The Sunday Mail
Any Zimbabwean who took Advanced Level History will have some knowledge of EH Carr. Edward Hallett Carr was quite the busybody.
Born in 1892, educated at Cambridge, a diplomat (or perhaps spook) from around 1916 to 1936, Professor of International Politics at the University College of Wales, assistant editor of The Times, politics tutor at Oxford, and Fellow of Cambridge’s Trinity College is a lot to squeeze into one lifetime.
Add several publications like “The Romantic Exiles”, “The Twenty Year’s Crisis 1919-1939”, “Conditions of Peace”, “The Soviet Impact on the Western World”,
“The New Society” and tomes upon tomes on the history of Soviet Russia, and you have quite a list of accomplishments.
For our A-Level pupils, the most familiar of his texts would be “What is History?” – an introduction to the theory of history that helped us start grappling with the broad concept of historiography.
The treatise explores various notions and approaches, one of which is the role of the “great man” in history.
On that one, EH Carr said, in part: “The great man is always representative either of existing forces or of forces which he helps to create by way of challenge to existing authority.
“But the higher degree of creativity may perhaps be assigned to those great men who, like Cromwell or Lenin, helped to mould the forces which carried them to greatness, rather than to those who, like Napoleon or Bismarck, rode to greatness on the back of already existing forces.
“Nor should we forget those great men who stood so far in advance of their own time that their greatness was recognised only by succeeding generations.
“What seems to me essential is to recognise in the great man an outstanding individual who is at once a product and an agent of the historical process, at once the representative and the creator of social forces which change the shape of the world and the thoughts of men.”
History is largely driven by people who ride on circumstances.
More importantly, it is shaped by those of a “higher degree of creativity”. People like Oliver Cromwell and Lenin, as posited by EH Carr.
And in it all we should not forget those who — as Pepetela says in his heroic and tragic dramatisation of our liberation struggles, “Mayombe”, — are born before their time and are only appreciated by latter generations.
I need not give examples here of such people. You know them. You know him.
Anyway, it is those of a higher creativity I am particularly concerned with today.
EH Carr uses Cromwell as an example.
Zimbabwean A-Level pupils (in my time at least) would not have met Cromwell, that man so loathed by the Irish for trying to stamp out the Catholic “threat” and establish a Puritan Commonwealth.
Cromwell believed he was divinely appointed to rid the world of the “sins” of monarchy, Catholicism and other vices that he saw as the downfall of the British Empire.
This Cromwell was a relative nobody until he reached the age of 40, at which time he walked his road to Damascus and started seeing himself as a Puritan Moses.
Bible readers amongst us will know Moses was 40 when he ditched Pharaoh and fled into the wilderness, only to return 40 years later to decree “let my people go!”
Cromwell rose fast after his Damascene experience, getting a parliamentary seat and then commanding an army to fight the monarchy.
He pushed for the king’s execution and was proclaimed Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England.
This powerful position saw him in the 1650s instituting genocide in Ireland.
His scorched earth policy resulted in the deaths of an estimated 600 000 people at a time Ireland’s population was 1,4 million.
Is this the “creativity of a higher order” required to steer history?
Perhaps that’s one way of shaping and driving history, and hopefully it is a way none in our political leadership subscribe to.
There is another way, not as harsh but surely as strong-willed. And interestingly enough it comes from that same Cromwell.
On April 20, 1653, when the British Parliament vacillated in dissolving the monarchy, Cromwell dissolved the legislature.
I will quote, somewhat extensively, Cromwell’s words as he announced the end of that Parliament.
“It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice…
“Ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.
“Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess?
“Ye have no more religion than my horse. Gold is your God. Which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?
“Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices?
“Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation. You were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves become the greatest grievance . . .
“I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place.
“Go, get you out! Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone! … In the name of God, go!”
Cromwell was a very angry man.
And so should be any citizen when the legislature does not deliver on the basics.
In Zimbabwe’s case, the basics are making laws representative of the voting constituents and providing an oversight role of the executive.
What could be harder?
Last week, President Mugabe officially opened the Fifth Session of the Eighth Parliament of Zimbabwe. This is the last session of this Parliament. Next year, we get to choose new legislators.
And what have current legislators done over the past five years? Did they advance a national development agenda or were they caught up in factional fighting, tribal mud wrestling, and general sleeping on the job while waiting for new cars and higher allowances?
President Mugabe asked this last session to consider 25 Bills, most of which target economic areas. Will we truly see anything meaningful happening or will it be more of the same as MPs sell their own country for a mess of pottage? Will the legislative agenda be sold by our MPs, Judas-like, for a few pieces of money?
We are going to elections. We will be watching our MPs throughout this session. Our decisions next year will be based on this final session.
And we will vote for the ideal “great men/women” of history.
