a seed planted by the students of Michigan State University (MSU) last June has grown sprouts in faraway Scotland. Students at Edinburgh University have backed calls for Robert Mugabe to be stripped of an honorary university degree.
The Zimbabwean president was awarded an Edinburgh University accolade in 1984 and was given an honorary Doctor of Laws MSU award in 1990.
The Edinburgh award was bestowed on Mugabe for his role in "reviving the nation's fortunes."
But members of Edinburgh University Students' association said (the degree) "helped give legitimacy to his regime, which is linked with corruption and violence." (BBCNews UK edition, Nov. 10, 2005).
The student council of MSU was unanimous in its vote to officially ask its university Board of Trustees to strip Mugabe of the honorary degree it bestowed upon him 15 years ago.
Time would prove both university degrees for Mugabe as ironic in the face of the famine now imposed on the once flourishing Zimbabwe.
In today's Zimbabwe, imported food is only distributed to those who can produce Zanu (PF) party cards or badges that indicate a hungry person has attended a Zanu (PF) election party.
In Edinburgh, students are not deterred by university rules that enable the removal of ordinary degrees, but not honorary ones.
"There is something fundamentally wrong with the fact that an ordinary degree can be removed if you are found to have cheated, yet an honorary degree can't be removed no matter how despicable the person in question is," said Tim Cobbett, student association vice president of academic affairs, who proposed the motion to strip Mugabe of his degree.
Indeed, students are lobbying to both have the degree withdrawn and for the university to change its rules for the future.
When MSU students launched their move last June, their quest was ignored by the mainstream media and they had to create the website (www.Mugabe.org) for a campaign to strip Mugabe of his degree,
a small newspaper called the Spartan Sword broke the story under the headline The Dictator and `U'. The front-page picture illustrating the story depicted Mugabe, fist raised as the symbol of violence perpetrated by his party.
The article lamented the Michigan State University awarding such an honor to someone who has turned out to be a vicious despot, using Mugabe's own infamous quote: "Zimbabwe is for black people not white people. Our party must continue to strike fear in the heart of the white man, our real enemy."
It was these words that Mugabe uttered in 2000 during the farm invasions where people–black and white--were killed.
a famous institution, MSU is one of the Big Ten in the U.S.a.
MSU staff has joined the small group of students to lobby relevant authorities. Those authorities have already advanced the argument that removing Mugabe's degree would be likely to embarrass the institution even further.
But students and staff ignore their bury-it-under-the-rug argument.
MSU officials are hoping that most people have now forgotten the honorary Doctor of Laws degree they awarded to Mugabe in 1990.
Mugabe picked up the degree long before he had shown his true colours to the international arena.
MSU students argue that even a cursory examination of the composition of his cabinet will show that Mugabe is a "die-hard racist" and "tribalist" because his cabinet shows the dictator's desperate moves to ensure that he is surrounded by people only from his own Zezuru tribal grouping.
The Spartan Sword aptly asks: "Who controls the stolen land? Not the majority of the country or the poor Mugabe supporters, family members and government officials control the land."
as the fight to strip Mugabe of his university degrees simmers, Zimbabwe is facing yet another famine as food production on the stolen farms has collapsed.
If universities can be made to change the rules for bestowing honorary degrees on figures who go on to become infamous despots, Robert Mugabe will have been the unwitting tyrant that made it all happen.
(You can support the students' fight at www.Mugabe.org.)
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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