The Editor,

The Editor, Sir:

Many people are left puzzled as to why Robert Mugabe has metamorphosed from a liberation fighter into a megalomanic father figure. It is precisely because of colonialism that Mugabe has become just another African tyrant.

He is the dark side of the European imperialistic personality - a side that Europe has tried to deny, hide, and when this can't be done, to at least excuse and justify it. He, indeed, is their alter ego or their other self.

He is a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde mirror image of themselves - a different side of the same coin. He is a distorted effigy of their subconscious.

They hate, revile and find him repulsive, but they also fear, and disapprovingly admire him for his audacity, insolence, arrogance and petulance. He is a gross distortion and caricature of their Id; their Ego; their Superego, to use some Freudian terms.

Pitiful despot

Mugabe is their Frankenstein - their monster, their malignant creation gone amok. They wish to destroy him, but in the process they would be destroying themselves.

But just as they cannot destroy themselves, they can no more destroy him. He haunts their psyche, but he is their psyche.

Mugabe will in time recede into history as just another pitiful African despot, but guess what, he'll be replaced by another African despot, another product of Western imperialistic designs.

Only another Mandela can save Africa from itself - from European imperialistic machinations.

I am, etc.,

GEORGE S. GARWOOD

merleneg@yahoo.com