Petina Gappah on Mugabe and Zimbabwe at 30

You probably know her. She is the award-winning author of An Elergy for Easterly, a beautiful collection of short stories. I didn’t drop the book until I finished it. Get it if you can.

She writes in Guardian of April 14:

Thirty years ago on Sunday the renegade British colony that had been Rhodesia was born as Zimbabwe. In the nightmarish events of the last 10 years the euphoria of that day has been all but lost. Certainly, the achievements of Zimbabwe in the last 30 years are in danger of drowning in the mire of statistics about rampant inflation and unemployment, in images of the political repression of a cowed populace – all taken as evidence by those Thabo Mbeki calls the Afro-pessimists. For his part, President Mugabe has certainly provided much grist to the mill of the brigade that believes Africans cannot rule themselves and that independence has achieved nothing worth celebrating.

As we say in Yoruba, One is able to see, even when one is crying.

Petina Gappah blogs here.