MY MEMORY OF MUGABE

Sir,

I was, in early 1988, lecturing at the University of Dar es Salaam in its Department of Geology and had just, the previous year, been promoted to Associate Professor.

Tanzania was, during the 1980s, in a permanent economic crisis, the local salaries at the university were less than US$100 per month, thus I had a very privileged position as an expatriate from Germany, who was supported by a so-called financial topping-up of the German Government.

In this general situation a letter of invitation arrived at my department from the Zimbabwe Government, announcing that the newly-founded School of Mines in the Faculty of Science at the University of Harare would be inaugurated in Harare, and that a delegate from the old comrades of Tanzania, especially its Geology Department, would be highly welcomed for this event.

As it was just a blank invitation without any financial commitment, my colleagues were all very reluctant to travel without any funding to southern Africa. I was, however, excited and took this opportunity for the first time to visit Harare with my own money and present a paper during the School of Mines’ inaugural symposium on newly-discovered fossils in a phosphate deposit in northern Tanzania. About 30 delegates had, according to my memory, from various countries of sub-Saharan Africa, appeared but I was the only ‘Mlungu’.

Comrade

And when the main speaker of the event appeared, president and comrade Robert Mugabe, it was not surprising that after his speech he immediately turned his eyes to me and asked about my whereabouts and how and why I came to participate in this conference.

I explained it and had some small talk with him for maybe less than 15 minutes. But I had before listened attentively to the speech he had given, which was concerned with his vision on the development of the new, post-colonial future of Africa and the exploitation of the many mineral resources still available on this continent.

And I must say, even more than 30 years later, I was and I am still very impressed about topics, themes and visionary comments and contents that he had outlined in his at least two-hour long speech (comparable to Fidel Castro, his comrade of conviction and who was also notoriously known for his long speeches). But Mugabe’s address was given without a manuscript and altogether very serious.

I was convinced that Mugabe was the type of leader who, in future, was needed in Africa. My conviction persisted for years, it was only later that I learned that due to mismanagement, corruption and nepotism the once flowering Zimbabwe fell into an economic hardship, which at least was partially caused by Mugabe’s reign.

Professor Thomas Schlueter

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