It's always about race even when it isn't

Nicholas Kirstoff makes the following point about Mugabe, Africa, dictactors and race which I believe shows that he knows nothing about African history:

Africa's rulers often complain, with justice, that the West's perceptions of the continent are disproportionately shaped by buffoons and tyrants rather than by the increasing number of democratically elected presidents presiding over 6 percent growth rates. But as long as African presidents mollycoddle Mugabe, they are branding Africa with his image.

[...] In a 1987 essay in Foreign Affairs, Mugabe called on the U.S. to impose sanctions on white-ruled South Africa for engaging in a "vicious and ugly civil war" against its own people. Mugabe demanded that the world "accept the value of sanctions as a means of raising the cost" of brutal misrule.

If only Mugabe were a white racist! Then the regional powers might stand up to him. For the sake of Zimbabweans, we should be just as resolute in confronting African tyrants who are black as in confronting those who are white.

Mugabe is still in power not because he is black but for the simple reasons that he is part of a small group, which African leaders have always tolerated anti-colonial fighters who become despots. The fact is that never in African postcolonial history have its political leaders pressured a dictator who fought for the independence of his country to give up power and that seldom have they even inserted themselves in the domestic affairs of other countries by asserting human rights and democratic principles. In other words, asserting that everything would be different if Mugabe were white is both misleading, dumb and ignorant because it is like asserting that Saddam Hussein would not have been in power for so long if he had been a woman which is pointless and thus, a disgraceful redherring. Mugabe hasn't become an ancient dictator because he is black, he is still in power because of whom he once was and because Zimbabwe is a country which, just like Myammar, the world, not just Africa, can afford to sacrifice and to be governed savagely.