The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones. – William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
The aforementioned quotation is not necessarily true. On the contrary, when people blindly embrace their heroines and heroes, the good lives after them and the evil is interred with their bones.
A perfect example of this fact is the death of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe on September 6, 2019, at the age of 95. Mugabe’s admirers remember him as one of Africa’s greatest freedom fighters. He helped win independence for Zimbabwe (then called Rhodesia.) He brought education and health care to the Black masses, greatly reduced hunger in the nation, and so forth. Due to his magnificent efforts, many people regarded Zimbabwe as the breadbasket of Africa and a beacon of hope for the continent.
Because of these kinds of impressive accomplishments, Mugabe’s admirers believe that it is just fine to allow him to rest on his laurels. Unlike R&B singer Janet Jackson, they have always refused to ask of Mugabe, “What have you done for me lately?” They prefer to hide, downplay or rationalize his bad side.
However, this is simply not good history. Mugabe ruled Zimbabwe for 37 years! Due to what George W. Bush called “the soft racism of low expectations,” many people have no problem with this troubling fact. Imagine if a U.S. president or UK prime minister would intimidate his or her people into accepting a 37-year reign. Mugabe, who was educated by Catholic missionaries, said “only God will remove me!” And many of his supporters applauded his megalomaniacal statement.
Mugabe violently repressed his political opponents. According to LGBT leader Peter Tatchell of the UK on BBC television, between 1983-1985, Mugabe’s North Korean-trained soldiers went to Matabeleland and killed “20,000 opposition supporters. That’s the equivalent of a [apartheid South African] Sharpeville massacre every day for nine months.” (Most scholars say the number is closer to 10,000, mostly civilians.) Again, if Whites had led such an onslaught, those supporting Mugabe would be howling.
In 2008, Morgan Tsvangirai ran against Mugabe. Tsvangirai won most of the votes. However, Mugabe’s supporters still managed to force a runoff election. Mugabe’s supporters beat and killed Mugabe’s political opponents, Tsvangirai took refuge in the Dutch embassy and withdrew from the race, and Mugabe received 85% of the vote. And Mugabe’s supporters throughout the world cheered.
When he was still married to his first wife, Sally Hayfron, from Ghana, Mugabe fathered two children with his then-girlfriend and later wife, Grace Marufu. Because this is Africa, this was no big deal. However, just imagine the uproar and impeachment proceedings that would have resulted had a U.S. president been involved in such a scandal.
Mugabe was “notoriously homophobic.” He was absolutely disgusted by LGBT people and did not want them anywhere near him. He famously said that gays are lower than pigs and dogs. This was an African head of state! If any Western head of state had made such a statement his political career would have been finished. In Africa, however, it’s all good. Indeed, many African leaders have shared Mugabe’s sentiment, if not used his hateful language.
Mugabe was obviously no Nelson Mandela, who, according to Steven Pinker in his book The Better Angels of Our Nature, was one of history’s greatest statesmen. This is the kind of leader Africa and the world needs. Yet much of the Black media and influential Black leaders and scholars like Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam and Afrocentrist Molefi Asante embraced Mugabe without reservations and without shame.
Tyrants have always used the red herrings of White supremacy and Western interference to effectively divert attention away from their crimes against humanity. Mugabe and his supporters were masters at this. They implied that as long as Whites held so much power, the poor masses should be fine with the rule of anti-Western despots.
There have been many others in history with admirers anxious to blindly defend them. The White Founders of the U.S. such as Jefferson, Washington, Franklin and others owned slaves and/or supported policies leading to the decimation of Native Americans. Columbus was brutal in his treatment of Native Americans. Black nationalist Marcus Garvey formed a loose alliance with the Ku Klux Klan. Winnie Mandela joined up with murderous hooligans in South Africa. Elijah Muhammad of the Nation of Islam promoted the idea that Whites are a “filthy race of devils,” formed a loose alliance with George Lincoln Rockwell’s American Nazi Party, defended female submission, and so on.
The point is that, rather than blindly embracing people with such baggage, or simply saying their legacies are “complicated,” it is better and more honest to acknowledge that their legacies are mixed. It is understandable that people who have heroines and heroes with mixed legacies have cognitive dissonance when acknowledging the negativity. But the entire truth must be manifest and each person must decide for herself or himself whether the legacies are mostly good, mostly bad, or generally balanced.
Peter Tatchell said Mugabe was a “liberation hero turned tyrant.” That is about as honest and accurate a description as one is likely to find. What the world needs is fewer hagiographies and more honest, unflinching biographies and obituaries.