adminLovemore Ranga Mataire The Reader
EZEKIEL C. Makunike is one of the few journalists to leave his footprints in an enduring text that chronicles his personal experiences from colonial Rhodesia to majority rule in 1980. “I Won’t Call You Sir”, published in 1998 is a marvellous biographical account by Makunike from his days as a student in Rhodesia to the time he became the editor of Umbowo, a Methodist Christian Magazine that shook the foundation of the colonial hegemonic stranglehold when it declared that Ian Smith, the leader of UDI must be arrested and tried in one of its editorials.
While the setting of the book is Zimbabwean, it is fundamentally a history book of the liberation struggle in Southern Africa. Zimbabweans in colonial Rhodesia shared the same experience of racial subjugation with those in apartheid South Africa.
This book forms part of an important narrative of the struggle for majority rule in Zimbabwe by putting in proper perspective the reasons why the so-called peace-loving people of Rhodesia embarked on an armed struggle against white settlers that had entrenched themselves in the country.
The book provides a lucid answer to the major grievances that drove thousands young people to leave the country in droves to neighbouring countries from whence the guerilla war was orchestrated from.
Although the book is a chronicle of the author’s experiences in colonial Rhodesia, the issues highlighted are reflective of the general struggles that blacks encountered as second class citizens in their country of birth and serve to explain why the liberation struggle for Zimbabwe was a mass movement.
The land issue is highlighted as the major grievance of the struggle as people were displaced from their native ancestral land to some barren infertile lands that were not suitable for agricultural purpose and was generally inhospitable like the funereal Manyene Tribal Trust Lands referred to by Charles Mungoshi in his seminal novel “Waiting for the Rain”.
Besides the land issue, successive prohibitive colonial acts stripped the natives of their cattle and their human dignity was also taken away by various laws that curtailed their freedom of association and assembly.
In his narrative, Makunike lays it bare why the First and Second Chimurenga were the logical outcomes of a people that had been cornered to a point where they were left with no choice but to regain their liberties by any means necessary.
But Ian Smith and his Rhodesian Front Party were relentless in his endeavour to prevent majority rule in Zimbabwe, ostensibly to safeguard and maintain what he called “Christianity and Western civilisation.”
The title of the book comes from an encounter the author had in 1965 with a young Penhalonga white police officer at a roadblock.
The police officer demanded to be called sir whereupon Makunike shot back by saying that he would not do so because it was not part of the crime he had committed of driving without a licence.
Despite the insistence of the police officer, Makunike stood his ground saying that being called sir was a title to be earned and not demanded.
His triumph after the encounter was the beginning of his open confrontation with the oppressive system and marked his first entry into the police record books as a potentially dangerous African in the area and one who had to be under surveillance.
“I Won’t Call You Sir” is lacerated with numerous acts of defiance against the oppressive colonial system.
The narrative exemplifies the sacrifices undertaken by Zimbabweans from across ethnic and social backgrounds that in their individual and collective acts highlighted the plight of the black man.
Makunike’s most daring act as a journalist came in 1970 when he published an editorial after the then Prime Minister Ian Smith had addressed an election meeting at Mt Pleasant Hall near the then University of Rhodesia.
It is at this meeting that Mr Smith is said to have remarked that there will be no majority rule in his lifetime.
The black students who were part of the students like Witness Mangwende and Simba Makoni responded by walking out singing “Ishe Komborera Africa”.
In response, Smith and his cabal of white supporters sang a racist white South African song normally sung at rugby matches titled “Bobbejaan Klim die Berg,” which means “The Baboon Climbs the Mountain”.
As the editor of Umbowo, Makunike evoked the Law and Order Maintenance Act Section 44 (1) which had previously been used by the Government to deal with those found guilty of promoting feelings of hostility meant to endanger peace and stability in the country.
After a tip-off of an impending arrest Makunike left the country leaving the magazine in the hands of his deputy Everson Chikwana who was also to leave the country after a few years.
Online Reporter