Have mercy... even for the tyrant Mugabe

SELF-KNOWLEDGE is a curious thing. You move through life thinking you know who you are. And then, one day, something happens that jolts you from your complacency.

Regular readers will know that I have no time for tyrants.

In fact, I think the moral measure of a person is where they stand on tyranny.

That is why I could never fathom those who spoke favourably about Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot or the IRA.

It doesn’t matter if they call themselves ‘freedom fighters’, ‘revolutionaries’ or ‘comrades’. If their aim is to deny people their freedom, terrorise and bully their way to absolute power, they are tyrants pure and simple.

Robert Mugabe is a classic case in point.

Here is a man who has pauperised and oppressed his people for nearly four decades.

He did so with relative impunity, styling himself as a great anti-colonial warrior.

The fact that he delivered Zimbabwe from British rule was, in his mind, enough to secure him in power for life.

Ironic, isn’t it, that when such ‘freedom fighters’ attain power, the first thing they do is deny the very freedom they were supposedly struggling for.

The coloniser gives way to a dynasty of despots and liberty dies. Revolutionaries don’t do freedom, which is why we should be thankful we have kept ours at bay.

Mugabe plundered, murdered and caused economic carnage across his country. Revolutionary rhetoric was used to deflect attention from his abuses. But ‘Uncle Bob’ could not be touched because he was a ‘hero’ who had ‘liberated’ Zimbabwe.

Not any more. In an instant, his army, his party and his people have turned on the tyrant.

He once boasted that he would ‘rule until I am 100’. Seven years short of that target and it’s all over for him.

For the first time since independence, Zimbabwe is breathing fresh air. The people whose future he robbed to feather his copious nests, are ecstatic at the prospect of life without Mugabe. Indeed, we all should rejoice at the thought of one less tyrant.

And yet, something very strange happened to me as I watched him over the weekend. It was something that also happened to me when Saddam Hussein was hanged and when Colonel Gaddafi was murdered. I saw a frail, confused old man and I felt sorry for him.

I struggled with that emotion, reminding myself of all the misery unleashed by Mugabe. And then I heard that he was declining food and refusing to wash.

His aides reported that he was staring at a photo of his dead wife and wailing aloud for his deceased son. They painted a pathetic image of a man on the edge of a breakdown.

His opponents claim it was a trick to garner sympathy. Looking at him deliver his incoherent speech on Sunday night, all I saw was someone in a state of deep stress.

Mugabe was a barbaric tyrant who, only last week, sought to ‘eliminate’ his sacked vice-president, Emmerson Mnangagwa. How could I possibly feel sorry for such an individual? How could I, a person so opposed to tyranny, sympathise with someone who had caused so much suffering? As I say, you think you know yourself until something like this happens.

Similarly, when Saddam Hussein stood on the gallows and was taunted by his hangmen, I was shocked by my visceral reaction.

This man that I had so often denounced on radio, television and in print, was facing the ultimate sanction for his crimes. Why taunt a condemned man as he says his last prayers?

FEELING sympathy for a decrepit old despot like Mugabe is an unsettling sentiment. And yet, isn’t that what makes us different from him – the fact that we can show him the sympathy that he systematically denied to others? For we are not vengeful tyrants but people who value the rule of law, justice and mercy.

This is not to say that people like Saddam and Mugabe should go unpunished. What else but the toughest sanctions could deliver due justice to their countless victims? It is simply that we should never resort to the tactics of the tyrant when calling them to account.

The quality of mercy drops as the gentle rain from heaven.

In the place of a tyrant you see a vulnerable old man. And, in that moment, you learn something vital about yourself.

You learn that your heart is softer than you thought, and that this is the true gift of living where freedom is more than just a word.