{"id":12261,"date":"2013-12-09T06:08:52","date_gmt":"2013-12-09T06:08:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=12261"},"modified":"2013-12-09T06:08:52","modified_gmt":"2013-12-09T06:08:52","slug":"too-much-of-a-saint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=12261","title":{"rendered":"‘Too much of a saint’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"bobzim\"<\/a>
Mugabe’s not impressed<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

State media in Zimbabwe largely ignored Mandela’s death. On Zimbabwe’s only television channel – the state-controlled Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation – Mandela’s death was not given any prominence.<\/p>\n

The station focused on the late Brigadier General Misheck Tanyanyiwa, who has been declared a national hero.<\/p>\n

President Robert Mugabe sent his condolences however, in which he hailed “the great icon of African liberation, freedom fighter, a beacon of excellence and a humble and compassionate leader”, despite many Zimbabweans declaring that Mandela was not a hero.<\/p>\n

Mugabe was clearly referring to Mandela’s legacy of terror and violence, but Zimbabweans in general were less forgiving.<\/p>\n

“The problems South Africa is facing today are originating from the time when he was the president. He is a famous prisoner who sacrificed the dream of his people on the alter of expedience,” one said scathingly.<\/p>\n

Mandela’s death stirred debate in Zimbabwe as the former terrorist is often compared to Mugabe.<\/p>\n

Mandela was 95 and Mugabe is 90, and both spent long periods in jail in their quest for independence – Mugabe spent more than 10 years held by the Ian Smith regime against Mandela’s 27.<\/p>\n

They clashed publicly in 1998 when Mandela over the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) following a rebel offensive in that country.<\/p>\n

Mandela as chairperson of the Southern African Development Community opposed bailing out Laurent Kabila when Mugabe wanted military intervention. Zimbabwe sent its forces to back Kabila.<\/p>\n

Mandela’s most scathing attack on the Zimbabwean leader came in June 2008 when he spoke at a dinner in London against Mugabe. Mugabe had just lost the first round of elections against Morgan Tsvangirai from the opposition MDC.<\/p>\n

Mandela then spoke of “the tragic failure of leadership in our neighbouring Zimbabwe”.<\/p>\n

Mugabe also lambasted Mandela for going out of his way to please white South Africans.<\/p>\n

“They [whites] will praise you only if you are doing things that please them. Mandela has gone a bit too far in doing good to the non-black communities, really in some cases at the expense of [blacks],” Mugabe said. “That is being too saintly, too good, too much of a saint.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

State media in Zimbabwe largely ignored Mandela’s death. On Zimbabwe’s only television channel – the state-controlled Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation – Mandela’s death was not given any prominence. The station focused on the late Brigadier General Misheck Tanyanyiwa, who has been declared a national hero. President Robert Mugabe sent his condolences however, in which he hailed … Continue reading “‘Too much of a saint’”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12262,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[949,560,179,180],"class_list":["post-12261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-south-africa","tag-drc","tag-nelson-mandela","tag-robert-mugabe","tag-zimbabwe"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/bobzim.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12261"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12263,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12261\/revisions\/12263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}