|
Magazine
CAMBRIDGE LETTER
The cost of political compromise
BILL KIRKMAN
Zimbabwe continues to be a country many of whose citizens are starving, and are being oppressed and terrorised by Robert Mugabe.
On July 15, my “Cambridge Letter” discussed the international problem of Zimbabwe. I suggested it was a problem in which the Commonwealth had a crucial role to play.
I make no apology for returning to the topic. It remains a problem of major importance. Zimbabwe continues to be a country many of whose citizens are starving, and are being oppressed and terrorised by President Robert Mugabe. The significance of the Commonwealth is highlighted by the fact that the biennial CHOGM — Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting — is about to take place in Uganda. The theme of this CHOGM is highly appropriate. It is: “Transforming Commonwealth Societies to achieve political, economic and human development”. It would be hard to think of many situations to which that theme applied more than Zimbabwe.
In 2003 Robert Mugabe’s government terminated its membership of the Commonwealth, but that does not absolve the Commonwealth from continuing concern for the people of Zimbabwe. There is a geographically close analogy in South Africa. Its government withdrew from Commonwealth membership in 1961, but in the pressure to bring an end to apartheid rule, the Commonwealth nevertheless played a major part — and witnessed South Africa’s return when apartheid had been defeated.
Vantage point
Cambridge is a good vantage point from which to observe the depth and extent of interest in such international issues. The Cambridge University student body is hugely international. One illustration of this is provided by the presence in the university of more than one thousand students from over 30 of the non-UK countries of the Commonwealth.
This week, the University Commonwealth Society staged its annual Commonwealth Lecture. The lecturer was Judith Garfield Todd, whose experience of the troubles of the country where she was born — Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe — is incomparable. Her late father, Garfield Todd, was its Prime Minister in the 1950s, until he was kicked out by the then white electorate for his radical belief in democracy, and its extension to all citizens, regardless of race and colour. Like her father, Judith was jailed by Ian Smith’s illegal government after the unilateral declaration of independence. She was then deported.
When independence came, under Mugabe, Judith Todd returned, and worked tirelessly, and fearlessly, to support the many thousands of people who had suffered during the struggle for majority rule. As Mugabe became steadily more tyrannical, Judith Todd, with her passionate belief in democracy, once again fell foul of a government which has scant regard for it.
In this week’s lecture, she outlined the background to Zimbabwe’s present troubled state. She was able to speak very much as an insider, drawing on her own distressing experience, but this was no mere personal account. She spoke with dispassionate detachment, and the questions and discussion which followed the lecture indicated both how successfully she had done this, and how wide the concerns about Zimbabwe are.
In the audience were students from Zimbabwe and from other African countries. There were also a number of older people, many of them with long and deep knowledge of Africa. And there were students from many other places, with no direct knowledge of the country — and, of course, no knowledge of how its trouble developed from many years before they were born. A young Indian student proposed the vote of thanks to the speaker, and indicated how the lecture had widened her knowledge and awakened her concern.
Individuals pay the price
Coming as it did on the eve of the CHOGM, the event was an excellent reminder of how in any situation of political dispute it is individual people who are likely to suffer its effects. As the Commonwealth heads of government assemble in Uganda, they will be conscious of more than one such situation; Pakistan, for example, has already been noted as a matter of concern for them.
As they focus on their theme of achieving political, economic and human development, they will undoubtedly be faced with some difficult issues to discuss. They will undoubtedly be tempted to look for political compromises, and avoid rocking the boat.
This week’s Cambridge lecture was a depressing reminder of the human cost of the political battles that have for decades devastated Zimbabwe, and Rhodesia before it. Those who heard it will hope that the Commonwealth leaders will keep before them the fact that the body they lead is a voluntary association of independent States which is in the business of promoting democracy, good government, human rights and economic development. In this, people matter at least as much as politics.
Bill Kirkman is an Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College Cambridge, U.K. Email him at: bill.kirkman@gmail.com
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Magazine
|
