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Munya Chawawa: How do you survive a dictator?
Rating: *
The rescue: 54 hours underground
Rating: ****
Comedian Munya Chawawa may have survived under the rule of a brutal dictator. But I have no idea how he will survive the embarrassment of the movie he made about it.
The stupidity of sending YouTube personalities to do investigative journalism was brutally exposed, as his ignorance was only offset by his immaturity.
To explain the history of Zimbabwe, where the monstrous Robert Mugabe slaughtered tens of thousands of political opponents, Munya attempted to shoot rap videos, don period costumes and show off his bodybuilder biceps in How To Survive A Dictator (C4).
When he was not allowed to film in Zimbabwe, the country he fled with his parents in 2005 at the age of 12, he flew to neighboring South Africa. Attempts to interview former Mugabe associates were a chilling humiliation. The despot’s cousins, Leo and Patrick, ran in circles around him and laughed as they did.
Comedian Munya Chawawa may have survived under the rule of a brutal dictator. But I have no idea how he will survive the embarrassment of the movie he made about it
Munya had no real questions, no way to question their smiling assurance that Uncle Robert was a nice guy. But this childlike capitulation was a triumph compared to his encounter with a former Mugabe accomplice.
Redeemer Kasukuwere was a minister in Mugabe’s Zanu-PF government, widely rumored to have commanded gangs that committed murder and torture.
His nickname was Paraquat, due to allegations that he rubbed weed killer into his victims’ wounds to prevent them from healing.
A huge and intimidating presence, with tiny feet in shiny blue shoes, Kasukuwere flatly denied any wrongdoing and returned Munya’s grinning attempts at favor with contempt.
Then he turned on the film crew’s director, Paul Taylor. “You’re white,” he said. ‘We have more business to do with you. Apologies for what you whites have done to Africans?’
“Absolutely,” Paul squeaked.
The idea that someone should apologize for something to an unrepentant thug like Kasukuwere is obscene. No doubt the director did, fearing for the safety of his crew and presenter.
But to leave that segment in the final film, without any other explanation, as if Paul Taylor’s skin color made him more of a criminal than the man they called Paraquat, was reprehensible—an insult to all those killed and tortured.
Munya’s banal reference to survival was put to shame by the real survival story unfolding in The Rescue: 54 Hours Under The Ground (BBC2).
For anyone uncomfortable in cramped spaces, this report and the reconstruction of a life-or-death emergency was terrifying.
From the first moments, when we saw a caver in a helmet winding like a broken drainpipe through a frayed crevice, the film work made the heart beat faster. George Linnane, a 38-year-old railroad engineer, was exploring caves in the Brecon Beacons last November when a rock bottom gave way. As he lay, bleeding profusely from multiple injuries to his leg, chest and jaw, one of his companions rushed for help.
Nearly 300 cavers from across the country were involved in the rescue. Their courage was extraordinary, and the stories they told with a casual sobriety left me out in a cold sweat.
Rescuers used their bodies like a human bridge, lying in icy streams to keep George’s stretcher out of the water during his journey to the surface, which took more than two days.
George shook off the ordeal. “I’m a stubborn bitch,” he said, “who just won’t die.”
Countdown of the night: Drums crashed, violins swelled, but nothing could hide the weakness of the final test on Unbreakable (BBC1). Two couples had to measure exactly five minutes by counting in their heads. Mississippi one, Mississippi two…is this the worst game show ever?