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In “The Autobiography of Kingsley Fairbridge” (1927), Fairbridge says of Rhodes: “I knew these things because everyone knew them. To Rhodesians, he was more than human, he was Rhodes, the Colossus.”
Rhodes, “the Colossus” had instilled in settlers a foreboding sense of mighty in Rhodesia, a country considered to be “a land of hope, a romance with ‘boundless promise’ by the white people who did not seem to recognise the existence of the indigenous” (Moyana, 2017: 63).
Rhodes was ruthless, selfish and had a callousness that could be “explained in the Althusserian concept of ideology as something that has its own existence” (Moyana, 2017:57). His word was law and anyone or anything, whether black or white, that happened to cross his path to wealth and the Empire’s fortunes was immobilised (Ibid).
To him, the African was a child in need of guidance (Thomas, 1996; Samkange, 1981; Moyana, 2017); and had neither history nor culture.
Rhodes inspired generations of opinion leaders on the “European cultural onslaught on the identity of Africans” (Gwekwerere, Magosvongwe and Mazuru, 2012:94), among them were Rudyard Kipling, whose idea of an African was a “half-devil and half-child” (cited in Mazrui, 2002:417); following on the tradition of Hegel, Voltaire and Montesquieu.
In Hegel’s (2004:80) view, Africa, “the land of gold”, has “remained cut off” from “the rest of the world”. He further asserts that the continent is “the land of childhood, removed from the light of self-conscious history and wrapped in the dark mantle of night” (ibid).
Devoid of history and culture in the European’s eye, Africans “could enter history, but only as a beneficial result of European conquest” (Armah, 2010:41). The African is, “indeed” the European’s “brother, but (his) junior brother who, with constant guidance and tutelage will grow up one day to be like the big brother in Europe” (Armah, 2010: 41).
It is against such supremacist misidentification of the African that Eric Harrison’s Jambanja (2006) may be explored, for his understanding of the African follows the same template.
Misidentification of the subaltern is a White Rhodesian’s ensconced entitlement to the “constant guidance and tutelage” (Armah, 2010:41) of his “junior brother” (ibid) in his “completely wild and untamed state” (Hegel, 1956:93).
First, to him the African should know that farming is not his forte.
To massage this ego, Saunders describes Harrison in the foreword to the memoir as one “blessed with an ample inheritance of what can only be described as good, old-fashioned guts! Small in stature but big in heart, that’s ‘our Harry'”.
The use of the plural possessive pronoun “our” and the phrase “old-fashioned guts” speak to a collective effort to downplay the achievements and well-meaning intentions enshrined in the post-2000 Fast Track Land Reform Programme.
It was done wrongly, and chaotically because it was spearheaded by uncilivised (Joan’s favourite term) “junior brothers”.
Harrison’s Hegelian supremacist rants get curious when he professes that: “The attitude of the commercial farmer was in total contrast to the cultural handicap that the Africans, in the main, experience, which is very similar to the Tall Poppy Syndrome”.
He maintains that as a consequence, “nearly every black Zimbabwean was on a never-ending quest for mediocrity”.
The citation above raises three key issues on the settler attitude towards Africans, pertinently black Zimbabweans; Africans have no culture; they have a tendency to disparage those who have acquired remarkable wealth (Tall Poppy Syndrome), and are comfortable with being mediocre (average).
The commercial farmer is described as a being “in total contrast” to the African. The White settler has a culture, is hated for his wealth, and his quest is to excel in whatever he does; farming and ranching being his forte.
Harry is portrayed as someone who “had always regarded farm owners as a special breed — as people lucky enough to have inherited a farm or a ranch”.
This self-adulation, criminalises anyone “unreasonable” enough to upset this “special breed”, and ignores the aspect of heritage that the land brings.
It is ironic, hypocritical and shameful that he is aware of the essence of inheriting “a farm or a ranch”, yet he is against a process meant to make it possible for Black Zimbabweans to inherit, or reclaim their heritage.
What Harrison deliberately “forgets” is that the colonial system was subtly designed to keep the African poor.
He was never given opportunities to acquire skills. The education system was skewed in favour of Whites. Harry refers to what he calls “good schools” like the formerly Group A schools, which were meant for White children only.
Having been robbed of their heritage; the land and all that it stands for, indigenous people were excluded from the European heritage of knowledge; yet their own traditional knowledge systems were destroyed, or captured through colonial apparatus, like Christianity.
It is this glaring disparity meant to “keep the nigger running” that Harrison ignores or pretends not to know, when he talks of Blacks lacking farming knowledge and such other skills.
The second premise that Harrison’s supremacist ideas hinge on, is that Africans have no history to talk about. They can only understand their own history if it is read against European history.
Allan Wilson and his gang of settlers routed by Lobengula’s men at Shangani River on December 4, 1893, are heroes to Harry and his fellow settlers, and villains to Africans, no matter how bravely they could have fought.
That the Ndebele extolled the settler plunderers for their brevity is neither here nor there. Harrison and his settler community hail the 34 as men of men, for having died for a ‘worthy’ cause.
The history that he taps into is biased towards whiteness, and his reference to the celebration of Lobengula, whom he refers to as “the famous Matabele King” at the Inkomo Cadet camp annual games for Whites-only schools musical competition, is conflicted.
Third, Harrison’s view of Africans as informed by Hegelian supremacist ideas, is that Blacks are “mere sexual beings” (Gwekwerere, Magosvongwe and Mazuru, 2012: 96) with men having “a strong penchant for women, as they are ‘libertines’, and the women being ‘shameless she-wolves whose shameless actions would forestall the desire or solicitation of foreigners'” (Duchet, 1978:134).
Diminishing Africans is meant to rob them of their self-worth, so that they continue to be treated as second class citizens with no claim to heritage.
Harrison’s misrepresentation of Africans in “terms of sexual extravagance” (ibid), as a ploy to demean them, is evident in his portrayal of Cloud, the tractor driver and Lillian.
By association, he intends to debase Lillian, his housemaid, and Zanu PF women in general, by portraying them as loose and predatory.
In his eyes, she is a “shameless she-wolf” (Duchet, 1978:134 cited in Gwekwerere, Magosvongwe and Mazuru, 2012:96), who can “slid her skirt and panties off in one slick movement”, part “her legs”, and demand sex from unsuspecting men.
Lillian, like Forlange and others are deprived of freedom to make career choices, which condemns them to the farms as housemaids or nannies.
Their long stay at the farms, as is the case with Lillian, who has been in Harry’s employ for more than 20 years, suggests neither loyalty, nor lack of agency.
It is a culmination of segregationist policies, which, however, Harrison deliberately ignores through selective amnesia.
Colonialism fashioned housemaids and nannies out of Black women, and made goddesses and “intelligent” madams of White women; with the agency to fight for their heritage in the “bush war”. One of such “gallant” woman is Marion, Harry’s mother. By depicting Lillian as a prostitute, Harrison seeks to justify the rape of both African women and their land by Whites, as they are construed to be willing partners, or seductresses with a propensity for “foreigners” (Duchet, 1978: 154).
Their heritage is equally mutilated as a beautiful and open space, whose pillage is construed to be for its own good; an allegory that Mashingaidze Gomo effectively explores in “A Fine Madness” (2010) through the beautiful Tinyareyi.
However, Lillian’s ability to assert herself through sex, even in revolting terms as Harrison portrays her, and going behind her boss’ back to seek group participation out of the deplorable condition that Black people find themselves in as a result of colonialism, confirms her as a “self-definer” and “self-namer” (Hudson-Weems, 2004:1).
She is the quintessence of Africana Womanism “in which emphasis is placed, first and foremost, on group liberation in which the woman acts in concert with her male counterpart in order to ensure the autonomy and collective survival of the group.
It is a way of transcending and circumventing the boundaries of both time and space that colonialism created in order to keep Blacks down.
The supremacist idea that Blacks should carry “passes” and reference letters for them to either move around Whites only suburbs, or get employment, persists through Harrison’s insistence that Lillian could not get recommendation because of her rebelliousness.
Condemned to perpetual penury as labourers, Blacks had to whimper to the whims of colonialists for them to be rewarded through good references to secure menial jobs.
For her part, Lillian should be punished so that an example is set to deter would be “offenders” from speaking back to the empire.
Cloud is also caught up in the colonial myth that the African is a sex maniac.
Cloud has worked at Maioio Farm as a tractor driver for 30 years, during which time he learnt to “drive a motorised grader and achieved his Class One and three driver’s licences”.
He could sing and play soccer and a saxophone as well. Such an achievement debunks the myth that Africans are lazy and lack intelligence.
Described as a “legend”, who “could make a tractor talk”, one wonders why Cloud, with a Class One driver’s licence, among other accolades, would remain at Maioio Farm, instead of seeking employment elsewhere.
He is a victim of a system that makes him feel redundant the moment he decides to leave without the settler’s blessings.
His choices are limited, especially so when he is painted as a sex predator.
Harrison describes Cloud as “the biggest womaniser I have ever met”, who “was reputed to have the biggest dick in the compound”.
This depiction of the Black male and his phallus, which exposes him to both White women and men alike, bordering on hate, admiration and lust, is not new in literary texts written by White authors.
In conformity with such stereotypical identities, Cloud “has three wives” but could still have sex with “anyone else that caught his fancy”, which earns him a bad reputation in the compound.
To Harrison, it is in the nature of Blacks to sleep around, so, as long as they do what they are told to do in building the settler’s legacy of plunder, their morality or lack thereof is their business.
Notwithstanding his foibles as a “womaniser”, and his ability to transcend colonial limitations to acquire more skills, Cloud remains a tractor driver for 30 years at Maioio Farm because he is raised to believe that without the help of the White man, he is nothing.
True to the concept of the “good” and the “bad” African, “Cloud lived a simple life, doing what he was tasked for – no more, no less”.
Someone with “three wives” , sleeps with anyone who catches his fancy, can sing, play soccer and is a saxophonist, cannot be said to live “a simple life”.
His simplicity is in his brain; he functions like an automaton, and leaves the thinking part to his baas.
The Black African should not aspire for more; he simply has no capacity to achieve more, Harrison convinces himself.
He simply has to do what he is told by “Big Brother”; and it is this that sustains him.
In the end, as Harry builds wealth for himself and his children through the African’s heritage – the land, Cloud toils for crumbs and leaves behind nothing for his three wives and 10 children.
He dies, as Black “libertines” (Duchet, 1978:154) are bound to; of AIDS.
Thus, the cycle begins anew, with his wife and children joining baas’ pool of servants, falling into the colonial trap designed to create perpetual labourers out of Africans.
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