Zimbabwe: Bob's not your uncle any more

So, farewell at last, Comrade Robert Gabriel Mugabe, former tinpot dictator of what he turned into a shithole country. "Uncle Bob" (as no-one called him, ever) died early today in Singapore at the age of 95.

Most Zimbabweans would say (in whispers, if not out loud) that his death did not come soon enough to save his country from its precipitous descent into chaos and bankruptcy. Your Obdt Servant laboured in Zimbabwe during the late 1990s, trying to help its businesspeople learn modern, Western management techniques. But they couldn't adopt or adapt the things they learned, because they were stymied at every turn by Comrade Bob's Marxist policies, which turned the once-prosperous Rhodesia into an economic basket case.

"Things will be better once Bob goes," people said. But Bob replied, "Handiende!" It means "I will not go!" And he didn't, ruling the country with the proverbial iron fist from its independence in 1980 until, late in 2017, he was finally deposed by Comrade ED [No relation! Ed.] Mnangagwa (pictured below) in a bloodless coup. Since then, things have gotten no better, proving yet again that there is not one country in Africa who leaders -- black or brown -- are capable of managing an economy.

Instead, they rely on massive injections of foreign aid supplied by us chumps in the West, and latterly the Chinese, who still have a lot to learn about Africa, the land of bambazonke. Incompetence and corruption come naturally to African leaders. When mismanagement and kleptomania become too much for even the Swedes and the Brits to stomach (see "Reform or no support, UK tells ED", Zimbabwe Newsday, 6/9/19), the aid money stops flowing and the people starve.

Comrade Bob, who took power after the perfidious Brits sold out their Rhodesian kith and kin in 1980, said more than once that he wanted to rule for life. In that he was typical of the African "Big Man" syndrome, in which the people of shithole countries acquiesced in one-man rule by the likes of Hastings Banda (Malawi), Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (Congo/Zaïre/Congo), Jean-Bédel Bokassa aka Emperor Bokassa I (Central African Republic) and Muammar Mohammed Abu Minyar Gaddafi (Libya - not all the Big Men were black Africans). But growing discontent about his government's maladministrationd a military intervention, impeachment proceedings by the parliament and large street demonstrations for his removal.

The November 2017 announcement of Comrade Mugabe's resignation (after he initially ignored escalating calls to quit, and take his lovely and fragrant wife Grace with him) triggered wild celebrations in the streets of the Ha-ha-harare, the fun capital of Africa. Well into the night, cars honked and people danced and sang in a spectacle of free expression that would have been impossible during his years in power and reflected hopes for a better future. But there has been no change for the povo (= poor people) of Zimbabwe, only more of the same, with an even Bigger Man ruling the roost. Prognosis? Dim and getting dimmer. Don't bother to stay tuned.

Further reading: The picture above was scraped from the Associated Press article "A look at the shattered Zimbabwe that Mugabe left behind", as posted on the CTV News site, 6/9/19. Quote from one of the povo: "Life was not that good [under Mugabe], but it was never this bad."