African Update

It was a bittersweet moment at best today when Morgan Tsvangirai, the long-time leader of Zimbabwe’s main opposition party the Movement for Democratic Change, was sworn in as Prime Minister by his nemesis Robert Mugabe. It’s supposed to be a ‘unity government’ and, after nearly a year of bitter and sometimes violent struggle over flawed elections, at least the government is now actually in place.

But this cannot be what Tsvangirai and most of his supporters imagined would happen when they began the struggle against Mugabe’s ruthless and tyrannical rule many years ago. The last thing that they wanted to see was Tsvangirai being sworn into Mugabe’s government. Tsvangirai asserts that he will be able to do more for Zimbabwe inside of Mugabe’s government rather than fighting against it. Let’s hope that he’s right.

It seems more likely, however, that Mugabe has Tsvangirai right where he wants him—his former foe is now an emasculated ‘leader’ within Mugabe’s own realm. Wasn’t it Sun Tzu who said ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer’?

It will be interesting to see if this new governmental arrangement results in any noticeable improvement in the lives of Zimbabweans. It’s hard to image things getting any worse but that’s what we thought a few years ago when, by comparison to today, Zimbabwe looked like paradise.