He received a scholarship to South Africa’s Fort Hare University. There he met future leaders like Julius Nyerere from Tanzania and Kenneth Kaunda from Zambia. He joined the African National Congress. He was also exposed to Marxism. After graduating in 1951 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in History and English, he taught in several schools and continued his studies in Southern Rhodesia and Tanzania, where a nationalist movement led by Nyerere was starting to form.
Mugabe’s political ideology solidified after moving to newly independent Ghana to teach in 1957. Ghana was the first British colony to gain independence in Africa. Kwame Nkrumah’s socialist and anti-imperial rhetoric struck a chord with Mugabe, who by this time was active within Ghana’s political youth leagues.
Mugabe met his future wife Sally Hayfron in Ghana. They travelled to Southern Rhodesia in 1960 so she could meet his mother – and found a very changed place.
The settler population had increased, and with it the displacement of people and the overcrowding of the reserves. Unemployment was high and most people had no opportunities for advancement.
The government of Southern Rhodesia cracked down heavily on dissent at this time. After several opposition leaders were arrested under the 1959 Unlawful Organisations Act, Mugabe addressed a crowd gathered at Harare Town Hall. He spoke about Ghana’s independence movement. In referring to Marxism and its tenets of equality, he offered an alternative future to a crowd frustrated by minority rule.
Mugabe was elected Secretary of the National Democratic Party (NDP). Ten days after the government banned the NDP in 1961, several leaders came together to form Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU), which was led by Ndebele trade union leader Joshua Nkomo. Mugabe, ZAPU’s Information and Publicity Secretary, was frustrated with Nkomo’s approach and felt that his demands for majority rule favoured rhetoric over action. Other leaders felt the same way and they together broke from ZAPU to form Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) in 1963.
The government banned both ZANU and ZAPU and several party leaders, including Mugabe, were imprisoned in 1964 – the year Ian Smith became Prime Minister.
Smith would not agree to a plan or timetable for majority rule in Southern Rhodesia. He unilaterally declared independence from Great Britain in 1965, prompting sanctions and isolation from the international community.
During his ten years in prison Mugabe remained active in ZANU politics. In 1974 he was elected ZANU party head in what some argue was a coup against sitting leader Ndabaningi Sithole. In 1974, at the insistence of South African leaders, Smith released Mugabe to attend a conference in Zambia. Mugabe fled to Mozambique where Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) guerrilla forces were being trained for what would be another five years of war.
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