Robert Mugabe, the dictator of Zimbabwe, claims to be a man of faith\u201d\u201dand with some reason. He was born to mission-educated parents and, like many Zimbabweans of his generation, he attended a Jesuit school. He reportedly still attends weekly Mass in Harare. Martin Meredith, a former southern Africa correspondent for the London Times and a biographer of Mugabe, asserts that, at least in his younger days, Mugabe\u2019s \u201cmentor had been the Catholic Church.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
Yet in his twenty-seven years of dictatorial rule, Mugabe has shorn himself of anything his religious upbringing might have instilled. His genocide in the 1980s against members of the minority Ndebele tribe; his politically induced starvation of opponents; and the arrest, torture, and sometimes outright murder of those who speak out against his rule have all demonstrated a wanton disregard for what the Church\u201d\u201dparticularly the Church in Zimbabwe\u201d\u201dhas taught its flock. \u201cI was brought up by the Jesuits and I\u2019m most grateful,\u201d\u009d Mugabe has said. \u201cI benefited from their teaching enormously.\u201d\u009d In truth, the only thing Mugabe seems to have kept from his Jesuit education is an austere self-discipline, a virtue that he has ruthlessly distorted to keep himself in power at the expense of his suffering countrymen.<\/p>\n
To many African leaders, Mugabe is seen as a hero of the struggle against European dominance of the continent. But, in the end, the Zimbabwe of Robert Mugabe remains remarkably similar to its predecessor, the Rhodesia of Ian Smith. The white authoritarian tyranny of Smith relied on distinct forms of prejudice, and so does the black kleptocratic tyranny of Mugabe\u201d\u201dboth abjectly refusing to recognize the inviolable rights of man.<\/p>\n