Mugabe and the failed vision of a united Africa

Now aged 95 years, former Zimbabwean President Robert Gabriel Mugabe is another surviving legend of Pan-Africanism. A revolutionary politician who first served as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 1987 and then as President from 1987 to 2017, he was one of the reliable believers of Pan-Africanism, who persevered to the end in defending the Movement and the African freedom and identity.

The West isolated him due arguably to his strong pan-African sentiments he so daringly expressed in public given the chance at any international conference.

After leading the fierce guerrilla warfare against White minority rule in the then-Rhodesia, Mugabe led his country to independence and became the founding leader of the new Zimbabwe nation.

For 37 years of his rule, he was at the helm of his Zanu-PF party, which is dominated by veterans of the liberation struggle. A taint on his legacy is Zimbabwe’s economic downfall -- from one of the best and most promising on the continent to null level. However, his effort to protect pan-African ideals and African identity as a Zimbabwean and an African are puzzlingly striking.

In one instance during a Commonwealth meeting he spit in the face of the West when he said he was ready to lose his membership to the grouping in order to keep his Zimbabwe, and indeed his African identity. He said: “…If the choice were made, one for us to lose our sovereignty and become a member of the Commonwealth or remain with our sovereignty and lose the membership of the Commonwealth, I would say let the Commonwealth go… We don’t mind having sanctions banning us from Europe. We are not Europeans. So, Blair keep your England, and let me keep my Zimbabwe…”

So, in this series, we will retrace the story of Robert Mugabe, one of the Fathers of Pan-Africanism.

We narrate Mugabe’s mysterious story of the latent vitality and passion in his personality in the fight to protect the African identity, freedom and pan-Africanism.

Robert Gabriel Mugabe was born on the 21st of February in 1924, at the Kutama Village in Zvimba District, Southern Rhodesia (present day Zimbabwe). Mugabe began his primary education in 1931 at the Katuma Primary School ran by the Catholic Jesuits.

In 1941 he completed his six-year primary education and he was offered a place for teacher training course at the Kutama Teacher Education College.

Mugabe attained his Teaching Certificate in 1945 and taught in various schools in Southern Rhodesia.

In 1949, he won a scholarship to study at the Fort Hare University in South Africa, Eastern Cape where he obtained a degree of Bachelor of Arts in History and English Literature in 1952 and returned to Southern Rhodesia to continue his teaching.

Between 1953 and 1954 while teaching he took correspondent studies offered by the University of South Africa and he gained a Bachelor of Education Degree. After attaining his degree he became a tutor at the Chalimbana Teacher Training College in Lusaka, Zambia in 1955, and worked until 1958.

At the college, he studied a Bachelor of Administration Degree by correspondence from the University of London. In 1958, Robert Mugabe moved to the independent Ghana and after obtaining his local teacher certification he worked at various training colleges in Ghana.

It was in Ghana where Mugabe was exposed to Marxism that would later guide his political philosophy as the leader of Zimbabwe. In September 1957 while Mugabe was abroad, an anti-colonialist African nationalist movement the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress (SRANC) was established in Southern Rhodesia by Joshua Nkomo.

The SRANC was banned by the colonial government in February 1959 and the National Democratic Party (NDP) was founded replacing the SRANC in January 1960 as well led by Joshua Nkomo.

In May 1960 Mugabe returned to Southern Rhodesia and joined the NDP. Mugabe resigned from teaching and devoted himself to full-time political activism. This was the beginning of his life as a freedom fighter and defender of pan-Africanism.