The Observer - 9 March 2014 - 7
The Future of White Africans
N
early all Zimbabweans are
migrants – the Shona people
moving here after about 1200
AD, the Ndebele arriving in
strength after about 1830, the whites from
about 1700 (Portuguese and others) and the
Anglophile migrations starting after about
1850 in the form of missionaries, hunters and
adventurers. We all come from somewhere
else.
In South Africa the exodus has not been so
rapid but the trend is the same, as white South
Africans have left to seek greener pastures in
other parts of the world.
Because they were dominant during the
colonial period, these whites often became
an elite owning land and other assets and
dominating the economies of their different
adopted countries.
When the process of political change
stripped the whites of political power, they
adopted different attitudes towards the new
dispensation.
In Zimbabwe the whites withdrew from
the political arena, choosing to pursue
their economic interests and maintaining
their social structures. This resulted in the
emergence of white dominated schools and
clubs and perpetuated the insular character
of the white community. Behind these walls
racist attitudes were perpetuated although this
has not been a problem as the new black elite
has used their control of the levers of power
to swiftly establish dominance. Where it has
been a problem is that it has left what remains
of white interests vulnerable to politically
motivated activity to marginalize or even seize
assets and market share.
In 2000 when the white farming
community, who had survived the first twenty
years of Independence rather well, decided to
vote against the ruling party in the referendum
and then in the election that followed, they
invited retribution which was not long in
coming. In the ensuing decade virtually all
white farmers have been forcibly dispossessed
of their assets, many are now destitute or
living outside the country in dire straits.
For many whites of the next generation,
these historical problems of the communities
they come from are a hindrance and a burden
that they hardly understand. The generation
that follows them, even more so, they have
black friends, speak local languages and have
never known a segregated society. They are
impatient to get on with their lives and want
to make their way in the new world that they
find themselves in. The white community in
Zimbabwe may be growing slowly again and
many young whites who have been abroad
are coming home to try and make a life for
themselves.
Many are lost in their new environment.
The world that they grew up in has
disappeared and they are unable to adjust
to the new values and cultures that now
dominate their societies. But somehow that
famous bug that bites everyone who comes
to Africa, remains in all of us and holds us to
our different countries like a magnet. When I
visited London several years ago with Morgan
Tsvangirai, I was asked to arrange for him
to speak to a group of young whites from
southern Africa. We arrived at the hall to find
about 700 young people waiting for us. When
Morgan told them that they were wanted at
home and would get their citizenship back on
arrival, there were tears all over the hall. He
said to me afterwards, “I had no idea these
young whites loved their country like that”.
If we choose to make Africa our home, we
must learn that we need to earn the right to
be called Africans and to be fully accepted as
citizens with all that that entails. That is not
an easy process, but it’s one that we all have
to go through if we are to find our place in
the sun. This was not easy for my generation,
it was easier for my children and I hope their
children will find that, at last, they are really
at “home” and are accepted in every sense of
the word. ■
Mangoma suspension
unconstitutional: Biti
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