I am Zimbabwean: Black or White
Craig Vos
GROWING up in the bush was an experience I will cherish forever. I have to admit I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but my adult life transformed when my dad decided that as I had ‘become a man’ I had to fend for myself. That happened with all my siblings. They had to leave the farm as soon as they turned 21. And they did. My dad made sure they did!
I was born in Figtree; some 26 miles south of Gwelo (now Gweru), on a secluded farm. Our nearest neighbour was 5 miles away. I mingled with the children of the farm-workers who were from Malawi and we spoke a mixture of English, Shona and Ndebele, somehow managing to converse and connect. As kids this was not much of a chore, and we did not let language become a barrier. We devised a language of our own at the formative stages. In my teens, I became trilingual; I could speak the three languages fluently.
The negative side of living in the bush was that you were divorced from the goings-on in the towns and cities. I remember my dad reading a copy of the Rhodesia Herald (as it was called then) and fuming at what the “black terrorists” were doing to “this country”. I guess he was a racist, or was prejudiced. He had to be. He was a product of the colonial system of segregation and after years of working at the Mashonaland Herald and Zambesian Times, he had to be. He was involved in much of that era’s propaganda.
As a frail old man, I think he might have repented, but was too proud to admit it. Seeing me and my nephews, who were about my age, play with the farm workers’ children in peace and harmony, softened his hardened position on the future of “Rhodesia”. He never once referred to it as Zimbabwe, even in the post-Independence era. My sister swore that he mentioned “Zimbabwe-Rhodesia” once and his admiration for Bishop Abel Muzorewa, the Zimbabwe-Rhodesia Prime Minister who teamed up with RF leader Ian Smith, and whose government did not last for more than six months. He got three seats at the 1979 general election.
As a kid, politics was alien to me. I never knew it existed and my dad made sure that we steered clear of it. In later years I had to attend boarding school. I really hated it, but the multi-racial element I had experienced on the farm was extended at Peter House. Holidays were something else, especially the summers with long days spent fishing, hunting, shooting and horse riding. We gathered the cattle for dipping and dosing; all exciting stuff for children.
When my dad passed on, I felt an emptiness which I tried to fill by reading a lot of the stuff he was writing and putting away into his bookcase. I discovered the internal struggles that he went through in his old age; trying to reconcile his ‘racist’ or ‘prejudiced’ ideas with the fact that society had transformed and his own children were playing with ‘negro children’. I started to understand what exactly had happened in the chequered history of this tiny landlocked country.
I had to move from Peter House to Ellis Robbins High School in Mabelreign. My mother could no longer afford the astronomical fees (levies) of Peter House. It is there I enjoyed some of the most memorable experiences in my life. The word ‘multi-racial’ was redefined. There was no majority race amongst us: the Indians, Blacks, Whites, Coloureds, etc. Those experiences I had at Ellis Robbins remain with me.
Today, the most tragic thing of yesteryear is not realizing how lucky I was to be brought up the way in which I was. I cannot call myself a product of the Rhodesian era per se. Mine was a multi-cultural, multi-racial upbringing (growing up) and my perception of Zimbabwe was shaped by that experience. I have both black and white friends; true friends and I speak all Zimbabwean languages and identify more with Zimbabwe than with Canada, where I currently reside. Here Canadians consider me an immigrant and ask me when I’m going home. As a 37-year-old, I was only 9 years old when Zimbabwe achieved majority rule. I have never owned a farm, although I grew up on a farm.
I could never take up farming as a career, neither do I want to. I have other ways of contributing to my country: as a Zimbabwean. I have hopes and aspirations that were shaped by watching successful black and white people.The lifestyle I had growing up and interacting with unsuspecting and innocent black and white boys of my generation helped me to become all-rounded and organized early on in life; something which served me well when I emigrated. I experienced discrimination for the first time because of my skin tone and my accent.
Some of the things I read in my dad’s memoirs was alarming to say the least, like how he learned to load a rifle magazine, strip it and clean it, the different ammunition ultimately used to shoot-to-kill an African or an animal. He was bitter over the establishment of majority rule and the transformation of Rhodesia into Zimbabwe, but never once did he try to influence my view of the farm workers (who were black) or encourage me not to play with the black kids.
So, where my dad felt an unease at having to use the same cutlery used by blacks, I was happy to share the bite of an apple. This is the Zimbabwe I know, not the Rhodesia I am associated with. I am Zimbabwean. I am white and I face the same pain and struggles that every Zimbabwean, black or white does.I love my father, but not his upbringing, or his views. But he could only be what he was. I am what I am. The sins of my father are not my own.
Craig Vos is a Zimbabwean writing from Canada.
From www.talkzimbabwe.com