ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Mugabe’s successful deployment of “the Suffering Servant” motif to gain sympathy and radicalise his followers in the Global South. It analyses Mugabe as a religio-political ideologue who built on pre-existing frustrations to project himself as the victim of an oppressive global system. The chapter explains detailed exposition of the debates relating to the authorship, theology and status of the passage. It employs a “straightforward,” naïve and non-expert reading of the text. The chapter concedes that establishing the “true meaning” of this particular text is quite problematic. It highlights how Mugabe and his supporters interpreted or framed his interaction with the Global North in terms of how he was “the Suffering Servant” who was being sacrificed for his principles. Mugabe was able to deploy the “Suffering Servant” motif to endear himself to many people who experience(d) the global order as unjust and oppressive.
