Herald
29 January 2011
By Nathaniel Manheru
Victors … Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo
In the books you will find the names of kings.
Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock?
The young Alexander conquered India, Was he alone?
Caesar beat the Gauls. Did he not have even a cook with him?
Every page a victory. Who cooked the feast for the victors?
Every ten years a great man. Who paid the bills?
So many reports. So many questions.
I have decided to introduce this week’s piece by lines from Bertolt Brecht’s seemingly commonsensical yet profoundly philosophical poem “Questions from a worker who readsâ€. Brief biographical notes on the poet are quite in order, more so for a Zimbabwean reader predictably raised on the staple of conservative colonial English Literature.
Not many of us are able, as Chinua Achebe puts it, “to face adversity down by refusing to be defined by it, refusing to be no more than its agent or its victimâ€. Achebe is trying to explain what he terms “the potency of the unpredictable in human affairsâ€, in his case how this phenomenon enables him to overthrow the unbending parameters of colonial education well designed for a “British-protected child†to end up a fiery nationalist African writer he now is.
The poet who read Brecht was a leftist German playwright-poet of the 30s, 40s and 50s who ends up wandering between Europe and America as part of his protest against Nazism. Famed for his short play, “Mother Courageâ€, Brecht stands tall as a personification of “committed art†where an artist turns his skills towards the furtherance of proletarian revolution. Predictably, Brecht’s works would not be among the must-reads of the “long†Rhodesian curriculum, whether before or after Independence. Long because as far as literary studies are concerned, not much has changed, which is why Zimbabwe has been churning our perfect Rhodesians, never mind that black tincture which misleads so many, so much.
Cooks in history
In the above lines, the worker who reads has so many questions for history and those who narrate it. He cannot understand who paeans on major events and monuments celebrate kings and generals as if these “big men†had no cooks to feed them, no servants to serve them, so they were well enough to accomplish those feats so panegyrised in historical accounts. The worker who reads cannot understand why history deletes the cook, himself an epitome of the common man/woman, of commonness.
History makes “small people†non-persons, non-actors. It effaces them while inversely legibly writing, rewriting the “great men†as solo actors, solo heroes who make and remake the world, who fight and win battles and wars, unaided. Therein lies the awesome depth of this poem so stylistically so matter-of-factly written, semantically so broad in reach and appeal as to speak to all mankind, all epochs, all generations.
That includes little Zimbabwe, a good 30-plus years after its Independence. I mean Zimbabwe, the sum total of its people. What is its history? Who writes it? Who recites it? Who teaches it? Who keeps it? Who interprets it? Who uses it? Who abuses it? To what ends? Who fights it? Who falsifies it? Who overwrites it? To what ends? Who is threatened by it? Who suppresses it? For what cause? Above all, who needs it? To do what with it? “So many reports/So many questionsâ€.
Bishops in history
January 14, 2011, the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference issued a pastoral letter. I dealt with some of the issues it raised in my piece last week. I dealt with this letter irreverently, as befits a curious Catholic, a critical Catholic so clear that in times of national tempests, even holy men err by succumbing to secular dilemmas and choices.
I do not regret a word, a sentence, a paragraph in that whole piece. Quite the contrary, I still feel I could have said more, written more about this great Church again about to repeat monumental errors from its hurtful past. It is about to readmit a supremacist race, as in the past, apotheosising this race’s way of worship as a Christian standard, deifying the race’s reasoning so flavoured with bible verses to pass for beatitudes.
Above all, this great Church forgets the cloister of democracy, human rights, transparency, international community etc, etc can never hide, impart holiness to, or wash away sinful settler Rhodesian interests seeking a second coming under so many guises. Or play soothing balm to weeping wounds of a people so trodden, so trampled by colonial history, soothe weeping wounds of a people so traumatised by racist sanctions from a self-righteous white kingdom still standing in the way of the gift of social justice so eloquently proclaimed by different pontiffs in numerous, lengthy encyclicals which this great Church no longer reads, or wilfully misreads to give us another Alexander, another Caesar, never a small African cook.
When the church apportions history
The bishops made a statement on history which I again recall: “The liberation of Zimbabwe was achieved through the efforts of those who were inside the country (both armed and unarmed), outside the country and by the international community. The claim to have monopoly in the liberation struggle by any single sector or party, is therefore, false and may be the misconception solely responsible for the abuse of human rights and the erosion of the sovereignty of the citizens in Zimbabweâ€.
I stand to be corrected but I think this is the first time since Independence that the Catholic Church has pronounced itself on the history of the liberation struggle. And it has done much more than simply pronounce itself on this matter. It has played partitioner of that history, a function only conceivably done from on high. The Church, god-like, has to place itself above that history, while at the same time enjoying proprietorship of it, to be able admonishingly parcel it out from those it thinks should not monopolize it, to those it thinks have long deserved it but have been long denied it. That is a fundamental status to which the Church has thrust itself without any prior national discussion.
Toppling Zanu PF from history
On the one hand, a clear disdain of violence it claims in some areas, on the other and an open charge of culpability for human rights abuse. The statement is thus not about history as memory; it is about history as a continuing evil that has been incubated in “structures of sin†located in the past and sired by personal sinful conduct, un-eradicated and un-eradicable in the present. History is thus a living tissue, indeed a resource in defining present evils and present struggles.
By dissipating ownership of the struggle to some nebulous, anonymous or nameless construct called “those inside and outside the country … and the international communityâ€, they bishops are ousting Zanu and Zapu — now Zanu PF — from authorship, leadership and responsibility of a struggle they jointly waged, towards whose success they sacrificed life, limb and prospect. By suggesting the struggle just happened, just triggered itself and spontaneously harnessed “joint efforts†from this diffuse magnitude called “the international communityâ€, the bishops have transferred the burden of arming that struggle from socialist countries to the West which stood by settlers here.
Historically, those who have invoked the notion of “international community†have never meant China, Soviet Union, Cuba, Romania, East Germany, Bulgaria, Vietnam or some such sources of the guns that liberated us.
When history just happens
Above all, by repudiating Zanu PF’s claim to the struggle, the bishops seek to make that defining event a common property which anyone can claim and which no one owns. That makes all men and women equal before it, does it not? Both in the sense of causing it and owning it. In such a situation it becomes an event with no heroes, with no villains. No one sacrificed for it; no one betrayed or ran away from it! It does not define anyone or anything; it cannot exalt or condemn anyone or anything! It exists only in the past; it has no bearing on and in the present. This is where the bishops have taken us. Let us leave the bishops for a while.
This man called Ian Douglas
Ian Douglas Smith died on November 20, 2007. He left this world unlamented, unless this was done in closets, whether here or abroad. Clearly the man knew when to die, and chose his month carefully, fastidiously some would say. The month of November is very significant to UDI Rhodesia, the dispensation he created and ruled. He could not have died before November 11, the day he struck a blow for God and Christianity. Or on the day, for the great act would not have been done or completed. It had to be after, well after, which is why November 20 was supremely appropriate.
When Smith banished the past
Ian Smith leaves behind a rich but baneful legacy. Willy-nilly, that legacy defines all of us, black and white, Catholic or Protestant. It is no mark of nationalism to deny this, only amnesia of a dangerous type; real ignorance of where the rains began to beat us, as Achebe would say.
Before he died, he sought to justify the ways of Rhodesia to Man. The result was “The Great Betrayalâ€, later post-scripted as “Bitter Harvestâ€. In credo and temperament, the man died truculently unrepentant, which is why his after-word to “Bitter Harvest†for me makes a fascinating read. I keep drawing from it, as indeed I am set to, again.
This time he is reacting to President Mugabe’s claim and proof or magnanimity, namely that after rising to power he did not proceed to shave old Smithie’s neck as behoved a leader of a bitter people seeking a vengeful catharsis.
He writes: “Let me remind Mugabe and the world, that as part of the Lancaster House plan, we signed an agreement that there would be no retribution for the past, no looking back, but concentrating on looking forward and building for the future. Mugabe has a short memory when it is convenient, or is this senile decay creeping in?
“He had a very real reason for supporting the ‘no retribution’ clause because of the barbaric acts of murder and mutilation committed by the Zanu terrorists against their own black people during the war. Our record was clear: we only fought against the enemy who were attacking the constitutional government of our country. Let us simply abide by the truth.â€
The great taboo
It is a packed short paragraph which triggers the urge for pages and pages of vengeful diatribe against a man whose ears can’t hear anymore, whose ears rest beneath a layer of concrete slab, indeed securely lie beneath a dolphin-like mount of red earth. For me what sticks out like a sore thumb above this well-aimed compressed challenge and insult, is a statement — another statement — on Zimbabwe’s history.
Ian Smith’s Lancaster House plan bade all against “looking backâ€, exhorted all to concentrate “on looking forward and building for the future.†And for Ian Smith, this was to excuse Mugabe “from the barbaric acts of murder and mutilation committed by the Zanu terrorists against their own black people during the war.†Indeed, it was to fortify Ian Smith’s delicately balanced modesty of a clear record of prosecuting a clean war “against the enemy who were attacking the constitutional government of our country!â€
In this short, tightly-packed paragraph, Ian Smith has interpreted the Lancaster House Agreement, the war and Zimbabwe. He has made history a taboo in post-settler politics, a dirty subject and focus in Zimbabwe. Could this then explain why we have not, cannot, will not, look back just a little to know what happened to us, to know who we are, at the very least?
Defining history’s Rubicon
Except the head of white Rhodesia is indicting a founding process of our collective being, our Independence, freedom and our claim to it, in short indicting our new identity beyond white settler Rhodesia? Except Ian Smith is laying boundaries and parameters for post-colonial politics as they have evolved to this day? Indictable offences, prosecutable offences only begin in 1980, itself the line and date of transgression. Before that lies clean white history. Before that lies atrocious black brutalities whose recall can only aggravate African crimes.
This is what Ian Smith is saying. This is what the bishops have just said, but without invoking Rhodesian arguments. Indeed this is what the Catholics and David Coltart are saying through “Breaking Silence†and the story of Gukurahundi. For Zimbabwe, history must begin in 1980, with no one being allowed to borrow lustre or damnation from events and occurrences before then. Period.
The one white man who gave power to a black
Since Independence, and especially since after the 2000 Third Chimurenga, Rhodesians have been writing copiously. To the title, 1980 and Gukurahundi are markers of when creation begins in Zimbabwe and for Zimbabweans. Before then … terra incognito! Before then, an amoral world where no one is culpable, or should be prosecuted. And killers of Rhodesia are leading the charge, indeed are the prosecutors. That riles.
And freedom fighters, real heroes of this same struggle about to be denied, about to be falsified, about to be misappropriated and pilfered, are the accused, the villains! That baffles.
Need we get stunned when Ian Smith adds: “Of course, no mention(s) made of the fact that history records that I was the first white man in Africa to hand over power to a black man, in 1979�
We have allowed culpable Rhodesians not just to salve their consciences by reissuing “historyâ€, not just to create new sideshows and tribunals, but to define for us when history begins and therefore who it saves, who it condemns. Let this vain, unrepentant racist lie for a while.
Ray’s repudiation of history
Charles Ray, America’s current ambassador to Zimbabwe. He has just published an undated “book†Zimbabwe: The Victor who owns no History which really is a simplified manual on civil rights for “infantile†societies and “infant†democracies which he takes us and Zimbabwe to be, respectively.
It gets its grand foreword from Bornwell Chakaodza, our man who signs off as “veteran journalistâ€. He obligatorily thinks highly of His Excellency Ray’s effort, and says so radiantly. The manual has a strange title, something like “Where you are coming from does not matter … It is where you are goingâ€, or something like that. I do not have a copy as I write this piece.
This meant-for-Zimbabweans manual is condescendingly basic, which is what makes it very dangerous as a piece of propaganda. It is meant to be a training manual, with things to think about at the end of every short piece. For a man who has had something to do with Cold-War USA, the effort is well deployed. I wonder whether Bornwell is quite aware of what he is beatifying as a must read for those seeking democracy, presumably democracy American style on Africa!
The book repudiates history as inconsequential, idealises “where you are goingâ€. There is no past-present-future time continuum. Only where you are going! I repeat: the manual is meant for Zimba-bweans set for another poll.
… but needs it to serve America
But something else happens after the publication of this manual. Ambassador Charles Ray is invited to address Catholic students at Arrupe, the Catholic School of philosophy in Mt Pleasant. This is on January 18, 2011, and the occasion is the commemoration of the slaying of Martin Luther King (Jr) by white America. Seemingly oblivious of his hot-from-the-press manual, he tells his interlocutors how important history is to him as a veteran soldier, black and an American diplomat.
Surely it can’t be the same history he repudiates in his training manual he has designed for us Zimbabweans? Of course it is not. He pledges his admiration to Abraham Lincoln, the American president credited by history for ending slavery. You read a little more about this president and you are cautioned against confusing his signing of anti-slavery proclamation with ending slavery. Someone had to sign that proclamation. He did, not as an expression of his disdain for the institution of slavery which he condemned occasionally and within bounds, but simply because he was the US president at a time when America could no longer hold on to that white monstrosity. Anyway, let us allow the ambassador to choose his heroes, black as he is.
Doping Zimbabweans
In any case, that is not the pith of my point. My point is on history and his seemingly ambiguous view of it. He needs history as a soldier, a black and a faithful servant of the American government. But we black Zimbabweans deserve a training manual from him that repudiates history, that refocuses us with single-mindedness on where we are going without worrying about where we are coming from, with whom, against who, against what? Why would a black envoy of America seek to induce amnesia here while selling and enthralling us all by bastardized figures from American history, figures such as Lincoln and King Junior? Who benefits from this mighty dope?
Gentle reader, I hope something is beginning to emerge, to show its sinister outline. Again, let’s rest the indefatigable envoy for a while.
History and fear of a Ndebele president
Sometime in December last year, Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga did a piece titled “Ndebele president: the secret fearâ€. It was a cheeky piece which triggered a fierce debate in the nether, but hardly any in the mainstream national media. She must have been disappointed, very disappointed. No-one likes a monologue, in her case to be made kurova bembera risina anonzwa.
Let her take heart from the fact that Manheru heard her, very loudly, very clearly. Shona supremacists live in the mortal fear of the possible rise of a Ndebele president, she argued, adding such fears explained the measureless animosity showed against Welshman Ncube, now the president of MDC-Himself. And given that Ncube’s rise had such a positive neighbourhood effect on Priscilla – now MDC-N’s secretary general and who knows, prospective Minister of Industry and Commerce, it is clear by conjecture then, hindsight now, that Priscilla had a direct interest in the argument she boldly raised in defence of this presidential possibility of no fixed term. It was a long piece where the lady poured her heart out.
Priscilla’s take on history
But for me what stood out was the following: “History has proven that there is always collusion between an ethnic group in any African conflict with white external capital forces. That collusion is always not on values or ideology, but is driven purely by the need to access and control resources. Conflicts in Rwanda, DRC and Kenya are testimony to this collusion.
“In Zimbabwe, that collusion started in the pre-colonial era, in particular during the Lancaster House negotiations when white capital forces’ self-interest meant that between a Ndebele leader and a Shona, they stood to benefit more by a transition from Smith to a Shona leader. This is explained by the support that Mugabe received from [the British] in spite of earlier demonization … a terrorist became the darling of the West. It is that collusion which explains the silence of the same white capital forces over the Gukurahundi era.
“Is it not surprising that given the arrest of many political activists during that era, with some of them dying in prison, there wasn’t a draft UN Security Council Resolution against the Zanu regime? Is it not equally surprising that Morgan Tsvangirai’s arrests have earned him a confetti of awards and yet my Google search shows not a single award to Joshua Nkomo? It is, therefore, clear that whilst white capital now has issues with Zanu PF primarily over access to resources, they now seek to facilitate a transition to Tsvangirai within the same framework where power can only be handed over to a Shona leader.
“The white capital self-interest is not threatened by a transition from Mugabe to Tsvangirai or Simba Makoni or Emerson Mnangagwa or Joice Mujuru. It is only threatened by a leader who, by the very fact that he comes from a minority grouping, may not in their opinion have the capacity to give them that access.â€
She goes on to explain that Mutambara, then her party’s president, will not be forgiven by white capital for leading “a Ndebele-driven partyâ€. Turning to Welshman Ncube, she explains American animosity towards as revealed in Wikileaks to the same calculation.
Confounded by Ian Smith
Gentle reader, please notice that it is again history, only read by one of Brecht’s cooks, not rulers, not kings, not generals as above. Like me and you, Priscilla personifies the underdog of history whom Ambassador Ray counsels to worry only about where she is going. She is Caesar’s cook who forces her name and mention on history so for once, the narrative is from below.
But let us see if the cook grabs the correct end of the stick of history. Let us resurrect Ian Smith again. He has had some good rest. In his broad justification, Ian Smith scans history, in the process giving his own interpretation of the Shona-Ndebele-White triad over history, particularly who was close to whom, at what point in the troubled history of the country.
Predictably, he starts by showing how frequent Ndebele raids into Shona territory in the early part of the 19th Century “in search of cattle and maidens†forced the invading white column to play protector to the peaceful Shonas whose prospects against a warrior enemy looked dire. Ian Smith, clearly vicariously assuming the burden of this great act of white humanity, writes, “It is interesting to speculate on what would have happened if the white man, the so-called colonialist, had not come to the country. Clearly the Shonas would eventually have been pushed over the border into Mozambique. This, of course, is seldom acknowledged.â€
Smith’s whites and Ndebeles
The attack on Lobengula and his resisting kingdom is thus depicted as a blow struck for the otherwise perishing Shonas. It is not for purposes of establishing colonial rule over Zimbabwe. Of course Smith is not daft enough to raise the inconvenient fact of erstwhile foes joining hands against a protector. To him, that never happened. He moves straight on to explain the warm relationship he claims existed between White Rhodesia and “the Matabelesâ€, both during the colonial era and after Independence.
He writes: “… the Matabele have always had a closer relationship with our white community, probably because of their belief in a system which believed in discipline and honouring obligations, similar to our own. In spite of various setbacks caused by conflicts occasioned by history, there was a preservation of the underlying belief that we had more in common with one another than with others, and this continued over the decades, indeed was strengthened over the Gukurahundi era when Mugabe used the strength which he had inherited from the Rhodesian security forces to massacre the Matabeles.
“This ended, however, when Mugabe seduced Joshua Nkomo with very attractive bribes of high office, power, and financial reward, accompanied by an invitation to bring with him a number of his Matabele comrades. It stands to their credit that there were a number of Matabeles who resisted the temptation.â€
Not quite Priscilla’s take on Lancaster and Gukurahundi, is it? Let us defer the argument for a while to hear the British Government’s take on 1978/79 when Zimbabwe was going through a crucial phase of her history.
The day Smith wrecked the British plan
I doubt whether Madame Priscilla is aware of this one reported by the London Times on December 29, 2008. Headlined “Ian Smith wrecked Britain’s plot to prevent Robert Mugabe gaining powerâ€, this piece by one Martin Fletcher drew exclusively from Cabinet Papers of the British released under that country’s thirty-year rule, which focused on behind-the-scenes moves by the James Callaghan Government in trying to resolve the “Rhodesian questionâ€, but without betraying Rhodesian and British interests in the process.
In summary, the British strategy as reported in those papers was secure white and British interests in a settlement that would raise the late Joshua Nkomo to transitional premiership ahead of elections, thereby giving him a decisive foothold ahead of Robert Mugabe. The scheme which had the support of Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia and Obasanjo of Nigeria would have seen Ian Smith stepping down for Joshua Nkomo who would either keep Mugabe out completely, or invite him in as his junior, both to weaken him and his Zanu even further.
The move, as the British calculated, would isolate Mugabe from hardliners of his party thereby splitting it just ahead of the decisive poll. The British calculated that Ian Smith had little leverage given the way the war was going for him. Nkomo would galvanize him further by telling him at a meeting scheduled later for Lusaka that “Zapu would protect white Rhodesian interests better than Mugabeâ€.
The report then laments that “Mr Smith stalled, then leaked details of the meeting’, provoking Nyerere and others to denounce the plan. Concludes the report, rather lamentably: “The next year the war ended and Zimbabwe gained Independence, but the Lancaster House agreement contained no advantages for Mr Nkomo. In 1980, Zanu trounced Zapu in elections marked by violence and intimidation, and Mr Mugabe took charge.†Again, this British scenario plays havoc on Madame Priscilla’s theory of history, does it not? But that is a very small point in the whole narrative.
Corrupt Nkomo, fanatical Mugabe
The bigger points come through the voice of David Owen, Callaghan’s foreign secretary and therefore the man behind these sinister machinations. Presiding over the release of these papers in 2008, he described the late Joshua Nkomo “as corrupt, but not nearly as dangerous as Mr Mugabeâ€.
“He [Nkomo] was in it to feather his own nest … Better a crook than a zealotâ€, Owen told The Times, explaining the British Labour Government’s preference for Nkomo, ahead of Mugabe.
Mugabe, on the other hand, was “a fanatical Maoist with little time for democracyâ€. “His obduracy was so great and his zealotry so fierce that I felt you could not ignore the Maoist elements within him.â€
Turning to Mugabe’s leadership in Independent Zimbabwe and the mayhem which followed, the report adds: “At first he courted whites, and Lord Owen thought he had misjudged the man. Then he launched his “genocide†against Nkomo and his supporters and Zimbabwe’s long slide began.
People often ask why we went overboard for Robert Mugabe,†Lord Owen said. “The answer is that we didn’t.â€
Now the real facts of that episode
You speak to the real actors of that phase which the British papers purport to cover, you get a completely different story. They talk of a plan involving the British Labour Government under Callaghan, the Nigerian Government under Obasanjo (his first term) and the Zambian Government under Kaunda which was meant to entice late Vice President Nkomo into a secretive settlement that would have outflanked President Mugabe, Zanu and Zanla.
They tell you how one morning Garba, Obasanjo’s Foreign Minister then, flew into Maputo to summon the Zanu leadership for an urgent meeting with Obasanjo. Once in Nigeria, Obasanjo then asked Garba to disclose his plan to Robert Mugabe and his team which included Simon Muzenda and Josiah Tongogara. On hearing the plan, Mugabe goes ballistic, denouncing this as completely unacceptable.
He is put under tremendous pressure by Garba who reminds him that at times a leader must do just that, lead. This is after Mugabe has insisted he cannot commit Zanu to the plan before consulting its leadership in Maputo. He refuses utterly, hiding behind the need to consult. Angry Nigeria flies the Zanu leadership “homeâ€, abandoning them in Zambia, not Maputo.
Once in Maputo, Mugabe gets Samora Machel to know about the plan which clearly revealed treacherous secret meetings involving Kaunda, Obasanjo and possibly Nkomo, outside of the Frontline States framework for the former, outside of the Patriotic Front agreement for the latter. Machel, equally irate, informs Julius Nyerere who quickly summons an emergence Frontline States Summit in Lusaka to discuss this matter.
And Kaunda wept
When confronted, Kenneth Kaunda breaks down and weeps, confessing to secret contacts with the British, the Nigerians and the Smith Government, vowing never to do it again. It later transpires that Joshua Nkomo was indeed aware of the plan, but had stoutly refused to meet Ian Smith without Robert Mugabe, his co-leader in the Patriotic Front. It was this principled obduracy on the part of the late veteran leader which had forced Obasanjo to summon Mugabe to Lagos, all in the hope of persuading him to accept the plan.
Trust between the two grew even stronger after this. But it had become very clear big brother had betrayed preferences on the Zimbabwean question, both in respect of relations with the colonial master and in relation to the two liberation movements. How far that influenced latter day Obasanjo in his relations with Robert Mugabe and Tony Blair over the land question, one cannot say.
Degraded narratives
Gentle reader, the import of this anecdotal or mosaic piece was to show competing histories, competing narratives on your country, its defining events and leading players. The Catholics have their own narrative. Ian Smith looms large, as also does Rhodesian historiography which he leads. Then you have America and its envoys here. More fundamentally, you have the British Government, both in history and in contemporary affairs.
I could have gone on and on to give more fascinating narrative accounts of the same history. Then I also gave you a glimpse of history from below, from a degraded vantage point of an underdog. Degraded because it’s a reading from Zimbabwe’s native politics as presently fractionalised. That narrative is a double tragedy. It misreads itself, its people, its rival actors. Above all, it misreads the enemy it must know and understand for a better fight. Quite the opposite, it defines a new enemy, all in narrow tribal terms, all in terms that further fragments the oppressed, in the process clouding focus and dissipating energies.
The victor who is history’s underdog
Conspicuously absent in all these narratives, in all these vantage points, is the voice of Zanu PF, itself the composite sequel to Zanu and Zapu, the real makers of this contested history. Consequently, the hero of struggle has now become the cook, the servant of history: a great player with no name, no mention. Much worse, the two silent movements have become villains of the piece, real butts of these frenzied narratives.
It is a demolition job on the liberation project which has gone dumb, if not deaf as well. Its records are there at the Party headquarters, more dumped than archived, loudly crying out for annalists, for interpreters in this epoch of well illustrated and even sacral lies.
The search for a second Southern Rhodesia
I called it a demolition job and it is clear who is being demolished. That cannot be the question. The real question is this one: when they demolish our gospel, our revolution, our high priests, our heroes, our monuments, what new fetishes do they want to give us in place of all these, to worship? What new dates, what new markers, what new boundaries, what new narratives, indeed what new names, have they lined up for us?
If it is not 1980, is it 1998? If it is not Chimurenga, is it Chinja? If it is not Land, is it Democracy? If it is not Zimbabwe, could it be Rhodesia? Or Britain? Or America?
Indeed so many reports, so many questions. Faced by a very happy and contended white Rhodesian population a decade and half after Independence, Doris Lessing met this stunning verdict. She had asked whether at all white Zimbabwean pensioners would consider leaving Mugabe’s “horrible†Zimbabwe, that horrible place of manicured lawns, dutiful black servants and sundowners of succulent boerwors. Thus came the answer: “Once we lived in a wonderful country called Southern Rhodesia. Now we live in a wonderful country called Zimbabwe.â€
Today, Lessing writes angrily against Mugabe, rails against land reformed Zimbabwe where the white man can no longer watch beautiful sunset peacefully from the verandah of his vast estate, black servants in tow. Could this be what is at stake in the contested history? Will the victor one day reclaim and own history, or cook-like remain forever silent, deleted?
Icho!
Nathaniel Manheru is a columnist for the Saturday Herald. He can be contacted on e-mail: nathaniel.manheru@zimpapers.co.zw