African Laughter - Doris May Lessing [136]
This is hard to believe–unless you see it. Most of us by now have seen it…for instance, there was a young woman brought up in the top echelons of the Communist Party of East Germany, and knew it all from the inside, who then was for seven years at the Moscow University; she married an Englishman, and lived at an English university. Knowing all about communism, she was not a communist, but would have been happy to discuss what she knew. But left-wing circles in the university refused to have anything to do with her. She was a reactionary, a fascist; she was probably CIA.
‘Mugabe ought to do something about it.’
‘What, precisely?’
‘Well, he could make a speech of some kind.’
‘But he is a marxist. And the revelations of the Gorbachev era didn’t emerge in a single speech, they unfolded over months and years, people had time to get used to them.’
‘Then he should instruct the newspapers…’
‘But we don’t approve of him instructing newspapers, do we?’
‘Then he shouldn’t discourage lively and critical editors.’
‘How do we know he does.’
Oh surely it can’t be Mugabe himself: Mugabe is of course on the side of the good, which in this case means the availability of information. Conversations can go on for a whole evening where it is assumed that Mugabe has been misinformed: he is surrounded by yes-men and they don’t tell him the truth.
Someone remarks that every leader that arises anywhere is assumed–in the West, particularly in Britain–to be a giant of liberal democracy. If Ghengis Khan appeared now in no time the London leader-writers would be reassuring us that he liked Western films, subscribed to the Guardian, supported Amnesty International, had a wry sense of humour.
We–that is, Europeans, people with an experience of democracy as practised in Europe–assume the countries we colonized were taught democracy. In Southern Rhodesia a lively democracy was enjoyed by the whites, but was never extended to the blacks who experienced only various forms of repression under the whites. Why then should they not have turned to communism?
Robert Mugabe is the product of an authoritarian culture. He was educated by the authoritarian Catholics. People who taught him, and fellow pupils, say he was clever, always reading, did not mix easily with others, but watched and listened: ‘A typical intellectual.’ He was brought up under White Supremacy, which was like living under a cold lid, like a frozen sky. His culture, his people were always criticized, disparaged, despised. When they say now, ‘But it is our culture, it is our custom’ as a last word, what you are hearing is self-respect, a people’s pride, that has survived decades of contempt. When Mugabe became part of the liberation struggle, it was British rule he opposed, and the language of marxism was common to all liberation movements then. They say it was Samora Machel who finally made him a communist, and that was quite late in his career. Because the Soviet Union made the mistake of backing Joshua Nkomo, Mugabe was orientated towards China, whose history since 1949 has been continuous, successive, waves of mass murders–millions upon millions killed for ideological reasons. (I actually heard a Chef say about this, ‘But you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.’) He led an army that fought not only against Smith’s forces, white and black, but sometimes against the armies of opposing political groups, Bishop Muzorewa, Nkomo–for while these armies had the same aim, they often competed for future power.
Mugabe was put in detention by Smith. To be detained or a prisoner was a harsh experience. The prison was the scene of hundreds of executions, many of them Mugabe’s friends and comrades. All kinds of atrocities were committed by Smith’s men, which are talked about but have not been officially exposed: this is because of the