Think tanking on Zimbabwe

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There was a connection between intellectual entrepreneurs and Mugabe’s sane political behaviour (if you really want to classify Marxist-Leninist ideology under this category!) Mugabe himself being a self-taught intellectual, it is not surprising that independent Zimbabwe went on to have leading institutes in Southern Africa that were torch bearers in the discourse not just on economic reconstruction, poverty alleviation, social arts and health practices but also the eradication of Apartheid. Moeletsi Mbeki and his brother Thabo will remember such institutes during their days in Harare.

Between 1980 and 1990, such institutions (or ‘thinkers’) rose rapidly, top of the intellectual pile being Zimbabwe Institute of Development Studies (ZIDS) and Southern Africa Policy and Economic Studies (SAPES). Many intellectuals who fired up ZANU pf’s socialist rhetoric were found in these ‘Think tanks’. They argued that for almost a century, black Zimbabweans had been systematically excluded from the national cake. The fires of social investment and rapid re-distribution of wealth were consequently fanned. This gave rise to development economics; social and political scientists; securing of lucrative jobs and consultancies in public, private and civic society sectors where their egos continued to blossom....

Of greater interest was the use of intellectual entrepreneurs by the Robert Mugabe-controlled public broadcaster to peddle one-party state propaganda in the name of a benevolent revolutionary government....

In 1998, the ‘Zimbabwe Programme for Economic and Social Transformation’ appeared and then the forgettable ‘Millennium Economic Recovery Program’ in 2000.

For a nation pampered for a long time by a benevolent socialist government, we black Zimbabweans were not used to the rigours of market competition. The poverty meter began to tick the wrong direction for the weak. Robert Mugabe’s ‘thinkers’ pushed him to disown the Lancaster House Constitution by transforming his position into executive presidency and tighten his grip on political power.

......Retired High Court Judge Enoch Dumbutshena gathered his peers around The Forum, a loose political coalition of intellectual entrepreneurs, to confront Robert Mugabe’s hegemony....

A series of ‘policy catastrophes’ followed – the Mozambique war, the Matebeleland massacres, the Democratic Republic of Congo war, Fast Track Land Reform and War Veteran Compensation. Zimbabwe sank further and further into the abyss. The fate of the first generation intellectual entrepreneurs in Zimbabwe had been sealed!