Mission in Zimbabwe

“Finding Mercy” is a documentary made by New Zealand film maker Robyn Paterson. It details Paterson's attempts to find her childhood friend, Mercy, in Zimbabwe. During the 1980's, Robyn and Mercy were poster children for the new, democratic and multi-racial Zimbabwe supposedly built by Robert Mugabe after the overthrow of Ian Smith's repressive apartheid regime. In reality, Mugabe and his political party ZANU were already then consolidating ethnically based one-party rule, as the Zimbabwean Fifth Brigade (trained by North Koreans) unleashed a wave of terror against the civilian population of Matabeleland and the Midlands, who belonged to the wrong ethnic group and were suspected of supporting Mugabe's political rivals, Joshua Nkomo's ZAPU.

Over 30 years later, Zimbabwe is worse off than ever, despite a power-sharing agreement between Mugabe's ZANU-PF and the opposition party Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). In her attempts to find Mercy, Paterson meets or interviews dissidents, refugees and bribe-taking police officers with unclear sympathies. Her search takes her to the heart of the unstable Midlands region of Zimbabwe, but also to the capital city Harare. Abandoned farms, overcrowded slums, run-down schools and a huge black market are salient facts of life in Mugabeland, coupled with a pervasive climate of terror and fear. The search continues in neighbouring South Africa, home to four million immigrants from Zimbabwe, many of them political refugees living on the streets or in the community centres of friendly Christian churches.

Watching “Finding Mercy” brought back some memories even for me. Sweden was one of the foremost backers of ZANU and the new Zimbabwe, with Mugabe being the hero of many Swedish left-wing intellectuals and activists, due to his vaunted multi-racialism and pro-democratic leanings. As a child, I avidly read a Swedish comic about heroic ZANU guerillas (and their Swedish backers) fighting Ian Smith's regime. Despite never visiting Zimbabwe, I somehow feel involved in Robyn's story myself. It seems “Comrade” Robert Mugabe betrayed us all!

Miraculously, Robyn's childhood friend eventually turns out to live in Australia. Thus, she eventually “finds mercy”, but when and if the people of Zimbabwe will find *their* redemption is still unclear...