This is what resilience is
OUTSTANDING leaders are actuated by ambition. They are people of distinction, energy and self-sacrifice. They are altruists who, for the sake of their nations, forgo many pleasures and subdue their own passions.
When one considers this, it then makes sense why we speak of President Mugabe as an outstanding leader.
It is not strange for a nonagenarian to be decrepit in body and deficient mentally. But not President Mugabe.
They may not say it publicly, but even his enemies speak in awe when confronted by President Mugabe’s ringing intelligence and profundity.
It is fixity, purpose and unrelenting obstinacy which characterise our President.
His grim struggles with colonialism left undeletable imprints on the minds of many while his leadership and support have given impetus to the Second and Third Chimurengas.
President Mugabe has a reputation of high integrity, sound judgment and untiring zeal in the service of Zimbabwe.
He is the interpreter of the tears of the people and woes of the proletariat.
Most politicians of today are money-driven, use artful ruses to amass wealth, and all they do is for self-aggrandisement.
But our President, devoid of any inclination of self-centredness or pursuit of pecuniary gains, has made himself the friend of the poor.
His cherished ideal is that all African nations acquire political freedom and economic independence, which, Zimbabweans are starting to enjoy.
Zimbabweans owe their Independence to his indomitable will, undaunted perseverance, imperishable power of mind and unquenchable thirsty for freedom of President Mugabe.
Though at one time incarcerated, he made a firm resolve to devote his life to the needs of his people with his very life.
He acted boldly, courageously and intrepidly against the exploitation and subjugation of his people.
During the liberation war when the enemy put him in prison, they thought they had silenced his ideas and shackled his resolve.
Paradoxically, those years strengthened his character and enriched his mind.
When he came out, he continued the struggle with greater will, becoming a builder of our Independence. Despite of all the persecution and enervating political environment, he stoically led the struggle.
When his cherished dream of a free people and country was established in 1980, his first priority was directed to education.
He, as an intellectual, understood that lack of education was an impediment to both individual and national success.
His Government built many schools in a war-ravaged nation to ensure that the poor were part of nation-building. We also witnessed the construction of a number of colleges and universities throughout the country.
The health sector was also promoted in such a way that many clinics and hospitals were built.
Boreholes were drilled countrywide to provide clean water, and blair toilets rolled out to provide sanitation to rural communities.
Because of these improvements we witnessed a significant decline in mortality rate.
To curtail the spread of an emerging epidemic, President Mugabe’s Government pushed to involve every citizen in the war against HIV and Aids.
That is how we saw the Aids Levy being instituted, and the experts will tell you what a massive impact that has had on reducing the prevalence of the pandemic.
Quite importantly, in 1997 President Mugabe sought to address the unequal distribution of land, since a few had benefited from the initial distribution programme conducted in the early 1980s.
Under the terms and conditions of the agreement at Lancaster House and the 1980 constitution, President Mugabe and his Government were obliged to wait for a set time before touching commercial land.
Nothing much could be done to plight of the land-hungry peasants.
The British and the Americans had said they would compensate their kith and kin when the time came.
And so in 1997 Zimbabwe found itself eager to appease land hunger at a time that the British were going for a general election.
The Conservatives lost to Labour, and the then new British prime minister, Tony Blair blatantly repudiated the agreement.
If they thought this would stymie our President, they were in for a rude awakening.
In the same manner that he emerged from a decade of colonial incarceration, President Mugabe rallied himself and prepared for the next logical phase of the independence project.
He called for and organised the Land Donor Conference in September 1998.
All stakeholders — who included Government traditional chiefs, the mainly white Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union, the World bank and IMF, United Nations representatives, and officials from South Africa, Britain, the United States and other countries — gathered in Harare in a bid to secure both land and funds to enable Zimbabwe to carry long-waited land reforms.
But some stakeholders had other plans.
They worked hard to stall land reforms, and when it became clear our President would not abandon the agenda, they created their puppet.
So in 2000 we saw the Western-sponsored MDC working rigorously to stop land reforms via a new constitution — and the enemy thought they had at last silenced Robert Gabriel Mugabe.
It seems they have never learnt the lesson: President Mugabe’s resolve is double the strength of the challenge faced.
In the face of rapacious power, of unrepentant colonialism, he initiated a Fast-Track Land Reform Programme.
The onslaught was brutal — economic sanctions, propaganda and outright sabotage.
But look at him today. He stands proud and tall, ready for another election, the leader of a free nation.