We are our own liberators!

Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu
Racialism reared its ugly head in South Africa at the end of the 2015 festive season when a white woman, Penny Sparrow, apparently got annoyed by some Africans on the Durban beaches, leading to her sending a text message to some social acquaintances describing black people as “monkeys”.

That caused quite an uproar in the neighbouring country and even in her political organisation, the Democratic Alliance. The insulting remark obviously reminded many people in that country, Zimbabwe and Namibia of the by-gone era when white people were in political, economic and social control in those countries and would refer to black people as “bobojaans”, an Afrikaans word for “baboons”.

That demeaning term was mostly used by the Afrikaans section of the white community in the three countries two of which were then called Southern Rhodesia and South-West Africa.

A great deal has happened in Zimbabwe’s political, economic, social and cultural life during its almost three dozen years of nationhood.

The country will on April 18 be celebrating its 36th independence anniversary.

Zimbabwe’s population comprises several racial groups which for decades before independence lived separately, each being confined to its own social cultural, economic and political areas as demarcated by the country’s discriminatory laws.

Those racial communities were legally referred to as Europeans, Asians, Coloureds and Natives.

Each of those racial communities had its own schools, hospitals, residential areas and its working people were paid according to a scale spelt out by the country’s discriminatory legal system.

Marriage was also according to race, especially prohibited was the union between a European and a Native, and also that between an Indian and a Native.

Natives were administered by what were called native commissioners one of whose responsibilities was to register all adult male Natives by giving them “registration certificates” (izithupa, zvitupa).

Colour bar went to absurd lengths such as prohibiting black people from walking on pavements. They were permitted to walk only on the streets. They were also not allowed to walk into post offices, or cafes or hotels unless they were either employed there or were delivering whatever.

On trains and buses, black people were confined to their own particular sections. They were prohibited from travelling first class on the South African and Rhodesian Railways.

Railway waiting – rooms had racial sections some of which were clearly marked “For Whites Only” or “Non – whites Prohibited”. Post offices served black people through pigeon–holes opening onto the pavement. Hospitals, hotels, schools, prisons and churches were all run on racial lines.

There were occasions when it was impossible for hotel proprietors to apply the country’s segregationist laws. For instance, the author of this article was allowed into an all white hotel in Salisbury (Harare) to interview an Afro–American church leader and also an Afro–American trade union leader who were visiting the country, one from the Baptist church and the other from the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) based in Brussels, Belgium.

Municipal swimming pools in the country’s various cities business sections were by law reserved for white people only. It took quite a bit of physical campaigning to get Southern Rhodesia’s local government authorities to desegregate their social amenities such as parks and swimming pools.

In Salisbury, (Harare) campaigners led by the likes of Lovemore Chimonyo (who was referred to as “The Director of Operations,”) and activists such as Suhman Mehta, Bhuzwanu Muthobi, and a number of other courageous man and women gate–crashed into swimming pools and whites–only pubs and restaurants.

On many occasions some of the campaigners were arrested while others were pushed by racialists into the swimming pools, clothes, shoes and hats. On two or three occasions Chimonyo and Mehta were fished out of the Salisbury’s Les Brown swimming pool drenched to marrow!

As African-led political parties demanded more social economic and political rights for the black people (Natives) some of the discrimination was either modified or abolished with the passage of time, a period of 90 years before the attainment of independence.

Having been so harshly treated by the European administration, one would expect local people to be openly vengeful now that they are in full control of the country.

One would have expected tense inter-racial relations in the country, particularly during the first decade or so after independence. But that is not the case.

The Zanu-PF government announced at independence, and has since then been practising a policy of reconciliation between the black people (Natives) and the white people (Europeans) as well as among other racial communities.

The reconciliation policy recognises the country’s multi-racial nature; we can therefore say Zimbabwe is a multi-racial nation run on a non-racial policy.

At the attainment of independence, Zimbabwe had about 300,000 plus white people. Many of those sooner or later left for South Africa (among other countries) where a racialist regime was still in power.

Remnants of those racialist tendencies are alive in that country where some white people still refer to local people as “monkeys”. If such remarks were made against a black person in Zimbabwe, the white person responsible would be most unceremoniously and most urgently taken to the nearest international airport very likely without his or her bags and baggage!

Why the difference between South Africa and Zimbabwe’s government attitude to white people?

South Africa’s ANC believes and maintains that many white people born and bred in South Africa are as South African as the Zulus of Mgungudhlovu or the Xhosas of Rhini or the Suthus of Botshabela or whoever or wherever in South Africa.

It is an all-inclusive political doctrine very clearly expressed in the ANC’s Freedom Charter’s Clause 2 which states: “All national groups shall have equal rights, affords equality before the law, in the instruments of government, and in schools, and forbids racial insults.”

In Zimbabwe, the prevailing political doctrine is clearly pan-Africanist, that is to say Zimbabwe is an African country meant primarily for Africans. Europeans can and do live in Africa but basically on sufferance.

Should a white person deliberately insult black people of Zimbabwe as a race, he or she would have violated the country’s non-racial policy. The opinion of this author is that such a white person would be thrown out of the country without delay.

Another difference is that the 1994 South African democratic dispensation was a result of an openly multi-racial campaign in which some white people such a Bram Fischer, David Kitson, Brian Bunting, Ray Alexander, Sam Kahn and many more played major roles.

White people are (and were) in the national leadership of the ANC, and are members of that country’s cabinet. In Zimbabwe’s Zanu-PF, white people played an advisory rather than a leadership role. The Zanu-PF liberation motto was: We are our own liberators!

The Zimbabwe government’s attitude towards white people must be understood in that general context, and that the Zimbabwean guerilla liberation struggle had reached a stage where defeat stared the Smith regime in the face when the Lancaster House Conference was called to surrender power to the black people.

The South African democratic dispensation was brought about to forestall the very beginning of the guerilla warfare inside South Africa.

Unlike in Zimbabwe, the South African white minority regime did not taste the bitterness of a liberation war, hence the disdainful attitude towards Africans of some white people in that country.

In Zimbabwe, adult white people who went through the rigours of the liberation war respect black people because they experienced black people’s resolve to regain their honour and land as a racial group.

In South Africa, many white people think that De Klerk and his administration did black people a favour by releasing Nelson Mandela from jail and agreeing to the democratisation of the political system.

Zimbabwe’s white people know where they stand vis–a–vis black people. We certainly cannot say the same applies to South Africa. That is why Sparrow can send messages to her friends through her cell phone that black people are monkeys.

Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu is a retired, Bulawayo – based journalist. He can be contacted on cell 0773 428 443 or through email. [email protected]