As Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has seen his popularity wane over the years, he has developed a time-worn tactic when faced with criticism in the media: dust off the anti-imperialist credentials and deflect attention onto Zimbabwe’s white former colonial masters inside and outside the country. Mugabe’s response to a recent incident involving his wife, Grace, in South Africa, was a case in point. When the South African press censured Mrs Mugabe for allegedly assaulting a woman in Johannesburg, the president countered by questioning why whites still wield so much power in South Africa.
