Mrs Robinson

Last night's documentary on Mary Robinson got me thinking - how many other 'global' Irish citizens are there, resepcted the world over, who we can be proud of without reserve?

One. Two. Three.

Any more?

Contextualising Mugabe

I've had a strange thing with the London Review of Books for many years now. Enthralling when its very good, it can pretty disgusting when bad, which is generally when they want to cause a stir. Last summer I resubscribed on the strength of a particular fine piece on Yeats by Michael Wood, but I knew there would come a time when I would read something quite stupid and think - let's get that money back.

Mahmood Mamdani today kindly furnishes such an instance. His piece on Zimbabwe is bizarrely distorted, and places the preponderance of blame for the country's collapse on - surprise! - the West. Its opening bars should give a flavour of the full tune:

It is hard to think of a figure more reviled in the West than Robert Mugabe. Liberal and conservative commentators alike portray him as a brutal dictator, and blame him for Zimbabwe’s descent into hyperinflation and poverty. The seizure of white-owned farms by his black supporters has been depicted as a form of thuggery, and as a cause of the country’s declining production, as if these lands were doomed by black ownership. Sanctions have been imposed, and opposition groups funded with the explicit aim of unseating him.

You know where its going from here folks - clearly conventional Western wisdom must be stood on its head. And while Mamdani musters an awful amount of effort in the attempt, it ends up an evasive and shoddy piece. Consider his take on the (illegal) land seizures that are widely accepted to have precipitated the catastrophe:

Zimbabwe has seen the greatest transfer of property in southern Africa since colonisation and it has all happened extremely rapidly. Eighty per cent of the 4000 white farmers were expropriated; most of them stayed in Zimbabwe. Redistribution revolutionised property-holding, adding more than a hundred thousand small owners to the base of the property pyramid. In social and economic – if not political – terms, this was a democratic revolution. But there was a heavy price to pay.

"Transfer of property" is putting a bit mildly. And here he is on the stolen elections of 2002:

Despite the EU’s imposition of sanctions in the run-up to the parliamentary elections of 2002, Mugabe polled 56.2 per cent of the vote against Morgan Tsvangirai of the MDC’s 42 per cent. There were widespread allegations of Zanu-PF violence and last-minute gerrymandering, with polling stations in urban areas – Tsvangirai’s electoral base – closing early and extra stations being set up in rural areas, where Mugabe’s support was assured. Nonetheless, it was clear that support for Zanu-PF was higher than in the pre-fast-track elections of 2000.

I think we can agree that "widespread allegations" is made to do a lot of work there. That serial brutality - beating, murder, rape, looting - was loosed on large sections of the population in 2002, as in 2008, is somehow difficult to say without hesitation and hedging. And I'm confused as to how its "clear" that Mugabe's support went up when Mamdani admits that fraud was rampant. I would've thought that widespread vote-rigging would actually obscure the intention of the voters.

But then, faced with with election fraud that quite obviously deferred the will of Zimbabwean voters, Mamdani grows coy, and elides any real reference to last Spring's elections, in which the violence and thuggery, while certainly widespread, worked itself up into something more than mere "allegations", and in which the prize was more transparently stolen by Mugabe and his fetid circle. Its worth nothing though, how thorough discussion of the most significant event in Zimbabwe's recent history could be missing from a piece that purports to be a serious survey of the country's situatio.

Mamdani's conclusion is also interesting for what it omits: "The arguments, which are not new, turn on questions of nationalism and democracy, pitting champions of national sovereignty and state nationalism against advocates of civil society and internationalism. One group accuses the other of authoritarianism and self-righteous intolerance; it replies that its critics are wallowing in donor largesse." Well, no: I would have thought that the main argument is about a tyrannical ruler leading his people into ruin, and then employing massive violence and fruad to tenaciously maintain his bony grip on power. Mamdani has been guilty of positing stupid equivalences before, but this "one group accuses the other" business won't wash unless he's prepared to finish the sentence with "and one side clearly is not only authoritarian and intolerant but also guilty of horrific brutality". Otherwise, he's making a fool of himself, and a mockery of serious discussion on Zimbabwe.

All in all, this is a disgraceful performance that never should have been published in a respected learned journal. It seems strikingly foolish to publish such a crass apologia when Zimbabwe is facing down another public health emergency (where, it might be added, the West are prime movers in bring relief). But its the regrettable habit of the LRB to publish articles that are knowingly "controversial" - that is, pieces that are deliberately at odds with common sense and informed opinion on a range of issues. They're like an attention-starved child - "look at meeeee!". There is a time and a place for controversy. But on an issue like this, the people of Zimbabwe - and the readers of the LRB - deserved better.