Open letter to Robert Mugabe

Dear Bob,

Can I call you Bob?  First off, I have to tell you that I love, love, LOVE your glasses.  Big fan.  They’re ten shades of awesome.  For the last 28 years, you’ve led the pack in rocking the giant metal frames and I respect that.  I’ll bet there’s not a day that goes by when those shiny golden rims don’t get you a compliment.  Are they real gold?  Wouldn’t that be something?

You’re a smart guy, you know what’s coming.  Obviously, I’m following that formula which dictates that when offering criticism, first give praise.  I would have given you more substantive compliment than acknowledging your superfly glasses, but my research skills are so rotten that I couldn’t find a more worthy thing to compliment on all the internets.  Shame! 

Now, I’m going to cut right to the chase: You’ve got to go.  It doesn’t matter how, just figure out a way.  You’ve spent a third of your life ruling (“ruling?”) Zimbabwe, the better part of the seventies fighting for independence in Rhodesia, and a full decade before that in prison.  Aren’t you tired?  Don’t you want to spend some of that SWEET “compensation package?”  Twenty eight years is a long time, you’re not getting any younger and you can’ take your cut with you.  (Aside–if Grace calls and asks you to pick up Nando’s on your way back to the presidential mansion, do your servants have to carry giant suitcases full of Zim dollars?)

If Ian Smith could figure out a way to step down and remain in Rhodesia even after it became Zimbabwe, surely you can do the same.  You’re a power broker!  Broker the power!

Your beautiful, once thriving homeland is on its knees.  Your people have bent further than any people should have to, further than anyone should ever make them bend.  For what?  What is it you want?  If a genie could grant you 3 wishes, what would you wish for?  Certainly while you were in jail or in the bush in Mozambique, you weren’t dreaming of driving your compatriots to ruin. 

Get in touch with that Mugabe, the one who sincerely wanted to deliver his homeland back to his brethren.  Leave a legacy of true democracy.  Your people are resilient, they’re forgiving, and they are determined to rebuild their once promising country.  If you leave, that can be your legacy. 

Shit, call up Nelson Mandela.  Maybe he can help you turn this mess into a Nobel Prize.  I’m joking, that’s probably not in the cards, but if you have any love left for your country, you’ll step down and let someone else pick up your heavy burden. 

 

 

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