The following piece was written inspired by my traveling and studying experiences through southern Africa. On the road I met a lot of Zimbabwean people in exile, fled from their homes because of the situation in their motherlands. They seemed kind people and often told me they felt powerless and afraid to live their lives the way they want to at home in Zimbabwe. Even before reading the book “Dinner with Mugabe” I wondered what kind of person one should be to be responsible for bringing down a country that was once “the breadbasket of Africa”. I wondered how a man, calling himself a leader, can be so cruel and insensitive to his own peoples needs but instead ruining his country when once he had great plans and ambitions. ^{1 2}   

Of course one man cannot be solely responsible for ruining a whole country, there is an African community and a world community of countries and people. ³ But the fact that the man is somehow still in power to me is a bad sign for the continent. If progress is to be made there can be no excuses for men like these to cling to positions of power, unfortunately, much excuses are still being made. In the mean time the natural resources are being sold for the benefit of a few while more than half of the people depend on international food aid unable to buy just a loaf of bread with a 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollar banknote. So this one goes out to all Zimbabweans I met in Africa and of course to “His Excellency President Mugabe”.

Mr. Leader…

Once you were a man of high ideals and dreams
Back then; all you wished for was your people to be free
You were tired, aggravated and mad by their tyranny and brutality
A product of colonialism is what you are;
All you saw growing up was violence, suppression and atrocities

You saw your people get raped, murdered and slaughtered
You saw how the white colonists dismissed your basic human rights,
About the black man they didn’t bother
It was like everyday on your face, you felt their fist; it was a struggle, a fight

You fought against evil; you fought for your right
You fought against the darkness off colonialism; you were the light
One day you won the fight, a new era of independence lay ahead, shining so bright
An end had come to suppression of the black, an end to the imperial rule of the white

Once you were a man of high ideals and dreams
Back than, all you wanted was your people to be free
Yesterday you fell; today to your own people you’re the enemy
You became what you once fought against; an instrument of oppression and brutality

Mr. Leader, please tell me, how can this be?
Tell me, what happened to your ideals and dreams?
When did freedom for your people become less important than your hunger for power and money?

You got drunk when you sipped from the cup of vanity
Once you got a taste, you drank it empty
Mr. Leader, you sold your soul for power and money

Once you were a man of high ideals and dreams
Today all of them vanished, so it seems
Once you were a hero, to obtain the end of freedom, you’d use any means
Today you take away your own peoples freedom and dreams

Mr. Leader it is time to move on; the people are suffering for real
Mr. Leader, I am expressing how I feel
The people want to be free, they need democracy
They need a leader who puts them before his own needs
One who will fight poverty, corruption and HIV
Not a man who from his own robs, kills and steals
Mr. Leader, yesterday was the time for you to leave!

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¹ http://www.thetimes.co.za/SpecialReports/Zimbabwe/Article.aspx?id=1032760

² http://www.thetimes.co.za/SpecialReports/Zimbabwe/Article.aspx?id=1032760

³ http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/06/22/2009_failed_states_index_blame_game