Time magazine argues in a recent piece on Mugabe that the intransigent president “clings on, but his power is waning.” I have no quarrels with the article, which hits all of the necessary marks in a piece written for a genralist audience that has little background on Zimbabwe (or most any other particular African issue). Megan Lindow, the author (with help from Simba Rushwaya in Harare), even acknowledges how easy it is for Zimbabwe to recede and get buried amidst not only the global economic crisis but the stories du jour from Africa (piracy in Somalia, chaos in the Congo).
But one point that the article misses is that in Zimbabwe (indeed much of the rest of Africa, or even the world) a despot like Mugabe is at his most dangerous when he is most vulnerable. Now is when Zimbabweans should fear the heavy footsteps of the security forces and the menacing approach of the so-called war veterans. Now is when they should expect pronouncements that barely cover in shadow implicit threats of violence and other retribution. In many ways, Mugabe barely clinging on to power is perhaps the most ominous state of all, at least in the short term.