to power. As a domestic political manoeuvre, land reform - as Chan, and the others more tacitly, concede - was a political master stroke. It not only polarised the Zimbabwean electorate but it disarmed his fellow African leaders who were wary of appearing to side with privileged white commercial landowners.

8 See, for example, G. Home, From the Barrel of a Gun: The United States and the War Against Zimbabwe, 1965-1980 (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2001), p. 280 (referring to the Mugabe-engi- neered massacre in Matabeleland as 'discord').

9 Chan, p. x. 10 Ibid., p. 24 (references omitted). 11 Ibid., p. 25.

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On the other hand, it is unlikely there would have been a fraction of the international attention focused on Zimbabwe were it not for the land-reform black/white issue. Surely, there would not have been three books published on Mugabe in the United States and Britain (with another to follow in October 2003)12 but for the racial/land conflict and its attendant political and economic difficulties. At the time this piece went to press, there were no new books on the market, for example, on the life of Charles Taylor who had been the driving force behind Liberian politics for a decade and a half. Taylor, like Mugabe, was head of an anglophone country and was responsible for atrocities every bit as egregious (and probably much more so) than Mugabe's. Had the clash been between Matabele and Shona, the dispute would no doubt have been dismissed in many Western circles as just another African ethnic conflict, much as the Matabeleland massacre was viewed twenty years ago. That the ethnic clash involves black and white Africans all but assured wide circulation of the story in the Western media.

And, of course, cynical politics aside, the land reform effort has been nothing short of disastrous for Zimbabwe. It has driven the nation's once-robust economy to the brink of ruin, recalling the effect that the exile of Uganda's Asian population had on that nation's economy three decades ago. There may be no better description of the use of the race card by Mugabe than by his ally, Edison Zvobgo, who stated boldly: 'We have tainted what was a glorious revolution, reducing it to some agrarian racist enterprise'.13

Conclusion

What all three of these books reflect is that a consensus has begun to coalesce with respect to the public career of Robert Mugabe. While for years the glow of his early conciliatory rhetoric and diplomatic efforts had blinded the international community and academe to his tyrannical tendencies, the last few years have witnessed a gradual realisation of the profoundly negative impact his rule has had on Zimbabwe. While all of Zimbabwe's ills cannot be laid at Mugabe's doorstep, he and his ZANU-PF cohorts have played a great role in exacerbating difficult, if manageable, circumstances in the country. The works of Meredith, Blair and Chan, at different levels, all recognise that Mugabe is destined to be viewed as yet another liberation leader who has failed to make the transition from independence leader to democratic statesman. All three books reflect that the anomaly in Mugabe's career has not been the brutality manifestly displayed over the past several years but the brief peaceful interlude following independence. While Mugabe was responsible for some good in Zimbabwe and southern Africa, those days are long past and are greatly outweighed by the trauma that ZANU-PF's rule has inflicted on the country and on the region. In light of Zimbabwe's dire predicament, Mugabe appears likely to rank just below the likes of Amin, Bokassa, Malan and Mengistu in the pantheon of predatory African leaders.

Roy E. BROWNELL II US Dept of State*

* The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the US government.

Hobson and Imperialism

Peter Cain, Hobson and Imperialism: Radicalism, New Liberalism, and Finance 1887- 1938 Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002, ix + 320pp., ?45 hardback, ISBN 0-19- 820390-X.

Hobson lives! Perhaps the most influential and contentious work on global imperialism of recent years, Hardt and Negri's Empire, relies (insofar as it has a coherent economic argument at all) on an

12 A. Norman, Robert Mugabe and the Betrayal of Zimbabwe (Jefferson, North Carolina, McFarland & Company, 2003).

13 Chan, p. 177.

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