3. Severe Conflicts: Frustration-Deprivation
5.3. Ideological Nationalism: Manufacturing a Regulatory Memory
5.3.3. Leader Veneration
183 the way it crushed dissent, from the way it nationalized the media, from the way it consolidated its power and trying to stake the majority representation in
government, and from the way it tried to push its own agenda, whether or not that was popular or generally acceptable to the country. And even to the extent that where very prominent people in ZANU-PF itself, went out, you know, the likes of Edgar Tekere, to come ‘out of’ the ZANU-PF and try to fight the imaginations of Robert Mugabe to try and emasculate the whole country into a one-party state.
And even the tampering and the panel-beating of the Constitution to ‘suit’ these goals of trying to create a one-party state. So you can actively discern from the actions right from the beginning, that there was this desire, which was frustrated in the way to create a one-party state.”503
In the end, the ZANU-PF bowed to the will of the people and aborted its efforts to officially declare a one-party state. However, ZANU-PF did not curb its politically ambitious behaviour and maintained its unswerving march toward securing an indefinite tenure as the ruling party of Zimbabwe, and in so doing the unidirectional conversation with itself continued.
184 imprisoned by successive Rhodesian governments for long periods, he overcame the attempts of the authorities to break him by the sheer force of his commitment to the struggle, and his conviction in the justice of the cause and the inevitability of victory. He led ZANU(PF) through the armed struggle to the overwhelming election victory in February 1980.”504
In this paragraph, the discourse of ‘selfless determination’, ‘single-minded dedication’,
‘sheer force of his commitment’ and ‘his conviction in the justice of the cause’ indirectly elevate Mugabe above his cohorts in the struggle, and establish him as the only person deserving to lead Zimbabwe. Seemingly, after independence, Mugabe had to be justified as the only possible leader of the new nation:
“It was during this time [1975] that Robert Mugabe was confirmed as the unchallenged leader of ZANU and the fighting forces…In the historic ZANU Congress at Chimoio in Mozambique in 1977…His ascendency as head of the political and armed struggle in Zimbabwe was complete.”505
Here we find an explicit script ascribing unreserved finality to Mugabe’s accepted leadership through the use of definitive phraseology such as ‘unchallenged’,
‘ascendency’ and ‘complete’. However, in this paragraph the all-encompassing narrative of ZANU-PF nationalism is exposed as it unwittingly (or wittingly) equates the ‘political and armed struggle in Zimbabwe’ with ZANU-PF as a movement thereby, completely overriding the role of ZAPU in the revolution. This text not only closes the door to all oppositional leadership challenges, it consolidates Mugabe’s leadership in the present leaving scarce room for any kind of metamorphosis in the national needs for different trajectories of leadership in the future.
The combination of ethereal fate, influential oratory skills and the singular loyalty from the liberation soldiers are all given credence to in the narrative depiction of
Mugabe’s rise to power.
“His return [from Ghana] to Rhodesia [in 1960] at a moment when the African intellectuals were, for the first time, showing a willingness to become involved in politics, was a perfect example of unconscious timing…Robert Mugabe, as a distinguished visitor, was then asked to speak: he won the support of the crowd by stressing the need to blend together all classes of men in the nationalist movement
504 Mitchell, D. 1982. Makers of History: Who’s who 1981-82 – Nationalist Leaders in Zimbabwe.
Bulawayo: Book Centre, 139.
505 Ibid: 141.
185 and the importance of graduates and professional men accepting the chosen leaders ‘even if they may not be university men.’”506
“…and it was widely believed that he [Mugabe] was playing an active part in the recruitment and training of guerrillas for further incursions into Rhodesia.
Certainly documents smuggled out of the training camps described him as the only political leader in whom the guerrillas still had trust and through whom they were prepared to communicate with the outside world…Although the validity of Mugabe’s claim to have political control over the bulk of the guerrillas has been queried in certain recent newspaper reports, there is little doubt that his power in this quarter is greater than that of any other top nationalist.”507
In the first script above one is stuck by the terminology of ‘unconscious timing’ which insinuates some level of supernatural destiny in Mugabe’s leadership ascent. The author writes of Mugabe’s ‘distinguished’ ability to win ‘the support of the crowd’ as a way of enshrining his populist appeal in the Liberation movement. In the second script Mugabe is glorified as a war strategist, promoted as the only channel through which the freedom fighters would willingly speak to the world and revered as possessing the dominant power above all other leading nationalist figures.
When a leader is afforded this level of public awe combined with appointed or elected power two mutually co-dependent processes occur: the masses develop a
disproportionate fear of the leader and the leader develops a disproportionate arrogance.
These two faces of leader veneration are well exemplified in the interaction between Catholic Bishop Karlen of Matabeleland and Prime Minister Robert Mugabe in 1983 when the Fifth brigade violence had heightened significantly:
“The other ones [Matabeleland Church Leaders] said, ‘It is terrible, terrible what is going on. We have to pray and pray’. I told them ‘Why do you have to pray? It is not enough. We have to act’. Then I had a proposal: three African bishops from whatever churches – it did not matter – should go to Mr. Mugabe. A delegation from Matabeleland. Not one volunteered. They were too scared.”508
“We do not respond to scriptures, but according to given political principles. It is not when the Bishop sneezes that we all catch a cold. No, we are a government and we run our affairs as we see fit and if bishops speak it does not mean that we
506 Cary, R. & Mitchell, D. 1977. African Nationalist Leaders in Rhodesia – Who’s who. Bulawayo: Books of Rhodesia, 168.
507 Ibid: 171-172.
508 Yap, K. 2001. Uprooting the Weeds – Power, Ethnicity and Violence in the Matabeleland Conflict 1980- 1987. Stockholm: Elanders Novum, 230. (An excerpt taken from an interview conducted by the author, K.
Yap with Catholic Bishop Karlen, Bulawayo, 18/03/94).
186 should all stop working because their holiness have spoken…[Bishop Karlen and some of his priests] they are supporters of Nkomo and they are the ones who go to the other bishops and say what is happening, and the other bishops merely listen to them and accept what they say as the word of God, which cannot be denied because it is a man of God who is saying it. But they don’t know perhaps that a man of God is worshipping mammon instead of the real God, so the poor bishops are mislead into believing that what Bishop Karlen is saying is the holy truth and nothing else but the holy truth.”509
Bishop Karlen’s remarks highlight the grip of fear on the masses when it came to confronting Mugabe, even in the face of being witnesses to the atrocities happening all around them. Mugabe’s condescending response patronised the ordinary citizen and the on-the-ground Church (representing a large network of civil society) by suggesting that they had no say in the governance of the nation and beyond that their convictions were false (‘mammon’) and linked to the political opposition (‘supporters of Nkomo’) and that somehow his government (ZANU-PF) was more closely aligned with the ‘real God’.
ZANU-PF was not the only nationalist party to revel in acts of leader worship.
ZAPU also placed its leader Dr. Joshua Nkomo on a pedestal of grandiose repute, professing life-long loyalty to Nkomo as their leader even in his post-humus state as evidenced in the following transcriptions:
“Like I was saying…you won’t separate the people of Matabeleland with Joshua Nkomo because they perceived him as their leader. And up to now, some still feel that Matabeleland should have its own administration, they feel it should be another state. Because they still feel they are not ‘free’ under Mugabe and the Shonas. They even feel that...there was some times when they proposed that they would rather be part of South Africa rather than the Shonas, because they still feel their group...they’ll feel they would be much safer being part of South Africa than part of the ZANU-PF government. And you are rightly saying when you are saying it’s part of...this war was like an ‘ethnic’ war. Because people of
Matabeleland, no matter how the ZANLA Forces had operated in some parts of Matabeleland, they still believed ‘we are for ZAPU’, and we can not be separated from Nkomo, because they knew Nkomo as their saviour. The man who had really preached this gospel of freedom.”510
509 Yap, K. 2001. Uprooting the Weeds – Power, Ethnicity and Violence in the Matabeleland Conflict 1980- 1987. Stockholm: Elanders Novum, 230-231. (Mugabe Press Transcription, 1984).
510 Interview: CM2, Kitwe, Zambia – 09/05/07 - (Ndebele teacher and community development worker with Orphans and Vulnerable Children, former Political Activist and Youth Leader for ZAPU in the early 1980s).
187
“Yes. I was saying that the people of Matabeleland, as long as Joshua Nkomo had advised them to take a certain direction, they would follow it. And I was saying…
even up to this moment there are some people from Matabeleland who are now in the leadership positions in ZANU-PF. They will tell you that ‘we are doing this because Nkomo left us here’. But if anything would happen that really would necessitate the breaking, they still identify themselves as ZAPU and not ZANU- PF. And they are saying ‘we are here just because Nkomo left us here’. They are still saying they are doing this for the sake of Nkomo, and I still believe some of them still see the injustices that are being done in Matabeleland. And maybe because they are feeling weak they cannot stand against Robert, they say ‘okay, for the sake of peace, we will be here’, but they still identify themselves as ZAPU, as a group of ZIPRA.”511
One interviewee speaking from personal encounter, paints a candid picture of the egotistical volatility, ambiguity and parody that accompanies this kind of leader veneration:
“I can tell you how I view Joshua Nkomo. He’s a towering figure, but he was emotional, he was valuable, he was vain. He would say ‘no, no, no’. I learned this, we learned this, he would say ‘no interviews, no, no’. And then [we’d] say
‘oh but Dr Nkomo, you are the one who can speak and you’re the leader ... the father of the nation and da-da-da’ and he would puff up as you were speaking and he would ... then, he would talk. In other words he was very susceptible to
flattery. It wasn’t as a strategic decision. So I would say that he probably…was no more of a democrat than Robert Mugabe. He didn’t like other people to question his authority, he was a dictator too. If he had been put into full power, I don’t know how much better the country would have been run. However, he was aware that he was representing a minority group, the Ndebele. So he had to make accommodation for the Shona. But when you look at the Shona who were his deputies, they were his deputies. They didn’t like anybody taking the limelight from him.”512
While this leadership rhetoric is not unusual for revolutionary-liberationist
ideology, it is necessary to understand that packaged with this kind of leader veneration is an automatic cancellation of the space for multiple leaders who carry different
perspectives and/or who could govern the nation through a power-sharing arrangement.
Regardless of Nkomo’s faults and weaknesses, there appeared to be a consensual agreement among the interviewees on both sides of the Mashonaland and Matabeleland divide that Nkomo should be commended as a genuine nationalist leader in that he
511 Ibid.
512 Interview: AM1, Johannesburg, South Africa – 10/08/06 – (White American Journalist who lived in Zimbabwe from 1980 until he was deported by the ZANU-PF government).
188 appeared to favour diplomacy over force, he was willing to share power across political divides, and he had the whole nation’s well-being in mind.
“I think he was a genuine leader, and I think Mugabe... to be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if it all boiled down to personal jealousy by Mugabe. But even though Nkomo had a smaller percentage, if he was allowed genuine opposition politics, Mugabe would have to be kept on his toes and I don’t think Mugabe liked that.
He wanted a one-party State anyway. He kept on talking about a one-party State.”513
“I don’t think the Zimbabwe Gukurahundi situation is that simple. I don’t think so. I think it had to do with power, with building a one party state, it had to do with who Joshua Nkomo represented, and how Robert Mugabe looked like a midget in the national psyche, visa-vie, Joshua Nkomo. That’s how I summarise it.”514
“Joshua Nkomo was not like Mzilikazi who was basically a leader of the Zulu- Ndebele people. And Lobengula was not like Joshua Nkomo, he was a leader of the Ndebele-Zulu people. Nkomo was a national leader, this is why you’ll find even around him here, he surrounded himself more with Shona people cause it’s the majority taking the positions there, than the Ndebele people. So, it was all in good faith but, because of poor governing skills, poor management skills, purely from Mugabe and his henchmen and the excitement of being in power, and using the old historical false reasons, then they decided they’re going to discipline the Matabeleland people... and Joshua Nkomo, and that to us was not right. He could not be justified.”515
“…it’s interesting who is a hero. Because, I think a lot of people, even from Mashonaland, have admitted that Joshua Nkomo was a hero. Because he was a
‘nationalist’ guy. You know, you will find that even within the ZIPRA leadership, he will pick people from Mashonaland, because he wanted to unite the people of Zimbabwe. And in that sense, people really understood Joshua Nkomo as a hero.
That’s why they ended up calling him ‘Father Zimbabwe’, because he was a father of all the people of that nation. And in my point of view I’d say Joshua Nkomo was a hero.”516
This could explain why ZANU-PF and Dr. Joshua Nkomo were unable to find a satisfactory role arrangement between themselves from 1980 onwards despite Nkomo
513 Interview: TM1, Johannesburg, South Africa – 01/11/07 – (Shona Businessman whose relative was a prominent leader in the ZANU-PF government).
514 Interview: JM1, Johannesburg, South Africa – 26/02/08 – (Shona Professor of Political Science in Zimbabwe).
515 Interview: PK1, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe – 30/03/07 – (A prominent member of Ndebele Royal Family).
516 Interview: CM2, Kitwe, Zambia – 09/05/07 - (Ndebele teacher and community development worker with Orphans and Vulnerable Children, former Political Activist and Youth Leader for ZAPU in the early 1980s).
189 being offered and given various government portfolios (President, Minister of Home Affairs, and Minister without Portfolio) over that time. Some analysts and indeed Nkomo himself argued that these portfolios were mostly in name only and had little to do with meaningful function. The position of President which was eventually filled by Canaan Banana was ceremonial in nature. And it was during Nkomo’s tenure as Minister of Home Affairs that the Fifth Brigade was trained and deployed in Matabeleland without his knowledge. This he considered a great affront and an undermining of his authority to oversee the internal security of the nation.
“Minister of the Patriotic Front and Minister without Portfolio, Mr. Joshua Nkomo complained over the weekend that he had not been consulted about the formation of the brigade. He charged that the unit would be used to impose a one- party State in Zimbabwe. But the Prime Minister reiterated that one-party state would only be introduced if the people wanted it.”517
ZANU-PF’s rituals of leader worship entrenched the political power of a few solitary leaders by widening the chasm between the broad-based citizenry and the unattainable positions of a small cadre of revolutionary leaders. Coupled with this, it also bred a spirit of fear in the peasant masses and spirit of arrogance in the leadership. In essence, this leader veneration left no space for substitutability of leadership which would explain the continual tension between the ZANU-PF and ZAPU and the well-harnessed drive of the ZANU-PF regime to monopolise the national political landscape as a one-party state.