COLUMN Overseas Briefing

Author: Campus Editor in Chief

EDINBURGH — When Robert Mugabe took leadership of Zimbabwe in 1980, he trumpeted a policy of peace and co-operation. Only that, he said, would allow the country to nurse the wounds of civil war and overcome the trauma of colonial rule.

His early reforms proved so effective that the University of Edinburgh presented him with an honorary degree in 1984. The Scottish institution praised his commitment to education, which has propelled the Zimbabwean literacy rate to one of the highest in Africa.

Since then, however, Mugabe's authoritarianism has stained his record. The 1990s saw a barrage of censure directed at the once-respected leader. Human rights groups branded him a tyrant who turned a blind eye on the suffering of his people. Still others decried his policy of redistributing white farmers' land to its so-called rightful black owners.

By any account, Mugabe isn't ripe for another honorary diploma. But the Edinburgh student Labour Club has launched a campaign to revoke the one he already has.

Labour Campaigns Officer Neil Cardwell told The Edinburgh Student, "The University's reputation surely must be adversely affected by having this honorary degree still on its statute books."

A petition is now circulating that demands the University revoke Mugabe's degree. If it gathers sufficient signatories, the matter will land before the Edinburgh University Students' Association, where elected representatives will determine its fate.

Amid all this politics and posturing, Edinburgh Sociology Professor Paddy Bort identified a broader theme.

"Dispensing awards is risky business," said Bort, who is also the academic coordinator of the Institute of Governance here. "You always want to be part of the light that shines on the one you honor, but that can turn sour."

Bort quipped that "even if you were to honor people posthumously, you don't know what revelations might emerge to rubbish your award."

The ordeal of award giving has also gripped Middlebury in recent weeks.

Earlier this month these pages were splashed with coverage of students and towns people who turned out to protest Ari Fleischer '82, who visited campus to receive a Alumni Achievement Award. The White House Press Secretary is regarded by some as an architect of Bush's political strategy, which has been subjected to growing scrutiny both in the international community and at home.

Honoring Fleisher, the Middlebury contingent feared, would amount to a tacit endorsement of the Bush administration's war-drum mentality towards Iraq. And the 900 who lined Mead Chapel lawn in protest would rather not risk it.