The negative images are seared into perceptions of Mugabe's Zanu-PF regime: white farmers being driven from their land, their homes ablaze and black workers fleeing ahead of mobs of chanting black war veterans.
This seizure of white farmland seemed to fulfil the prediction at Zimbabwe's independence in 1980 that the southern African country would descend into chaos without a white man at the helm. The invasion of 6000 white-owned farms by black war veterans that started in 2000 was followed by international sanctions and the collapse of the economy into world-record hyperinflation.
A humanitarian crisis gripped the country as food shortages became critical. In 2007, images of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai were flashed around the world showing his face bruised and swollen from a police beating. To complete the picture of a failed state, the Zimbabwean dollar was replaced by a basket of currencies, including the US dollar, in 2009.
Since then, Zimbabwe has barely registered on the international consciousness. Journalists looking to write sequels to these stories of violence and oppression have generally gone home disappointed. The same TV images have been recycled endlessly, giving the impression of uninterrupted conflict. The story on the ground is not so clear cut. Meanwhile, Zimbabwe languishes in the purgatory reserved for failed states, a pariah with neither a legitimately elected government nor its own currency.
The Western consensus remains that Mugabe is Africa's most notorious despot and that Zanu-PF's history of corruption, violence and electoral fraud has overwhelmed the great promise Zimbabwe had at independence, a view that began taking shape with the brutal suppression of Ndebele dissidents in the 1980s.
However, another narrative is emerging that is surprising, and perhaps inconvenient, to Mugabe's detractors. The country is preparing for local government, parliamentary and presidential elections due in July and there is a growing belief that Mugabe can win a free and fair election. Independent polling has tended to confirm that Mugabe has a real shot at victory and that support for opposition parties has crashed.
A government of national unity was installed after the disputed 2008 elections where Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change party won a majority of seats in the parliament but not the presidency. This has delivered an unexpected level of peace and harmony. It's been a fractious partnership between the MDC and Zanu-PF, which retained key security and industry portfolios but, while the politicians have fought and squabbled, the people have got on with business largely unmolested.
On every corner, newspaper vendors offer armfuls of opposition weekly newspapers, despite regular threats to close them down and arrest reporters. While press freedom is still conditional, there is a far greater tolerance of dissent. The pro-Zanu-PF Herald newspaper continues to campaign outrageously for Mugabe, but oddly allows unfettered comments on its on-line edition. MDC rallies that drew water cannon and rubber bullets in years past are politely ignored by police in this new dispensation. The dwindling numbers attending are perhaps another reason.
A referendum for a new constitution in March was held peacefully, with a record turnout leading many to hope that elections could be held without bloodshed. This has led the "Friends of Zimbabwe" coalition of states including the EU countries, the US, UK and Australia to signal a further easing of sanctions.
This week Mugabe is in Japan for bilateral talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the first Western-leaning leader to meet him since the 90s.
The key to Mugabe's resurgence is to be found in the countryside. More than a decade after the land redistribution program and four years after the "dollarisation" of the economy an agricultural recovery is under way. Output in a number of rural commodities is returning to 90s levels. The production of tobacco, which accounts for 10.7 per cent of the country's gross domestic product, is at 170 million kilos this year and is tipped to outstrip the 1997 figure of 220 million kilos in the next year or two. The increase in tobacco output is attributed to a surge in the number of growers, which this year almost doubled to 66,000 compared to 34,673 last season.
The myth that only white men could farm efficiently has been effectively disproved, according to Joseph Hanlon, a visiting fellow of the London School Economics. Hanlon's book, Zimbabwe Takes its Land Back, paints a picture of growing success among black farmers working the former white farms. Hanlon and co-authors Jeannette Manjengwa and Teresa Smart have been attacked for showing support to Mugabe but the data they present is persuasive. They claim that prior to the land invasions, there were just 167,000 indigenous Zimbabweans working on farms.
Today 170,000 new farmer owners have provided employment for more than 1 million people. Former white farmers argue that up to 350,000 people derived direct or indirect benefits from their farms but cannot dispute the new model is more inclusive. The new farms are less capital intensive but more labour intensive.
A visit to the tobacco farming areas outside Harare confirms this new vibrancy. The white-owned farms previously contributed little to stimulating local economic growth. The majority of black workers were employed on a seasonal basis, returning to their homes elsewhere when their work was done. Having invested little in improving the lives of their workers, the white farmers' revenue was put back into the farm, or parked offshore as a hedge against the looming chaos many perceived.
There is a high level of interdependence between the new farmers who are working small plots of between five and 10 hectares. They share equipment and labour, water sources and knowledge. Informal retail outlets and local workshops are springing up around the new farms to service the needs of the farmers. The new business centres are cheerfully chaotic, authentically African compared with the little islands of Europe the white farms had been. Hanson says the new model alleviates poverty and uses land more efficiently than the old one. He says the old "Rhodie" farmers were relatively poor farmers.
In 1930, the government of then southern Rhodesia grabbed 51 per cent of the best land for the exclusive use of white farmers. They were heavily subsidised to the tune of pound stg. 30,000 per farm, per year. Still, only one-third of the arable land was cultivated. And according to colonial records, 30 per cent of Rhodesian farmers were insolvent, 30 per cent just broke even and only 5 per cent did "spectacularly well."
Many of the black yeoman farmers still struggle to make a living, but Hanson argues they have a passion for farming that will, within a generation, bring greater levels of prosperity. Given access to capital and international know-how, Zimbabwe could once again be the bread-basket of southern Africa, he says. As the World Bank warns of land grabbing across Africa by foreigners, Zimbabwe's agrarian reforms are being grudgingly accepted as a means of maintaining national sovereignty. In neighbouring South Africa, hardliners are advocating Zimbabwe-style farm invasions as a means of addressing the inequality that has remained despite majority black rule. By standing up to Western powers intent on "regime change", Mugabe has won new support across Africa.Read the full story at www.smartcardfactory.com!
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