From democrat to despot
Robert Mugabe was a hero of Africa’s independence struggle, but his rule of 37 years in Zimbabwe descended into tyranny, corruption and incompetence, leaving behind a legacy as one of Africa’s most notorious leaders
In 1934, when Robert Mugabe was 10 years old, his family was beset by a tragedy that would change the studious and quiet boy’s life forever. His beloved eldest brother, Michael, died after accidentally drinking poison. In the wake of the tragedy his father, a carpenter, abandoned the family, and to Robert fell the duty of providing solace to his grief-stricken and emotionally fragile mother, Bona. “That was a terrible blow,” Mugabe told author Heidi Holland of the death of his brother, who at age 15 was reputed to be both brilliant academically and on the sports field. “He was very bright, very bright intellectually. And also very athletic, which I wasn’t. It was a sad loss,” he told Holland in a rare interview about his childhood.
“In those days we used to be given some poisonous stuff to spray on grass to kill locusts. Michael possibly went into an auntie’s room and fetched a gourd that had held poison and used it to drink water.
“When he came home, having run there from seven miles away because the poison was working and he was very athletic, he was flat [on the floor] and my grandfather said, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ And Michael said, ‘My tummy, my tummy, my tummy’.”
Mugabe’s father Gabriel deserted his family and moved to Bulawayo where he remarried.
Robert was now the eldest of three remaining children and became the sole crutch for a mother who was emotionally fragile and deeply depressed. As it was, life was hard enough for the family, who were too poor to afford electricity and seldom had enough food to eat.
“Although the family was desperately poor, it was the emotional deprivation of his childhood that scarred Robert for life. While his paternal grandfather
did his best to compensate for the absent father, teaching Robert how to catch birds for the family pot, it was to austere Bona (his mother) that Robert looked forlornly for affection,” writes Holland.
Bona, who was fanatically religious, had hopes of becoming a nun. She wore the high-necked, anklelength dresses decreed by Father Loubière, the strict founder of the mission station at Kutama.
“In those days, the Catholics were living saints, or at least the church thought it could make them living saints. We lived in Christian villages. We were not allowed to go out … You could go out on a mission to see your granny, but you had to be back by 5pm,” said Mugabe
Young Robert attended Mass with his mother every day and twice on Sunday and became almost as pious as she was.
“If his mother smacked him, Robert must thank her for correcting him; that’s what she believed. The other children used to tease him and he became lonely. He didn’t seem to care, but maybe he did,” Donato, Mugabe’s younger brother, told Holland.
The young boy buried himself in his books and became increasingly isolated from other children, who teased him for being a bookworm and a mommy’s boy.
“I always had a book tucked here (gesturing under his arm) when I was a young boy. Yes, I liked reading, reading every little book I found. Yes, I preferred to keep to myself than playing with others. I didn’t want too many friends, one or two only — the chosen ones. I lived in my mind a lot. I liked talking to myself, reciting little poems and so on; reading things aloud to myself.”
As Donato recalled: “When he went to herd cattle because our grandfather told him to go out into the fields, he would take his book. He held the book in one hand and the whip in the other. It was a