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Citizen of Zimbabwe: Conversations with Morgan Tsvangirai 8 Morgan Tsvangirai’s house is a comfortably sprawling single-story building in Strathaven, about five minutes’ drive north-west of downtown Harare. It is, as are all houses in what are called ‘low density’ areas, surrounded by high walls. It is the counterpart designation of what are politely called ‘high density’ areas – meaning the poorer parts of town. Strathaven is not elite, but sufficiently middle-class for the houses to have not only walls but guards. Tsvangirai needs guards for different reasons to those of his neighbours, but his are well-dressed – they are MDC members and not uniformed security – and appallingly polite. I wonder what they have been through. Two weeks before we met, Tsvangirai and his party had been attacked by ZANU(PF) militants wielding axes – but, where the guards sit behind the gates to Tsvangirai’s house and garden, there is not a weapon in sight. The garden is beautiful, the lawns mowed, the hedges clipped – almost topiarised – and tall trees grow amidst the flowerbeds. A haven indeed. It is, it seems this very day, the end of the Harare winter. By local standards it has been a cold year. The tall flowering trees are beginning to produce pollen. One in particular gives Tsvangirai hay fever. He is suffering terribly, eyes red, having to blow his nose occasionally , but he cannot bring himself to cut down the tree. Tsvangirai has a deep interest in ecology. The troublesome tree is destined to survive a long time. We sit in his book-lined study in an annex to the main building. We begin our conversations with him seated behind a desk, but he migrates to the armchair beside me. The Daily Telegraph correspondent , Peta Thornycroft, comes to call and Tsvangirai introduces me as ‘the man who wrote that book about Mugabe.’ I reply, ‘and in which I was very critical of you too.’ He laughs and says, ‘that was good, it meant the book was fair and objective.’ He’s read the book. He seems to read avariciously every title on Zimbabwe. Creased open on his desk is Luise White’s latest work, The Assassination of Herbert Chitepo.1 The shelves are filled mostly with Zimbabwean books. There does not appear anything by way of fiction. Morgan Tsvangirai does not seem to have the time for recreational reading. But our time on the A Short History 9 A Short History first day passes pleasantly. He is a good interviewee, and I am myself becoming relaxed about the process. It is only when I cadge a ride back downtown in his wife’s red utility van that I notice that it is lined with a neatly cut and fitted, but distinctly home-made, armour. It wouldn’t stop much: rounds from a handgun, shrapnel from a distance. I don’t think it would stop sustained AK fire, and certainly nothing stronger. The driver, one of the guards I met earlier, sees me musing and smiles. ‘Better than nothing,’ he says. He may not be armed, but the young man has sangfroid. Morgan Tsvangirai’s mother has come to the city to be with her son at the moment of the treason verdict. She replies to my greeting in Shona, having no English herself. I think of how the old woman would have followed the courtroom proceedings. She is on the verandah with Tsvangirai’s mother-in-law, both sitting flat without chairs or stools, a curiously village scene in low-density Strathaven. And, of course, they are a reminder of the risks involved in being Morgan Tsvangirai – the family gathering itself in support, firstly of him, and if it all goes wrong, of one another. I drive away and the garden gates bolt shut behind me. Morgan Tsvangirai was born in 1952 in Buhera in the east of Zimbabwe , the eldest son of a bricklayer. He left secondary school to become a textile weaver, then worked in a mine in Bindura, north-east of Harare. It was there that he became involved in union work, rising to become leaderoftheminingunion.Itwasnotuntilthelate1980sthathebecame head of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) and gained a national platform. He is thus 28 years younger than Robert Mugabe, who has five university degrees, some earned by distance-education in prison. Tsvangirai did not participate in the liberation struggle and, indeed, the ZCTU was only able to be formed after independence had been gained. He was only...

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