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Pardon Gotora Urban Scape
Part 1
On April 18, 2020, Zimbabwe turns 40. The period 2020 to 2030 marks the decade towards the Golden Jubilee.
In the next three instalments, I will be looking at the journey travelled by housing policies in Zimbabwe from pre-colonial and colonial to independence eras.
We have on one hand the elderly in the country, old enough to have experienced some of these policies first-hand.
We also have, on the other hand the millennial generation who unfortunately could not experience the former, but the latter.
Ordinary level history taught me that before colonialism, the country’s settlements were predominantly temporary and not urbanised, but ruralised and hinged on shifting cultivation and pastoral farming.
The traditional leadership, chiefdoms such as the Ndebele State, the Rozvi Empire, the Munhumutapa State, played a central role in determining land use policies and planning settlements for their subjects.
Wars waged among chiefdoms were mainly to do with control of land, labour and livestock.
Settlement governance was a prerogative of the traditional leadership. One stand-out piece of settlement architecture is Dzimbadzemabwe (Great Zimbabwe) built by the Rozvi State.
It is the same “O” Level history which indicates that in 1890 Zimbabwe was colonised by the British settlers led by the British South Africa Company (BSAC) and the Pioneer Column under the command of Cecil John Rhodes.
These settlers were searching for gold, after discovering the same in South Africa.
The Pioneer Column established forts, that is, Fort Thuli (Beitbridge), Fort Victoria (Masvingo), Fort Charter (Chivhu) and Fort Salisbury (Harare).
These forts, though they were later urbanised, were only meant to facilitate their exploration expedition.
There were no significant housing policies to discuss since these were transitory settlements and there was still hope to discover rich mineral deposits.
It was in Fort Salisbury that the settlers realised that the anticipated gold deposits were not as rich as earlier anticipated.
The exploration expedition was replaced by agricultural land, where members of the Pioneer Column were paid with large tracts of land. The need for permanent settlements and urbanisation began.
This entailed the need to promulgate policies and laws that regulated settlements. Mass evictions, displacements and relocations of black people began in earnest since they were defeated during the 1896 First Chimurenga.
All fertile land was meant to be allocated to members of the Pioneer Column as compensation for leading the invasion and the black Africans who were settled on this land by their traditional leadership were forcibly displaced.
The exploratory behaviour of the white settlers introduced the need for labour on a different scale.
However, the settlers had no labour for their mines, farms and other economic establishments.
They needed cheap labour from the same black Africans they had displaced from their land. It was cheap labour because they were unskilled at the time.
It is imperative to note that during this period, the black Africans were predominantly farmers and had little desire to settle in “urban” areas because they could produce enough to feed their families and trade the surplus with the Portuguese and the Asians.
Settlements began to expand on the outskirts of the newly-established Rhodesian capital, Salisbury (built at the Kopje) albeit in an unplanned manner.
It is the same period that class struggle, dating back from the era of slavery, re-emerged, where the whites regarded themselves as superior and masters, while the black Africans were considered as inferior and servants.
This culminated in the establishment of separate forms of settlements segregated on racial footing.
There were four major classes of people at the time, the whites, Indians (who had come to the country to barter trade with black Africans), coloured and the blacks.
The residence of these classes were never meant to be mixed, they were like oil and water.
That led to the founding of the first black township of Mbare, in Salisbury, which was now the capital of Rhodesia, in 1907.
The economic demand for cheap labour prompted the creation of these black African Townships in Rhodesia.
These townships were a true reflection of the desire by the whites to keep black people close enough to provide a source of cheap labour, but far away to ensure a distinct social stratum.
These social structures depicted the prevailing political and economic subordination of the black Africans.
The urban planning process for the African townships hinged on the creation of dormitories built at a distance from major industries and other economic activities as well as far from the whites’ residential areas.
So the settlements were “strategically” situated for the white men’s convenience. Even the types of houses built were different.
It is imperative at this juncture to highlight that inasmuch as black Africans were not so eager to live in towns, and there was demand for cheap labour, not every black person could visit and live in the same.
The dominant practice was the control of movement of black Africans.
In the following editions, I will dwell on the housing policies, legislations and programmes for the period from the 1920s through to 1979 and then end the journey with the post-independence policies.
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