Robert Mugabe Fall

Submission 49,061

About

Robert Mugabe Fall is a photoshop meme featuring a picture of the President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe falling down a step on his way to give a speech in Harare, Zimbabwe.

Origin

On February 4th, 2015, Mugabe stumbled while walking down a series of steps on his way to give a speech at the Harare International Airport (shown below).

Shortly after the incident, the Associated Press^[4] (AP) released a photograph of Mugabe in mid-fall (shown below). That same day, the Zimbabwean news outlet News Day^[3] published an article about the incident, reporting that other photojournalists were "forced to delete" their pictures of the president falling.

Meanwhile, Twitter user Sim Kaheru^[5] posted the AP picture with an added speech bubble containing the caption "Nobody move! I saw it first!" along with the hashtag #MugabeFalls (shown below).

Spread

Later that day, additional Twitter users posted various photoshops featuring a cutout Mugabe from the AP photo superimposed into other base images (shown below).^[7]^[8]

Also on February 4th, Redditor raaabs submitted the photo to the /r/photoshopbattles^[6] subreddit, where other Redditors replied with edited versions of the picture. The next day, the Zimbabwe Herald^[12] published an article about the fall, which included a statement by Zimbabwe Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, who denied that the president fell:

‘’Nobody has shown any evidence of the president having fallen down because that did not happen. The hump on which the president tripped was formed by two pieces of the carpet which apparently had not been laid out properly where they joined. And to be honest with you, even Jesus, let alone you, would have also tripped in that kind of situation."

In the coming days, several news sites highlighted notable examples of the photoshop meme, including The Washington Post,^[9] Latin Times Pulse^[10] and Mashable.^[11]

Suspension of Bodyguards

On February 8th, a week after the photograph of Robert Mugabe's fall went viral, Zimbabwean daily newspaper Standard reported that up to 27 members of the presidential security team have been suspended for negligence of duty after they failed to help the 90-year-old president get back on his feet after falling, citing anonymous sources within Mugabe's regime. According to the official:

“There are many departments that are being investigated, from Air Zimbabwe, the advance team and the security. I doubt if some of them will come back. […] The issue here is simple. The security team was caught napping. They were taking things for granted and failed to adhere to basics. It is protocol that the immediate proximity is, at most, three metres from the President. These are the bullet takers and in cases where he falls they are supposed to hold him either by the arm or by the shoulder and should never take their eyes off him.”

The newspaper also reported that the reprimanded members of the security team had violated the third rule in the official training manual, which outlines the minimum and maximum distance they should keep from the President. On the day after the publication of the article, Zimbabwean presidential spokesperson George Charamba issued a statement dismissing the reports of a shake up as a rumor.