Thinkers and political figures
Portrait: Government of Zimbabwe, via Wikimedia Commons (opens in a new tab) · Public domain
Robert Mugabe
- Country
- Zimbabwe
- Era
- 1924–2019
- Tradition
- African nationalism, personalist rule
Guerrilla leader who became Zimbabwe’s first prime minister promising reconciliation, expanded education to among the highest levels in Africa, and then presided over political massacres, seized farms and hyperinflation across thirty-seven years in power.
Documented positions
Documented positions come from the sources listed. Similarity is this project’s inference from those positions, and is a much weaker claim.
- Called for reconciliation with the white minority on taking power in 1980 rather than retribution
- Expanded primary and secondary education massively, achieving one of the highest literacy rates in Africa
- Carried out the Gukurahundi campaign in Matabeleland between 1983 and 1987 against a rival liberation movement
- Seized white-owned commercial farms from 2000 without compensation, causing agricultural output to collapse
- Presided over hyperinflation that destroyed the national currency by 2009
- Criminalised homosexuality in explicit terms and campaigned on it
- Was removed by the army in 2017 after attempting to install his wife as successor
Where it sits on each dimension
Wealth and inequality
Evidence: Documented
The state in the economy
Evidence: Documented
Personal liberty
Evidence: Well documented
Tradition and change
Evidence: Well documented
Nation and the world
Evidence: Well documented
Power and its limits
Evidence: Well documented
Crime and punishment
Evidence: Documented
Dimensions left unscored, for want of evidence: Religion and the state, Environment and growth
Sources
- Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe, Breaking the Silence, Building True Peace: A Report on the Disturbances in Matabeleland · 1997
- Martin Meredith, Mugabe: Power, Plunder and the Struggle for Zimbabwe · PublicAffairs · 2007
Last verified: