Zimbabwe: Top Historian Diana Mitchel Dismisses Baba Jukwa Uprising

via Zimeye – Zimbabwe: Top Historian Diana Mitchel Dismisses Baba Jukwa Uprising

A senior Zimbabwean historian, Diana Mitchel who alone foretold the downfall of the former Ian Smith Rhodesian government way back in 1977 has spoken against thoughts in the wait for an uprising that is being engineered on social networking website Facebook by the faceless MDC character and Zanu PF de-filer, Baba Jukwa.

Mitchell signalled that an Egyptian style revolution is not possible in Zimbabwe where she has had a wealth of experience analysing complex political forces for the past 40 years.

The statement comes after the faceless character began coordinating a campaign known as Vapanduki (insurgents) on the website. The campaign is a grouping of people who are all opposed to Robert Mugabe and his ZANU PF party.

Mitchell is credited for her outstanding work in canonising Zimbabwe’s liberation war heroes at a time when they were internationally regarded as terrorists in the 70s.

Below was her full argument:

Any Zimbabwean, at home and abroad could or should have predicted with absolute certainty that Robert Mugabe and his acolytes would never allow power to slip from their hands. One wonders if the masses of red-clad MDC supporters seen at rallies in the major cities truly believed that their visible numbers and their wishful thinking could somehow vanquish the old dictator. They have learned, once more, as we former `white liberals’ learned in our past, anti-Rhodesian Front struggles, that a `level playing field’ is the first requisite for electoral success in a developing country.

Ian Smith taught Robert Mugabe that control of all the institutions of government – which included the incorporation of the national media – was all that was needed to ensure perpetual rule for the incumbent government. It was the horrific deaths among a relatively few civilians and a miniscule, white-led military, along with a lot of external support for African nationalist freedom fighters, which succeeded in overturning 88 years of white minority rule.

Without weapons or powerful external support, how could free Zimbabweans in the MDC or its leadership have forgotten those lessons of the recent past? So recent are those lessons for now, Zimbabweans will cling to peace as a preferred option. The flames of the Arab Spring’s violent revolutions are not an attractive model for change right now.