Prof Ranger: Zim loses more than a historian

Lovemore Ranga Mataire
PROFESSOR Terence Osborn Ranger who died last week in his native England at the age of 85 was a luminous figure in the academic arena particularly in Zimbabwe where he dedicated his life in the documentation of the country’s history.Prof Ranger was more than just a historian who delighted in documenting and interpreting momentous developments of the country’s trajectory from colonial rule to majority rule. Rather, Prof Ranger was a passionate advocate of African nationalism who cultivated solid relations with prominent Zimbabwean nationalists who embraced him as a fellow comrade.

Writing about Prof Ranger inevitably leads one to locate his role in the history of Zimbabwe in the 1960s and the broader historiography of Zimbabwe. Historiography is the writing of history based on the critical examination of sources, the selection of particular details from authentic materials in the same sources and the synthesisation of those details into a narrative that stands the test of critical examination.

Thus the work that Prof Ranger undertook can be referred to as the theory and history of historical writing.

But the simple reference to the work undertaken by Prof Ranger does not adequately answer the question of who he was. Maybe the answers to Prof Ranger’s identity can be traced to one of his books; Writing Revolt, which was published in 2013. The book serves as some kind of memorial to both himself and the scores of African nationalists he encountered in his long illustrious career.

Based largely on the contents of the author’s papers at Rhodes House, letters to his parents and the diary of John Reed, the book details Prof Ranger’s engagement with emerging African nationalism in Zimbabwe.

It is a narrative of how the author found himself being swept by the whirlwind of African nationalism. Once in Rhodesia, Prof Ranger looked beyond the veneer of white niceties and became disillusioned with the way black people were being treated. Prior to his relations with leaders of the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress (SRANC) then led by Joshua Nkomo, Prof Ranger had been the chairman of the Christian Action Group.

He later decided to start an “African politics project” that would become the platform to serve the history of the people rather than its rulers. The Nyashaland Emergency of 1959 prompted Prof Ranger to assist in the setting up of the Southern Rhodesia Legal Aid and Welfare Fund (SRLAWFC), whose mandate was to assist political detainees and their families.

The sudden death of Sketchely Samkange in 1961, in a Zambian swimming pool, provided a new sense of urgency for the need to desegregate the streets of Salisbury and to propel the agenda for African nationalism. Samkange was the founding member of the National Democratic Party and was the youngest son of Thompson and Grace Samkange — a family that was very close to Prof Ranger.

After the banning of the UNDP, of which he was a member, Prof Ranger joined the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (zapu) and when it was again banned in September 1962, he was restricted to within three miles of his house for three months.

It was during this time of restriction that Cambridge Emeritus Professor John Lonsdale described Prof Ranger as having faced “the self-imposed tests of moral courage when liberal principles confronted the increasingly bitter uncertainties of nationalist struggle in Rhodesia.” It was also during this time that Prof Ranger recounted how his education had not exposed him to the Africa that would become a central feature of his academic, political and social life.

Of course, Oxford introduced him to his future wife Shelagh but did nothing to educate him about Africa except making him a rigorous archival historian of which he remained throughout his years in Rhodesia. Thankfully, it was that rigour which resulted in a whole era of southern African history bearing his signature and his research.

As illustrated by Clayton Peel of the Department of Communication at Daystar University of Nairobi; “This rigour is apparent in the meticulous detail of his recollections of events included in the latest book (Writing Revolt), helped by his personal experiences and a well-constructed and preserved archive of his personal and academic writings.”

Peel adds that Writing Revolt is a tribute to the years of social consciousness enacted; to the relationships with nationalists and nationalism made and sustained; and to a perceptive mind which has documented and interpreted southern Africa and its politics for generations trapped in their preconceptions. That will be Ranger’s enduring contribution to African History and political consciousness.

Peel further notes that as a self-described, “intrepid” son to parents who were themselves politically and socially conscious, albeit in Britain’s domestic and Second World War contexts, Ranger mixes with people like Guy and Molly Clutton-Brock, Sketchley Samkange, John Reed, Eileen and Michael Haddon, Eleanor Glynn-Jones, and others among the enlightened minority of the white population in the Rhodesias and Nyasaland who saw the futility of the minority rule project.

Explains Peel: “Ranger chronicles the multi-racial ‘partnership’ experiment at the University in Salisbury; the activism of the multi-racial Christian Action Group and later the Campaign Against the Colour Bar, alongside the re-emergence of the Southern Rhodesian African National Congress; the turmoil of the Central African Emergencies which saw the detention and trials of prominent figures; the formation and banning of the NDP, its replacement by zapu, and the later emergence of zapu; and, not least illustrious, Prof Ranger’s celebrated editorship of the journal, Dissent.” The “dissenting” man has his “other half” in Shelagh, his wife who was involved in the political activities and often at the receiving end of Rhodesian police brutality and night raids.

Although Writing Revolt is framed by the Rangers’ personal circumstances, he is careful and humble enough to ascribe heroism to the African nationalists.

Ranger’s mastery of the Zimbabwean story binds him, like all nationalists, to the country and his passing on leaves the country’s historiography and nationalist spirit poorer.