Emmerson Mnangagwa
has got me hoping against hope.
It’s been my lot
in life to meet in various contexts quite a few politicians and a majority of
them have been likeable and hard-working and (yes!) principled. Of
course they’re a breed apart, their defining characteristic being that they
feel impelled to make an impression – to hold forth before an assembly, a gathering,
a meeting or, if alone with just you, you.
There are tiresome exceptions: a whining Trumpish bloke who played a
large part in ousting Garfield Todd as prime minister of Southern Rhodesia only
to lose out in the ensuing leadership battle; or the dreary Labour couple,
pumped up with self-importance from their town hall triumphs, whom I was
once trapped with on a cruise boat.
As a student I
worked in the only real bookshop in Harare (then Salisbury), the Book Centre,
run by dear old Victor Tarica and his shrewd and kindly wife Eleanor. Cerebral pollies sometimes popped in to order
books from us and, miraculously for those times, some of them were black – I
remember in particular a laughing bearded chap with a wicked sense of humour,
en route to detention without trial and thence to the Cabinet.
At the National
Archives I was an Oral Historian – I don’t know if I recorded anything of value
to History but I did meet some wonderful people, latterly ex-pollies. To name-drop, one was the aforementioned Garfield
Todd, charming and charismatic, another the quiet and considered old Dominion
Party stalwart Robert Williamson, another William Eastwood (who forgot in his eloquence
to pass the sugar, thus prompting me to stop taking it in tea), a fourth the
droll raconteur Stuart Aitken-Cade.
Left-wing, right-wing, left, right.
Impressive men (all men). Of
course, in the polarised politics of old Rhodesia my allies came from all
quarters: one old soldier might be bigoted but the next open-minded, deeply respecting
his black troops; a union man fresh from “home” could turn out to be a doctrinaire
leftist or an unthinking racist, shielding white tradesmen from competition. Although a born liberal, I preferred the
soldiers.
In New South
Wales I worked in the Parliamentary Library.
I glimpsed the odd polly less often than you might think, for Neville
Wran didn’t like his views to be tested in the Chamber and kept well away from
Maquarie Street. Our hours were linked
to the pollies’ and thus I served a twenty-eight-hour week (on full pay). But we ate in the pollies’ dining room,
where we were more likely to pot the species than in the library. NSW pollies were a rougher crew than the
Rhodesians I’d met and one regular reader was heavily beaten up for expressing moderate
views in Dockland.
Possibly my
thesis wasn’t fully tested in Sydney, any more than Wran’s was, but the pollies
there – and those I’ve since met in Britain – were, albeit generally
loquacious, no worse than their fellows.
Emmerson Mnangagwa is rather quiet.
