World Affairs
African patience helps Mugabe
Published 15 December 2003
Observations on the Commonwealth summit
The political reasons for the near-fatal split in the Commonwealth over Zimbabwe have been widely reported: African countries still deeply resent being lectured by the "old white" Commonwealth, particularly Britain, and Tony Blair won few friends over Iraq. For these reasons, even British allies on Zimbabwe, such as Ghana and Kenya, did not speak as forcefully as Blair wanted or expected.
But there may be a deeper cultural reason why the Africans wanted Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe back in the Commonwealth. In African society, people do not like to take difficult issues head on. They discuss, but then often leave the matter to one side, without resolution.
Walk the streets of Freetown and Sierra Leoneans will point out child murderers and those who cut off hands and feet during the civil war. Why, you scream, don't you grab them? No, comes the reply, just leave them. We do not forget, but there is no point. Just now, we want peace.
Peace at the cost of justice is a common theme in Africa. It explains how the continent's appalling conflicts end in astoundingly sudden and total peace. In Biafra, Nigeria, Mozambique, Congo, South Africa, Rwanda and Angola, the lack of revenge has left outsiders gaping in admiration or puzzlement.
Yet the flip side of this talent for reconciliation is a lack of justice. People who have done terrible things are left at liberty. The South African author J M Coetzee took up the theme in his novel Disgrace, where those responsible for rape remain free and the victim is told that, if she wants to remain in the community, she must let the matter drop. This attitude may also help to explain why some of Africa's conflicts break out so suddenly, with such immense and appalling violence. Africans are patient, but endlessly repressed anger ends in an explosion.
In a way, Thabo Mbeki, the South African leader, has been proved right. Don McKinnon, the Commonwealth secretary general, kept saying during the summit in Abuja, Nigeria, that the aim of the Commonwealth was to engage in dialogue with Mugabe. The Zimbabwean leader's continued suspension prompted him to walk out of the club altogether.
It is hard to know how to deal with a ruler with no bottom line who is prepared to destroy his country rather than give up power, but no one could argue that punishing him has worked. Nor have Mbeki's attempts to talk him into negotiation. But he would argue that it is better to keep trying and keep him in the club in the meantime. What else, he asks, can you do? Invade and kill him?
Even the Africans who voted to keep Zimbabwe suspended did so with heavy hearts. Many people have spoken of African solidarity, but African patience and a desire to do things in an African way may be closer to the mark.
Richard Dowden is director of the Royal African Society
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