From me, all you’re getting is a ‘I told you so’

UNANIMITY! Total! Worldwide! Some lifetimes never see that. We’ve been spoilt. We had it four years ago, when Madiba died. Every comment was sorrow, grief, mourning – (sometimes, whisper, over the top. A wrong death at a wrong time, is grief. At 95 there’s sorrow, regret, respect, but people accept that death despite the media making out we should be rending our garments).

Now we have unanimity again, a unanimous “good riddance”.

It’s dire. Those who incline to support the underdog almost rise to the defence. Yes, Mugabe presided over an appalling massacre two-years long, of Matabele dissidents and maybe-dissidents. Yes he reduced his lovely little country from a capable economic entity to a desperate mess.

But, hey, he had stood up to fight for freedom. And he is flesh and blood. You’d expect some word of sorrow. Like you’d expect whole-hearted admiration for history’s most impeccably constitutional coup.

Oh well. Disappointed again. And from me you get only I-told-you-so, the worst sin in the Columnists’ Manual. Worse than telling the same story twice, worse than bogging you down with too many words, worse baffling you with too few words.

Whole and sole mitigation: I’m not saying “as this column predicted on April 14…” I’m going 37 years back, which changes the rules. (Or anyway, if I claim it does, you might swallow it.)

In April 1980 there was a party in one of Malvern’s less-known-saints streets, St Frusquin or St Amant. Host was a manager at the South African Council of Churches – it might have been Rev erend Dave Wanless, the head of communications. This was a Phamberi na Jongwe party – Forward with the Cock, the slogan under which Mugabe had just won Zimbabwe’s liberation election – and it was jubilant.

Mugabe’s praises were posters on the walls. The Jongwe theme was everywhere – model cocks, dishes named after cocks. The flavour was “hooray”.

When I wrangled with a group including the South African Council of Churches’ general secretary, Reverend Desmond Tutu, over Zimbabwe’s route ahead, I shrank my dubious standing. I said it wasn’t sure to be roses all the way. Mugabe’s legacy might not be all applause.

When I added “there might be more criticism than applause” things came apart. I’m pained by the disappointment of the gentlest of reverend gentleman, Father Albert Nolan, who felt like he’d been stabbed. Others developed sudden high personal-space needs.

Why I bring it up, is first, a comparison: When I years ago said future South Africans would look back on ANC rule as running the country into the ground, that was scandalous. No longer. Many people picture this week’s Harare cheering arriving yet in Pretoria.

Second, we’re in for a round of “Hope” and “New Era for Zimbabwe” rah-rah. Soon there’ll be a new president (likely the field commander of the Gukurahundi massacres!) Whoever, we’ll again cross our fingers, hoping for the best and denying the possibility of the worst.

On both sides of the Limpopo, that’s a vrot foundation. The problem isn’t this president or that one, this party or that one. The problem is a wrong system of government, one that should be outdated.

I’ve told you – a few times – that I’ve been working since forever on a better one. Coming, coming… Delayed partly by premonitions of scorn – “you can’t change systems, you change rulers!”

Really? Southern Africa’s third disgraced saviour is looming. What’s that saying about how it’s stupid to keep doing the same thing and expect different results.

Amid all the rah-rah over Mugabe years ago, I was the unpopular cynic