I’m sitting comfortably at 39,000 ft on the new A380 heading for London. It’s a lovely machine. It’s amazing what we can build and the technology we can put together and yet………….

A dictator pounds along the well worn route to genocide, societal collapse and the ignominy of international tribunals and exile in some foreign land whilst the international community looks on in horror and wonders what to do.

The sad fact is that people like Mugabe will always appear. They are our shadow, our dark side. They come as saviours representing hope but become corrupted by power, insecurity and self loathing. Democracy is damned messy, it’s painful but one thing is for sure it gives space for us to address our shadow, to address our short comings, our weaknesses and our frailties. Nothing can be done for Zimbabwe now. The play has been written long ago and we are into the final act. Mugabe like Amin before him is unravelling in a paranoiac binge of violence. It’s painful to watch the people there suffer so much.

The Burmese catastrophe simply reinforces this never ending drama. It’s like Alice in Wonderland, curious and curiouser, as those generals walk around in their own fantasy creation. Is this really happening? Can you lock up the democratically elected leader forever? Are these generals real people or some kind of virtual reality?

I say carpet bomb the country with food parcels and emergency kit. Shower the place like a mid winter storm. Get Santa and his reindeers involved.

Invasion of national sovereignty they say wringing their hands with diplomatic concern.

Bollocks….we need an invasion of humanity. Now.

The huge wage of immigration from other African states, such as Zimbabwe, has seen tensions rise at the same time that unemployment has risen to almost 4 million. Soldiers are out in the streets and even the prosperous Cape Town has been affected by unrest.

It’s poignant that Mbeki has been propping up Mugabe’s regime of fear which has accelerated the flow of Zimbabweans fleeing the violence and impoverishment in Zimbabwe.

It seems in their efforts to erase colonialism and restore their rightful sovereignty they have developed a high level of tolerance for violence and repression. This is the same story in Burma.

It’s a sad time for South Africa which has made such progress in recent years. One can only hope the Zimbabwe situation is resolved soon and the post-Mugabe rebuilding process can begin.

That should take the pressure off the situation is South Africa as the situation calms.

It was nearly a year ago that I wrote this post on him. Coincidentally I saw the Last King of Scotland again recently and was struck by something very clear: all these dictators want one thing and that is love. Yes I’m serious they want to be loved, to be accepted and they will do anything to get it. However, they end up not getting it and lash out destroying anything in their path and so the descent in sociopathy begins.

Mugabe has tried so hard to make the Motherland love him, no not Zimbabwe but Great Britain. But that love never came and so he reacted with violence against his own people, with suitable groups identified as the enemy. We’ve seen it all before.

Like Amin, he’d love to go out on top….loved not loathed but his end was written many moons ago. Like all the others before him he will die miserably in some place of exile surrounded by a few loyal servants who have long resigned themselves to his fate.

Amin went to Saudi Arabia but it’s hard to know where Mugabe will end up. Maybe with his mate Mbeki in South Africa? I think not.

I like the quote from Reed Brody at Human Rights Watch, “If you kill one person, you go to jail; if you kill 20, you go to an institution for the insane; if you kill 20,00, you get political asylum.”

As they say in New Zealand, sweet as.

What will the U.N. do? What will South Africa do? The time has come to act before the killing really gets into gear.

As Amin prepares him to meet his maker he makes some interesting points to the young man. He tells him in no uncertain terms that Africa is not a game or a place to come a play the altruist…it’s real….and reality is often brutal and bloody. His death was the first real thing the young doctor would experience in his life. As it happens he got away and we are left feeling that the message got through.

Of course the film is fictional though based on the book of the same name which drew on various people and factual events to create the character of Dr Carrigan. Complete with stereotypical English diplomatic spooks, menacing local enforcers and locals with big hearts but no hope, the film almost falls over but for the fact that it’s a fair representation of life in Uganda at that time.

It’s interesting for me also becuase in recent weeks i have met 2 people from Uganda in different contexts both who struck me as being very hopeful about life, passionate about making a difference but also aware that potentially similar problems may be lurking around the corner.

So that brings me to the point of this blog…….is Robert Mugabe the last King of Africa? Watching Zimbabwe implode is not very pleasant even for the dispassionate observer. The similarities with Uganda are there though not as obvious as one might think. Certainly the paranoia is setting in, the violence is on the increase and the general population is now suffering from food and medical shortages, inflation, unemployment.

Mugabe has already used up his fall guy card – the British – with white landowners having been given short shrift over the past decade. So the only people left to get stuck into are his own…..surely he doesn’t have much time left?

The nature of the dictator as a sociopath is well documented. Intransigence and unwillingless to listen are other unwelcome attributes. But is this just an African problem? I don’t think so. Look at Iraq, Serbia even Northern Ireland. Ian Paisley finally agreed with Sinn Fein yesterday as they sat down next to each other…..apparently “never, never, never, never” doesn’t always mean never.

And who is running Russia right now? Surely Putin is only a few steps away from a fully paid up authoritarian….he’s just doing well economically so can afford to be beneficient at the moment.

That could change.

Many old timers weep tears for their beloved Rhodesia but how can a country be prosperous based on the subjugation of others and the expropriation of resources? All around the world we are seeing a slow unwinding of the colonial and imperialist adventures of the last 500 years. Freedom, self determination and removal of the yolk of centralised and external authority is the story of the day. For Africa, stuck in the whirlpool of historical tribal and ethnic conflict, post colonialisation changes, grinding debt and the arms/resource trade, times are difficult.

The best thing the international community could do is to eliminate historical debts and aid at the same time under a guarantee that funds would go towards schools, hospitals and basic infrastructure.

Other than that people have to sort out their own problems in their own backyard. Human nature will no doubt continue to interfere with any positive outcomes but everywhere there are people with hope and the will to make things work.

As they say in New Zealand, she’s a hard road ahead.

debt, zimbabwe, poverty, conflict, mugabe, political institutions, un declaration of human rights, sustainability, new zealand, education, violence, politics, money, africa, uganda, future, Uncategorized