{"id":804,"date":"2019-10-01T09:19:43","date_gmt":"2019-10-01T07:19:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marxistworkersparty.org.za\/?p=804"},"modified":"2019-11-01T13:34:10","modified_gmt":"2019-11-01T11:34:10","slug":"mugabe-body-laid-to-rest-as-contested-legacy-finds-new-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/?p=804","title":{"rendered":"Mugabe \u2013 body laid to rest as contested legacy finds new life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Weizmann Hamilton<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Mbeki & Mugabe<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The empty seats\nat the National Sports Stadium in Harare at Robert Mugabe\u2019s 14 September official\nfuneral ceremony spoke volumes about the views of the Zimbabwean people. The\ncircumstances of Mugabe\u2019s death symbolically captured the real relations\nbetween this alleged hero of the liberation struggle and the masses. That he\ndied in Singapore from cancer, as Zimbabwean doctors were striking for higher\nwages in hospitals that cannot fund even paracetamol, was pregnant with\nsymbolism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In September 2017, when Mugabe\u2019s\n37-year reign was ended, the six million Zimbabweans in the diaspora, from\nLondon to Johannesburg, had joined citizens at home in celebration, dancing in\nthe streets. The jubilation was, however, tempered with deep skepticism. Mugabe\nwas, after all, deposed by his closest collaborators. A thinly veiled\ndictatorship had been put to an end by an equally thinly-veiled coup. As Izwi La Basebenzi<\/em> pointed out at the time,\nMugabe had gone, but his regime remained in power. Both in relation to economic\npolicy as well as in its authoritarianism, Emmerson Mnangagwa\u2019s government has\nnot been a break from, but a continuation of Mugabe\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the economy in meltdown, and determined,\nif as yet uncoordinated mass resistance to the austerity onslaught , Mnangagwa used\nMugabe\u2019s death in a desperate, even pitiful attempt to restore his regime\u2019s\npolitical authority by eulogizing his hated predecessor as a \u201cson of the soil\u201d,\nwho for all his sins, liberated Zimbabwe. The last half of Mugabe\u2019s reign is\nbeing presented as an aberration from an otherwise heroic first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a humiliating retreat following\nthree weeks of wrangling over where Mugabe was to be buried, Mnangagwa was\nforced to abandon plans for a specially built mausoleum at Hero\u2019s acre in the\ncapital. Mnangagwa had failed to strong-arm an embittered Mugabe family who\ninsisted on burying him in his home village. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a desperate attempt to shore up his\nown rapidly eroding domestic credibility, SA president Cyril Ramaphosa joined\nthis choir of praise singers, dressed in the ragged costume of \u201cMugabe the\nliberator\u201d mythology at the official funeral. His delivered eulogy as\nxenophobia was sweeping across SA.  Ramaphosa was roundly and deservedly booed. The\nmasse\u2019s indignation was roused not so much by his distortions of Mugabe\u2019s\nhistorical role. It was much more for the hypocrisy of singing Pan African\nsolidarity hymns for a tyrant whose policies had forced millions to flee. Yet Ramaphosa\u2019s\nANC government has deflected anger over mass unemployment, poverty and\ninequality towards \u201cundocumented\u201d foreigners allegedly stealing South African\njobs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Going much further at an official memorial\nservice in Durban, former president Thabo Mbeki hailed Mugabe as a \u201cgreat\npatriot, a defender of Africa\u2019s independence (and) interests.\u201d He went on to\nclaim that he had not met a single Zimbabwean that wanted Mugabe deposed! A\nquarter of the population has fled his disastrous rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Portraying him as a Pan Africanist who\nhad played a role in shaping SA\u2019s liberation struggle, he claimed Mugabe had\ndelayed land reform to ensure SA\u2019s \u201ctalks about talks\u201d would conclude in\nsuccessful negotiations. This was an unintentional confession of Zanu (PF)\/ANC\ncollaboration in the betrayal of the liberation struggle in both countries. For\nthem the purpose of the liberation struggle in Zimbabwe and South Africa was to\nassimilate into the capitalist system the class forces both Zanu (PF) and the\nANC represent: the aspirant black capitalist class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Liberation and Mugabe\u2019s\nrole<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The real heroes of the Zimbabwean liberation\nstruggle \u2013 the chimurenga<\/em> \u2013 who took\nup arms in 1965, are the 30,000 who made the supreme sacrifice. But heroic as\nthe armed struggle was, it proved incapable of toppling the white minority\nregime. It was the combination of the 1974 revolution in Portugal and its\nrepercussion in Portugal\u2019s colonial possessions that one year later led to the\ncoming to power of the MPLA in Angola and Frelimo in Mozambique that was\ndecisive in changing the balance of forces in Southern Africa. The\nthen-Rhodesian Smith regime, now seen as a threat to imperialist interests, was\nsimply treated as small change in imperialist machinations and forced to agree\nto a negotiated settlement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And where was Mugabe during this time?\nBasildon Peta reports: \u201cAdmirers of the \u2018liberation icon\u2019 may also want to know\nthat [Mugabe\u2019s] role in the liberation struggle was grossly exaggerated. Yes,\nhe did spend about nine years jailed by Smith, a period during which many\nperished on the struggle front but he got time to improve his education. Upon\nhis release in 1974 he crossed into Mozambique but remained aloof from the\nactual war front, ably led by Josiah Tongogara and Rhex Nhongo (aka Solomon\nMujuru). Mugabe\u2019s former right hand man, Edgar Tekere, used to tell how, until\nhe took the oath of office in 1980, Mugabe had \u2018never fired a gun. Nor could he\nwear a military uniform properly\u2019.  The\nwar lasted only about four (more) years after Mugabe\u2019s release before the 1979\nLancaster House talks ushered in Zimbabwe\u2019s independence.\u201d (Sunday Times<\/em> – Johannesburg 22\/09\/2019).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cMarxist\u201d Zanu (PF) and Mugabe\u2019s \u201csocialism\u201d\nwas mere rhetoric, calculated, in Bonapartist fashion, to lean on the Zanu rank-and-file\nagainst any actual or potential rivals, as well as the working class, alternating\nwith repression against them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The capitalists soon realised that\nMugabe\u2019s socialism was just talk. In their book Zimbabwe\u2019s Plunge <\/em>Patrick Bond and Masimba Manyanya quote a leading\nUS banker as saying: “The management of the more sophisticated large\ncompanies\u2026seem to be impressed by and satisfied with Mugabe’s management and\nthe increased level of understanding in government of commercial\nconsiderations\u2026I felt it is a political pattern that Mugabe gives radical,\nanti-business speeches before government makes major pro-business decisions or\nannouncements.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither in its programme nor therefore\nin strategy has Zanu ever stood for the socialist transformation of society nor\ntaken any steps to take control of the commanding heights of the economy. Far\nfrom recognising the working class as central, the Zanu leadership saw in them an\nindependent force over outside their control and potential spanner in the works\nof their plans for a capitalist negotiated settlement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Mugabe\u2019s role after\nliberation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zimbabwe is a text book example of the\nbankruptcy of the Stalinist two-stage theory. Predicated on the idea that the\nstruggle for democracy must be separated from that for socialism, it has in\npractice never achieved a fully-fledged bourgeois democracy nor socialism.\nInstead it has led to the perpetuation of the economic dictatorship of the\ncapitalist class masked by a fragile, truncated bourgeois \u201cparliamentary\ndemocracy\u201d. Mugabe accepted the former Soviet Union and China\u2019s advice: \u201cDo not\nrush things \u2013 take your time\u2026nationalisation would disrupt the economy\u201d (Financial Gazette – <\/em>Zimbabwe\n01\/02\/85).  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the Marxist Workers Tendency (predecessors\nof the Marxist Workers Party)<\/em> warned a\nyear after the Zanu-Zapu government\u2019s landslide victory in the independence\nelections, \u201cNo government can both defend the interests of the capitalists and\ncarry out the demands of the people. That is why the Zanu-Zapu government has\nbeen unable, despite its enormous popular support, to solve the land question,\nto end starvation wages, to provide jobs for the unemployed, or even to abolish\nwhite privilege.\u201d (Inqaba Ya Basebenzi <\/em>No.2,\nApril 1981)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lancaster House agreement which\nled to independence in 1980, provided for honouring the white minority regime\u2019s\nforeign debt. More importantly capitalist property ownership, including the two\nthirds of the economy under foreign control was protected from nationalisation.\nThis included, critically, land \u2013 the central question in the chimurenga<\/em>. To add insult to injury, the\nnew Zimbabwean Army was to be led by the former head of the former Rhodesian\narmed forces, General Wallis complete with his own selected officers, their\nhands dripping with the blood of the liberation struggle\u2019s martyrs. Mugabe\u2019s\nregime also incorporated the Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO),\nand the Special branch with its domestic security and intelligence functions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enthused by the Zanu-Zapu government\u2019s\nvictory, after the elections the working class embarked on the biggest strike\nwave since the end of World War I, regarding their action as strengthening the\ngovernment\u2019s hand. Their \u2018liberators\u2019 regarded their action with hostility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some reforms were introduced in\nhealth, education and a new minimum wage. From only 177 secondary schools in\n1980, the number surged to 1,548 increasing adult literacy from 62% to 82% – among\nthe highest rates in Africa. The economy experienced a brief boom from 1982-84.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But under the harsh austerity regime\nliving standards nonetheless stagnated and mass unemployment continued to rise.\nThe anger of the masses resulted in frustrated peasants occupying vacant land\nand workers striking. Threatened by these developments, the Mugabe government\ndenounced the occupation of vacant land and tightened labour laws to deal with\nstrikes, with many union militants either dismissed or arrested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a consciously tribal campaign,\nMugabe lashed out at opponents in his own party and at the same time rekindled\nthe animosities that had led to the split in the nationalist movement in 1963.\nBlaming Zapu for the government\u2019s failures and its Ndebele base for\ncollaborating with the West and the apartheid regime, Mugabe deployed the \u2018new\u2019\narmy to Matabeleland North in January 1983 \u2013 an occupation calculated to crush Zapu\nand its support amongst the minority Ndebele. Dubbed the Gukurahundi<\/em>, a Shona expression meaning \u201cthe early rains that wash\naway the chaff before the spring rains\u201d, the campaign escalated to the barbaric\nethnic cleansing of at least 20,000 Ndebele people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The ANC and Zanu<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ANC has for\nyears propagated the falsehood that it fought in the trenches alongside Zanu.\nThe truth is somewhat different. Although most of the chimurenga<\/em> was fought in the east by Zanu\u2019s Zimbabwe African\nLiberation Army (Zanla), the Soviet-backed ANC\u2019s and Zapu\u2019s military wings,\nUmkhonto we Sizwe (MK) and the Zimbabwe Peoples Revolutionary Army (Zipra),\nsucceeded in joint battles along the north western border to  establish a base at Zenani near the\nBeitbridge Border. Following the 1979\/80 ceasefire, Mugabe forced MK back to\nZambia whilst starting operations to neutralise Zapu. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kent State University\nProfessor Scarnecchia has revealed that documents declassified in Tshwane\n(formerly Pretoria) and London last week, show that Mugabe sent Mnangagwa,\namongst others to enter into an agreement for peaceful co-existence and trade\nrelations with the apartheid regime. (Dumisane Muleya, former Zimbabwe Independent\neditor in the Johannesburg Sunday Times <\/em>(29\/09\/2019)  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ANC\u2019s relations with Zanu, influenced\nby Zanu\u2019s alignments with China in the Sino\/Soviet rivalry for influence in the\ncolonial world, only ever provided the ANC diplomatic and political support\nafter independence not military collaboration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Mbeki\u2019s claim that Mugabe delayed\nland reform to aid the successful conclusion of the negotiations in SA is true,\nit means that the ANC and Zanu actively colluded in the betrayal first of the\nZimbabwean masses and later those in SA itself. The Lancaster House Agreement\nwas, in hindsight, a dress rehearsal for Codesa (the Convention for a\nDemocratic South Africa) where SA\u2019s negotiated settlement was concluded. For\nthis Mugabe was to be rewarded with an honorary knighthood by his beloved Queen\nof England in 1994; Mandela with the Nobel Peace prize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mbeki is in fact offering Mugabe a\nposthumous alibi for his betrayals by lending credibility to his cowardly\nclaims that British imperialism\u2019s broken promises prevented land reform. The\nliberation of the masses from capitalism should have been funded by imperialism!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the final analysis the Lancaster\nHouse agreement was a mere piece of paper. It could have been torn up by the\nmobilisation of the masses on a programme for the nationalisation of the\ncommanding heights of the economy \u2013 industry in the cities and the commercial\nfarms in the countryside; for workers control and management of industry in the\ncities; and led by the 350,000-strong black farm workers, combining the\ncollectivisation of the big commercial farms with a programme of distribution\nof land for small famers in the countryside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Land Reform<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the pressure of a growing\nmovement taking direct action and occupying white-owned farms, and in an\nattempt to control the process, Mugabe\u2019s so-called \u201cfast track\u201d land programme in\n2000 was not part of a comprehensive strategy to change the ownership of the\ncommanding heights of the economy. Rather, the central strategic calculation of\nMugabe\u2019s farm expropriation was to make up in the countryside Zanu\u2019s dramatic\nloss of support in the cities. At the same time Mugabe wanted to strengthen his\nhold over an increasingly fractured Zanu (PF) through the largesse of distributing\nsome of the best land to the political elites.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The limits of the capitalist\nstraightjacket Mugabe\u2019s land reform is trapped in is being more and more\nrevealed. The Zimbabwe Independent<\/em>\n(02\/08\/2019) reports that tobacco farming, the mainstay of the agricultural\neconomy, is now dominated by small scale farmers and rural households. Yields\nper hectare have trebled. Such has been the turn-around in tobacco production\nthat the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) has used tobacco output as collateral\nin securing loans from the Pan African Bank. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the improvements in the tobacco\nindustry are now coming up against the contradictions of the government\u2019s land\nexpropriation policy. There was no parallel expropriation of industrial commercial\nand financial capital which remains firmly in the hands of the capitalist class\nand foreign SA-dominated multinationals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gains of these small farmers are already\nunder threat from an economy in deep crisis with rapidly rising inflation,\nrolling power cuts and chronic foreign exchange shortages. This is aggravated\nby the RBZ\u2019s commandeering 50% of their export earnings.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Likewise, big business simply brushed\naside Mugabe\u2019s feeble attempts at \u201cindigenization\u201d \u2013 Zimbabwe\u2019s equivalent of\nSA\u2019s failed \u201cblack economic empowerment\u201d policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Collaboration<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout these developments the ANC\nremained steadfast in its support for Mugabe and the Zanu (PF) regime.  When a massive strike wave in the 1990s against\nthe effects of the Mugabe\u2019s government culminated in the formation of the\nMovement for Democratic Change (MDC) in 1999 out of the trade union movement,\nthe ANC\u2019s support intensified. Fearing that the working class in SA would be\ninspired by these development and create pressure on the leadership on the SA\nCongress of Trade Unions to break from the class collaborationist Tripartite\nAlliance with the SA Communist Party, the ANC echoed Mugabe\u2019s denunciations of\nthe MDC as puppets of the West. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately the MDC, captured by big\nbusiness from birth, answered the Mugabe regime\u2019s capitalist policies with\ntheir own even worse neo-liberal programme. Despite this the masses turned\ntowards the MDC on the electoral plane giving it 57 out of the 120 seats in\nparliament in the 2000 elections. This posed the possibility that Zanu could be\nousted from office for the first time. In the 2002 presidential elections, the\nMugabe regime, determined to hold onto power, engaged in open vote rigging,\nintimidation and voter fraud. The army generals declared they would not\nrecognise an MDC administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So brazen was the manipulation, then\nSA president Mbeki was compelled to appoint a judicial commission of inquiry. Its\nreport contradicted the findings of SADC election observers that the election\nhad been \u201cfree and fair\u201d. Adhering to the ANC\u2019s policy of \u201cQuiet Diplomacy\u201d, Mbeki\nsuppressed the report, as did his successor, Zuma, until he was forced to\npublish it through a court order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not even Mugabe\u2019s 2005 Operation Murambatsvina \u2013 the clearance\nof squatters and informal traders from Harare\u2019s streets, in revenge on urban\ndwellers for turning against Zanu (PF), forced a change in the ANC\u2019s policy. It\nleft nearly a million homeless. Whilst the masses in the region turned against\nMugabe Mbeki sparked outrage by insisting there was no crisis as intimidation\nand violence reached new levels in the 2008 elections.  In April 2008 SA Transport and Allied Workers\nUnion dockworkers refused to unload a Chinese ship, packed with ammunition, rockets and mortar bombs destined for\nZimbabwe. Only court action by the Anglican Archbishop and an NGO prevented the\nshipment from passing through on a permit issued by SA\u2019s National Conventional\nArms Control Committee\u2019s scrutiny committee.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mugabe\u2019s\nregime has in effect been illegitimate for just under half of his 37 years in\npower. The ANC government has played a critical role in propping up Mugabe,\nenabling him, his family and his inner circle to steal billions, defy election\nresults, curtail free speech and have opponents arrested, tortured or\ndisappeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Mass workers party<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under Mnangagwa there has been no respite for the masses. Already\nin recession, the\neconomy is likely to contract by at least 5.2% in the current fiscal year \u2014 the\nfirst since 2009, when Zimbabwe was forced to abandon its currency due to\nhyperinflation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The September 2019 statistics completely\nvindicate the masses\u2019 deep distrust of their \u201csaviour\u201d, Mnangagwa. Unemployment\nstands at 95%, inflation at 558% and the cost of basic services are up by 400%.\nZimbabweans are beginning to hoard basic commodities as prices go up on an hourly\nbasis with the recently re-introduced Zimbabwean Dollar\u2019s falling against the US\nDollar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Zimbabwe\nVulnerability Assessment Committee estimates that 4.1million (42% of the rural\npopulation) were food insecure in the January to March 2017. Unfortunately the\nMDC has broken into rival pro-capitalist factions, none offering any way\nforward. Workers and young people must take the lead in building a socialist mass\nparty uniting workers, small farmers and the poor. This is the main task of the\nworking class in Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The circumstances of Mugabe\u2019s death were symbolic. This alleged hero of the liberation struggle died in Singapore from cancer, as Zimbabwean doctors were striking for higher wages in hospitals that cannot fund even paracetamol.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":824,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-zimbabwe"],"aioseo_notices":[],"acf":[],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=804"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":812,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804\/revisions\/812"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}