The 93-year-old, superannuated but seemingly ageless dictator of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, has taken a sudden fall from power. It happened in a day.
Mugabe, who has ruled that sad African land since 1980, made a fatal misstep. He fired his vice president, who was favored by the military, in order to grease the skids for his 52 year old wife, Grace Mugabe (derisively nicknamed "Gucci Grace" for her lavish shopping sprees) to succeed him.
But the men with the guns balked. And as Mao Zedong crudely said, "political power flows out of the barrel of a gun." One must control the men with the guns.
The head of the army made a surprising public pronouncement, warning of a "coup." Pretty daring. Apparently the coup was already arranged, as he wasn't fired and jailed by Mugabe. Next thing you know, the military seized control, for the good of the nation, naturally. They denied their coup was a coup, disingenuously, announcing that Mugabe was "safe." (Safe in a gilded cage, that is.) Thus the reign of Mugabe comes to a sudden, inglorious end.
Mugabe was a despot from the get-go. One of the first things he did after the ouster of the previous white racist regime (when the country was called Rhodesia) was destroy the other armed revolutionary party and militia that had battled the ancien regime, ZAPU. Mugabe's ZANU-PF became in effect a one-party dictatorship.
Over the years, Mugabe pursued highly destructive economic policies, and scapegoated the small number of white farmers in the country, unleashing mobs to seize their lands and terrorize them. This racist, lawless assault was justified with the standard "revolutionary" cant.
In Zimbabwe, we saw another sad example of the destruction of revolutionary ideals after a successful revolution. George Orwell's novel, Animal Farm, is an allegory of this process, modeled on the Soviet experience. (A similar loss of ideals can be seen in non-Marxist-inspired revolutions, like the American revolution.)
The question now is, what does the military do going forward? Is their plan to restore the cashiered vice president? Stage elections? So far the opposition party, much oppressed by Mugabe, hasn't had much to say. This seems like a successor struggle within ZANU_PF, with the military in effect vetoing Mugabe's choice of his wife as the next president. Either they will bend Mugabe to their will and have him agree to a successor of their choice, or he'll be "retired" "for reasons of health."
Those are my predictions.
Mugabe, who has ruled that sad African land since 1980, made a fatal misstep. He fired his vice president, who was favored by the military, in order to grease the skids for his 52 year old wife, Grace Mugabe (derisively nicknamed "Gucci Grace" for her lavish shopping sprees) to succeed him.
But the men with the guns balked. And as Mao Zedong crudely said, "political power flows out of the barrel of a gun." One must control the men with the guns.
The head of the army made a surprising public pronouncement, warning of a "coup." Pretty daring. Apparently the coup was already arranged, as he wasn't fired and jailed by Mugabe. Next thing you know, the military seized control, for the good of the nation, naturally. They denied their coup was a coup, disingenuously, announcing that Mugabe was "safe." (Safe in a gilded cage, that is.) Thus the reign of Mugabe comes to a sudden, inglorious end.
Mugabe was a despot from the get-go. One of the first things he did after the ouster of the previous white racist regime (when the country was called Rhodesia) was destroy the other armed revolutionary party and militia that had battled the ancien regime, ZAPU. Mugabe's ZANU-PF became in effect a one-party dictatorship.
Over the years, Mugabe pursued highly destructive economic policies, and scapegoated the small number of white farmers in the country, unleashing mobs to seize their lands and terrorize them. This racist, lawless assault was justified with the standard "revolutionary" cant.
In Zimbabwe, we saw another sad example of the destruction of revolutionary ideals after a successful revolution. George Orwell's novel, Animal Farm, is an allegory of this process, modeled on the Soviet experience. (A similar loss of ideals can be seen in non-Marxist-inspired revolutions, like the American revolution.)
The question now is, what does the military do going forward? Is their plan to restore the cashiered vice president? Stage elections? So far the opposition party, much oppressed by Mugabe, hasn't had much to say. This seems like a successor struggle within ZANU_PF, with the military in effect vetoing Mugabe's choice of his wife as the next president. Either they will bend Mugabe to their will and have him agree to a successor of their choice, or he'll be "retired" "for reasons of health."
Those are my predictions.
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