Long ago I
was warm, charming and generous. Passionate about justice. I led my country to
freedom from the worst kind of tyrany. Everybody believed I was the good guy.
Time and time again you voted me in. We had the world at our feet and
everything going for us.
Over time I
surrounded myself with friends who wouldn’t challenge me. I do it even more
now. I pay their bills, I buy them nice things, I give them land and important
positions. I institute new laws which give me total control. I do what I want.
I have the power. I can make up laws and I can break them as I want. If you
challenge me I can kill you, throw you in jail, destroy your life. I can hurt
you as much as I want, until you learn your lesson. Don't challenge Me. I am MugabeGod.
I can lie,
cheat and steal, blame the consequences of my own stupidity on others; I can
meddle with lives, destroy property, destroy an economy, create starvation,
empty shelves in stores. Then deny that I did it. What are you going to do? Nothing.
You have no power. I have it all.
I can do
whatever I want with your money and your property. I can do what I want with
this whole country. What’s anybody going to do about it? Nobody can touch me. Of course
I could step down and let somebody else fix the mess I’ve made but why should
I? I like pushing people around. I like the power, it makes me feel big. What
are you going to do? Tell me I can't? Start a new party? Write indignant articles
in the press? I will just shut you down.
I know how
to intimidate you. I know how to kick up so much dust that reality is obscured.
I know how to make your life a nightmare. I can do whatever I want. To those
who are blind to my evil ways I'm charming, and disarming. They believe
me. Because I have power over them. I capitalize on their innate decency.
Because I can. I don't
give a damn about the truth. I lie when I feel like it. I break the law
if I feel like it. If you break my law I’ll break your neck. What are you going
to do about it? I'm MugabeGod. I can
do what I want. I always have. You can't stop me. I'm the one with the power.
You want some of this power? How’re you going to get it? I can rig elections.
But in the
dark hours before dawn, I live in terror. Terror that I'm hated, that my
enemies are growing in number, that my control is slipping away from me, that
my power and money can't keep my soul-consuming paranoia at bay.
I loathe the
sycophants who live like parasites off me and compromise themselves despicably
so that I'll keep them in power. Disgusting slugs. Even though they're doing what I demand of
them I hate them. I'm fully aware that if they had any courage they'd admit that
they despise me. They might even kill me. They think I don’t know that but I
do.
I see
everything. Every glance between conspirators, every whispered conversation. I
know they encourage me in my evil ways to increase my dependency on them. I
know they are waiting for their chance.
I withdraw
further and further into myself, trusting nobody, afraid of everybody, my body
being eaten up by cancer, my mind slipping away from me into darkness, as my
paranoia grows like a rank tumor in my brain. In the dark hours before dawn I
can't keep my terrors at bay. Because no matter what I say to the contrary I
know I am a murderer and a thief. I know that I’m evil. I know that I have betrayed
and cruelly destroyed innocent people. I know I have single handedly ravaged my
beautiful country, the country I so passionately fought to free from injustice.
I know that my enemies are getting stronger. And I am getting weaker.
In the dark
hours before dawn I know I am condemned and that my punishment is coming and
all the power in the world cannot save me. No
place to run. No place to hide.
I am a
hunted man.
