Last night we went to the launch of AGO Mutambara's book.There was a full house...a great occasion, a great gathering of Zimbabwe's finest minds, if education is the yardstick of measuring fine mines - CEOs, lawyers, engineers, professors and people of title from across Gauteng-land.
Arthur, he is an enigma. I first knew about him in 1988 when he led that seminal demostration against government which marked the break between the students movement and the ZANU-PF government. Until that moment, the students were ZANU acolytes. That October, I was in form 2, and news started filtering that the university had been closed, that student leaders had been dragged in the dead of night and detained. Mutambara was said to have been injured while jumping out of the window of his second floor room. Some presumed him dead, and my mother, brought up his name in nightly prayers. She knew the Mutambara's she said, and there was injustice in what had happened. That was my political awkening, and I was to devour the manifesto that he and Ed Mbwembwe (the SRC president, or was it secretary general) had penned. "Running dogs of imperialism", that was the phrase that struck me in that pinky inky copy of that document which was largely influenced, perhaps even plagiarized from the socialistspeak of Karl Marx, Che Guevera and Franz Fanon. The phrase would have incensed the establishment, and the authors would have known it. In the book he dwells on this phase of the Zimbabwean story - which was to leave an indelible mark on the University of Zimbabwe. Years later, the students' union still pays homage to those protests in the name of one of the bars - October 7, I think it's still called.
He is cocky, Arthur is. And for good reason. He has written a trilogy on his relatively short life - 50 years. The first book is a journey through his formative years, replete with all his academic achievements - book prizes, first prize maths olympiad, Oxford certificates. The point...a village boy from an improverished African village can make it to the great halls of Oxbridge and beyond; to NASA and American academy. To be sure, Arthur had the example of his uncle who became his default father after his father's premature death. That man whom I had the pleasure of meeting was a stri t disciplinarian but he devoted his life to bringing up his brothers children, living a monk's life and marrying only later on in life. The Mutambara family is a chiefly family of high achievers. Arthur's father and uncles were all educated to a level unheard of in colonial Rhodesia. He, a lone brother with all three sisters went on to be all doctors of everything ranging from Engineering, Economics, Medicine and Pharmaceutical Science. These Mutambara children are a gifted brood, and Arthur above them all. Sometimes one thinks he should be out there using his Engineering to make the world a different place. As an academic myself I agree sometimes with that saying that those that can't do teach...but in Arthur's case, he should can do, and teach as well.
I like Mutambara. As you may have worked out by now, and I think he did us a great disfavour by killing his political career by plunging, seemingly without wise counsel, into the MDC factional wars...we have lost him to politics for ever : Zimbabwe is a sad unforgiving place. But that does not mean he can still not contribute to the African story. And at the launch among all the sound bites from him and the equaly able MC, Brian Kagoro, my UZ contemporary, he shared some important nuggets of wisdom:
1. We (Africans as a collective and individually) must tell our own stories - as Brian Kagoro emphasized, if we don't tell our own stories don't comlain when someone else tells it and put the commas in the wrong place;
2.We must aim to use time and talents to achieve what we can, not only for ourselves but for Afurika (as he called her), because our individual achievements are undermined by the under-achievement of where we come from. His "superstardom", he said, waned when people knew he was from poverty stricken-Zimbabwe; for how can you claim to be smart, when you do not use that gift to uplift your own people
3. We must be servants. Each generation, in the words of Franz Fanon must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it.
4. Globcalization. He made a powerful statement that we should think Africa first (a market of 1,1 billion people) before we think "little Zimbabwe", or "little South Africa". That makes obvious sense. The contradiction, a good friend of his pointed out, might be in the title of his book, for, if indeed Zimbabwe has lessons for Africa, then the elusive dream is not just a Zimbabwean one, but an African one.
4. Globcalization. He made a powerful statement that we should think Africa first (a market of 1,1 billion people) before we think "little Zimbabwe", or "little South Africa". That makes obvious sense. The contradiction, a good friend of his pointed out, might be in the title of his book, for, if indeed Zimbabwe has lessons for Africa, then the elusive dream is not just a Zimbabwean one, but an African one.
So AGO Mutambara, as someone said, remains an intriguing idea; an intellectual giant, political missteps and all. I wish that soon we will see his ideas taking shape in products...because that is where he can make the greatestn difference. From ideas, to elusive dreams to reality, so to say. Perhaps they already have because he has two textbooks to his name, but we need more Professor, and I know you can do it.
