Zimbabwe: Where do you go to my lovely?

While the political ping pong ball that is Zimbabwe’s future is knocked backwards and forwards across the negotiation table I thought that a sing-a-long might cheer us all up; something that would be appropriate while you’re watching the population being brutalised and murdered on television.

Most of you will know the tune to Where do you go to my lovely sung by Peter Sarstedt, so here is a slightly amended version.

South African negotiators who have helped to reach this point can substitute their own names for “Mugabe”; it’ll make them feel more important. Why not? They are responsible for this debacle so why not claim credit? Aziz Pahad, among others, doesn’t get nearly enough credit for the high death toll in that country.

Don’t be shy. After all, hasn’t Mugabe thanked South Africa and your team for helping Zimbabwe to become what it is today? Your place in infamy is assured.

Even if something approaching a resolution is found, tens of thousands are going to die before their time in Zimbabwe. The time taken to implement any solution is not going to save many on the brink. Quiet diplomacy allied to all the dilatory tactics employed by South Africa on Mugabe’s behalf will assist in making the life expectancy of 37 years old seem optimistic.

Take a bow guys — you’ve earned it.

WHERE DO YOU GO TO MUGABE?

You talk like Adolf Hitler
And you dance like a tyrant gone spare
Your clothes are all made in London
And there are diamonds and pearls in your hair, yes there are

You live in a big fancy mansion
Off the Butcher’s Park, Harare
Where you keep up your murderous records
As a friend of the bourgeois, yes you do

But where do you go to Mugabe
When you’re alone in your bed
Tell me the thoughts that surround you
I’ve looked for your people, they’re dead.

I’ve seen all your qualifications
That you got from a distant land
And the lifeblood you stole from your people
Your loveliness goes on and on, yes it does

When you go on your summer vacation
You escape to somewhere with Grace
With your carefully designed thoughtless antics
You destroy what’s left of your place, yes you do

And when the blood falls you’re found in South Africa
With the others of the jet-set
And you sip your Napoleon brandy
But you never get your lips wet, no you don’t

But where do you go to Mugabe
When you’re alone in your bed
Tell me the thoughts that surround you
I’ve looked for your people, they’re dead.

Your name, it is heard in high places
The world hears calls for your head
They want you to be tried as a criminal
And you think it’s just for fun, for a laugh, a-ha-ha-ha

They say that when you are buried
It will be as a hated despot
But they don’t realise where you came from
And I wonder if they really care, or give a damn

But where do you go to Mugabe
When you’re alone in your bed
Tell me the thoughts that surround you
I’ve looked for your people, they’re dead.

Do you remember the back streets of Salisbury
With children given to play
All touched with a burning ambition
To shake off their lowly-born tags, so they try

So look into my face Robert Mugabe
And remember just who you are
Then go and forget me forever
Because you will eternally bear scars, deep inside, yes you will

I know where you go to Mugabe
When you’re alone in your bed
I know the thoughts that surround you
Sheer terror for when you join your dead.

(na na-na-na na na-na-na na-na na na na na)
(na na-na-na na na-na-na na-na na na na na)