Our teacher was at a teacher seminar this week so we had a substitute teacher who was born in Zimbabwe. We talked about the history of Zimbabwe and the current situation there. An important person for the development of Zimbabwe over the last decades is the president of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe. Because of his importance, I wanted to find out more about him before he became the president of Zimbabwe.
Robert Mugabe was born February 21, 1924 in Kutama, Zimbabwe, or Southern Rhodesia as it was known back then. He was born just months after his area had become an English colony, and several new laws caused limitations to education and job opportunities in his village. Although it was unusual in his village, Mugabe was fortunate enough to receive a good education. A powerful influence on Mugabe was one of his teachers at the local Jesuit mission school, who taught him that all people should be treated equally and educated the local Jesuit mission. Mugabe moved on to become teacher himself, and he taught at several mission schools whilst studying on his own.
After teaching and studying for a while, he returned to his hometown with Bachelor degrees in education, art and science, and also his fiancée that he meet whilst studying in Northern Rhodesia. He then experienced that tens of thousands of black families had been displaced by the new colonial government and that the white population had increased massively. The new government was suppressing the black population, and this lead to violent protests. Mugabe was outraged, and in 1960 he attended a protest march where he spoke to the crowd consisting of over 7000 people. Just weeks later, he was elected public secretary of the National Democratic Party. The party became banned in 1961, but the remaining supporters came together and formed the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU). Mugabe and other members of ZAPU were frustrated with the leader, and they formed their own resistance movement Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). Mugabe and the ZANU were willing to go even further than the leader of ZAPU, and they began with guerilla operations. There were violent conflicts between the government and the resistance movement, and several people in the in ZANU and ZAPU was imprisoned, including Mugabe. He was keep prisoned for over 10 years, and while still incarcerated, Mugabe was elected the leader of ZANU. In 1974, Mugabe was allowed to attend a conference in Northern Rhodesia, but he escaped and returned to Southern Rhodesia where he kept fighting against the government. By the end of the decade, the situation in Zimbabwe had reached a low-point, and the British surrendered. They agreed to monitor the changeover to black majority rule, and by 1980, South Rhodesia was liberated from British rule. Mugabe was elected the prime minister of the independent Republic of Zimbabwe after running against the leader of ZAPU. Disagreements between ZANU and ZAPU caused a battle that lasted until 1987 when they agreed to merge their unions, and just a week after the agreement, Mugabe was appointed President. 
Thank you for sharing this. I'm sure it was an interesting lecture from Dave last week. Lucky for you to be able to learn more about the situation in Zimbabwe and well done writing about it as well.
SvarSlett