[.ca] Degrees in Violence: Robert Mugabe and the Struggle for ... (ISBN 082646498X)

We need better analysis than from "parachute journalists":
The growing corpus of work on the contemporary history of Zimbabwe is welcome. The only discomfort for me as a reader is that most of these books are being penned by arm-chair analysts based in Western think-tanks, or foreign journalists who spend a few months in the country and suddenly profess to be experts in their chosen field of political analysis. Nonetheless, Blair's book contributes to the interpretation of recent events taking place in the country despite the fact that, sadly, one cannot help but notice that his chronicle of the unfolding tragedy of Zimbabwe is clouded by his obvious dislike of Robert Gabriel Mugabe. He attacks the "small man" who far from resembling an African despot looks like the primary schoolteacher he once was, who is curiously anglicized, and who goes to immense trouble over his appearance. About his intellect, he describes Mugabe's political thought and collected writings as "indistinguishable from that of any illiterate rebel". Blair also reduces Mugabe's character to an inherent character flaw that is explained by his tragic upbringing which engendered what he calls a paranoid individual, vulnerable to a minority (Zezuru) complex. For an analysis of contemporary Zimbabwe that strives to sober and objective I recommend the book by Martin Meredith (Our Guns, Our Votes).

Robert Mugabe: a contender for power:
Africa is not cursed with a supernatural phenomena or aura of failure in development and growth; this belief is a travesty, since failure all waters down to human error, nothing more. Indifferent and corrupt leaders have played such a nasty role in their countries' demise (with help from varying colonial legacies), with Zimbabwe being a contemporary example of this kind of demise. Some six million Zimbabwean civilians are in danger of starving to death by the end of 2002. A Catholic Bishop in the country has admitted that the economy is in tatters and completely bankrupt because of the government's incompetence and mismanagement. Foreign investment is shying away from the country because of its horrific blight of corruption and social anarchy, with government mobs running affairs and intimidating any slivers of opposition, real or imagined. Thanks to Robert Mugabe, the country's xenophobic, racist despot, Zimbabwe is now a pariah state, teetering on the edge of an uncertain abyss. It was not always this way, writes journalist David Blair (who for a twenty-nine year-old has seen more than what others have seen in an entire lifetime). His book is an exhaustive recounting of the contemporary history and situation in Zimbabwe, beginning around January 2000, when Mugabe attempted to change the country's constitution to suit his agenda, and the country refused, throwing him his first political defeat since 1980. His book, along with another by Martin Meredith, serves as the only two recent works about the country. While Meredith is more concerned with the historical pattern of power accumulation at the hands of Mugabe, as well as keeping Mugabe as the focal point in his work (it is also largely a biography), Blair is more concerned with the present. His first two chapters are historical, albeit brief, providing background to Mugabe's life, past brutality and ideas as to how he ticks. The rest deals with the years 2000-2001, written in a first-person narrative because he was present as a journalist for the British "Daily Telegraph" paper until he was forced to leave the country in mid-2001 (as part of a wholesale crackdown on independent, foreign journalists by Mugabe and his ruling Zanu-PF party). Blair has much to recount about the regime's brutality and determination to keep in power, irrespective of the crucial human and financial costs. Important foreign aid that should have gone to lawful and equitable land reform and development instead would go to a Mugabe family mansion, or perhaps a new Mercedes-Benz, or perhaps to keep Zimbabwe's forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo (in itself an ambiguous decision, since those profiting from the Congo's diamond riches were all Zanu-PF people). Blair argues that Mugabe amounts to nothing more than a corrupt, aging despot whose sole intention is to keep in power; everything that he has done has been aimed toward this 'vision.' The ironic comparisons between Robert Mugabe and Ian Smith, the last white ruler of what was then called Rhodesia, are striking, since both were bitter enemies, yet have both unwittingly complimented one another. Mugabe has been no different from Smith - racism, xenophobia, brutal suppression of opposition, and more were traits of both leaders. Says Blair: "Neither should have been allowed anywhere near running a country. Smith's true station in life was, perhaps, treasurer of a provincial rugby club. Mugabe would have made an excellent junior lecturer at the Revolutionary University of Havana. It was their country's enduring tragedy that these men were given such power" (p. 244). On a final note, Blair writes that Smith's UDI from the UK in 1965 and resulting rule was ultimately self-defeating. It remains to be seen if Mugabe's rule will end as Smith's did; his rule has already ingrained lots of self-defeat for everyone and everything in Zimbabwe. Who knows what the future still holds? If Mugabe has followed in the footsteps of his predecessor up to now, who is to say that he won't follow through all the way to the bitter end?