BY DR MASIMBA MAVAZA| Flags in Zimbabwe are flying at half mast, each giving a sorrowful wave in the winds of September. The rhythm of the wind sings to a sad tune which says goodbye our hero. Goodby. Robert Gabriel Karigamombe Mugabe. A very dark cloud has enveloped the nation and yes we are all in mourning. The social media is awash with the news that President Mugabe refused to be buried at the National Heroes Acre.
The Gushungo family conveyed their message to the government. If there is any time when the family’s wishes would be disregarded it is when the hero of Mugabe’s nature dies. Mugabe is a national hero; his heroics suppress his faults. He was not only a member of ZANU PF. He was ZANU PF itself. Mugabe was larger than the party. Love him or hate him Mugabe won the hearts of both friends and enemies alike.
Burying him at heroes acre cannot be decided by his relatives. There is no person who is supposed to be buried at heroes acre more than Mugabe.
Some political prostitutes who are quick to insult the president in order to gain positions are idiots and shameless bootlickers. While some family members who have scores to settle or those who have political reasons to offer dissenting voices try to make the burial place an issue, the reasons they are giving are that Mugabe did not want Mnangagwa to gain political milage by officiating at Mugabe’s funeral. These are seriously embarrassing. The burial of Mugabe is not a rally so there are no political gains to be won in officiating at his burial.
People should understand the presidency.
The president, in government, is the officer in whom the chief executive power of a nation is vested. The president of a Republic is the chief of state, but his actual power varies from country to country; in Zimbabwe the presidential office is charged with great powers and
responsibilities, but the office is relatively weak and largely ceremonial in Europe and in many countries where the prime minister, or premier,
functions as the chief executive officer.
Much of the time these chief executives function in a democratic tradition as duly elected public officials. Throughout much of the 20th century, however, some elected presidents—under the pretense of emergency—continued in office beyond their constitutionalterms. In other cases, military officers seized control of a government and afterward sought legitimacy by assuming the office of president. Still other presidents were virtual puppets of the armed forces or of powerful economic interests that put them in office.
Zimbabwe endowed the office of president with immutable executive powers, including the power to dissolve the national legislature and call national referenda. The elected president becomes a national property.
This means the president among being a human being is the property of the state. He is the face of the country and indeed his person is solely the person of the state.
When the president leaves office his welfare remains the responsibility of the state. He can not decide his fate. Mugabe’s burial place is therefore decided by the politburo.
While Mugabe was believed to have led a faction no amount of rebelling would strip the honour bestowed on Mugabe by the nation.
There are some organs of the party which had denigrated the person of Mugabe and his office. Most of these people were in dippers when Mugabe was in the trenches. Mugabe had taken decisions which made him unpopular but which enriched the people. The land reform programme needed a brave leader to issue a brave nod to the land issue. It is this decision which made Mugabe a hated person by the west.
Issues like Gukurahundi did not pity Mugabe against the rest. Actually Mugabe emerged stronger and consolidated his grip on ZANU PF after the Dissident error.
Now coming to the message purportedly said by Mugabe the nation must not lose sleep. There is no official message to President Mnangagwa it is entirely based on a rumour.
The government can not start reacting to rumours.
Matemadanda was wrong to say Mugabe has a choice. For the place of burial there is a place for heroes and there are some heroes are not allowed to have a choice.
Robert Mugabe appears to be a president in rebellion against his former office. A former president, we have come to expect, hastens to the scene of a natural disaster to comfort the afflicted. He is expected to further national issues not personal vendetta.
We have come to expect that when the national fabric rends, the former president will administer needle and thread, or at least reach for the sewing box of unity. We expect former presidents to be deal makers. Even when the opposition has calcified, they are
supposed to drink and dine with the other side and find a bipartisan solution.
With Robert Mugabe we expected that his decades in the real national business would make him an especially able negotiator, he hasn’t much bothered to trade horses with the new leadership.
To his critics, Mugabe’s detours from the expectations of his office prove he is unfit to inhabit it. Or they demonstrate his hypocrisy: The man who now ignores the traditional
responsibilities of the job was once perhaps the nation’s foremost presidential scold, regularly criticizing his predecessors when they have not said anything.
It must be noted that Mugabe did not enjoy much peace after the coup or whatever it is called. He was isolated with very few people allowed to see him. He withdrew from the public and most of his time he was in hospital. No reasonable person would expect Mugabe to have taken a charitable work in sync with his office of the former president. His health did not allow him to venture in the public and interpreting that as departure from the party is foolish and cheap political gimmick by the clueless few.
Yes Mugabe was still angry with ED but his anger was never be above national pride and interest. Mugabe is a national pride and must be buried at the shrine.
We might say what we want to say but Mugabe remains a property of the state and he can not choose where he wants to be buried.
There are some vindictive people in ED’s government who would want to see the total humiliation of Mugabe even after death. They have not understood ED when he said Mugabe was his icon. Indeed Mugabe is iconic but his position prohibits him from making sweeping statements about our hero himself. He does not belong to Grace or Gushungos anymore. He is a national property.
Heroes acre will lose its weight without Mugabe. It will become a white elephant if it is not serving its purpose.
Without any futther negotiations Mugabe must be buried at the heroes acre.
Maybe Grace does not want to see Mugabe’s grave near Sally. This madness must stop. Our hero to the heroes acre.
Mugabe was part of Zimbabwe and he should be buried at a place where his contributions to the state is recognised. The word Zimbabwe can never be in a paragraph without Roberty Gabriel Mugabe. Baba Bona