Monday, 9 June 1986 – My Impressions of White Africans & the Continent’s Future

9:45 AM, home of Bernard & Sally, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe 

My first impressions of life for whites here in Zimbabwe:  scarcity and uncertainty about the future.  There are so many things we take for granted which one can’t find on the store shelves in Zimbabwe.  Some examples:  camera film, raisins and other dried fruits, imported liquor, and electronics.  Imports in general seem nearly impossible to find due to high import duties. 

On the other hand, you can live like a king for next to nothing if you can do without luxury or imported items or get them into the country somehow.  I’ve already spoken about what a bargain Adrian and Penny’s house in Bulawayo was:  Z$25,000 five years ago when the Zim and US dollars were roughly at par.  The house includes 4 bedrooms and 2 baths.  There is a swimming pool and servant’s cottage – all this on an acre of land.  It would easily cost ten times as much in an American suburb.

Palatial home of one of the white families I stayed with in Bulawayo

 

Adrian’s parents moved here from England to retire.  They bought their home from the profit they made on the sale of a Mercedes they had legally brought into the country.  Expatriates who come to Zimbabwe to work for a couple of years can make a bundle on personal possessions they bring in duty-free, then sell after a waiting period (one year on items like autos).  Despite President Robert Mugabe’s desire to rid the country of whites, the government is eager for expatriates to move here because the country is desperate for skilled Western labor. 

A traveler like me could finance a several-month stay here in Zimbabwe with the sale of a few scarce items.  One hundred rolls of Kodak film could bring $1000 profit, for example.  There are all kinds of games you can play with foreign currency assuming you don’t get caught.

Besides the scarcities and strange economic circumstances of Zimbabwe there are also the uncertainties about the future.  Robert Mugabe’s government continues to inch its way to the left.   Whites wonder how long it will be before there is no longer a place for them in the country.  Some like Adrian are relatively optimistic.  He says black Zimbabweans realize the country simply will not work without white expertise and capital.  If the owner of his cookie company were forced to sell out to local blacks or if the government expropriated the business, no one would know how to run it.  He claims they have tried to bring African workers into management, but the chaps usually don’t last long.  They are either bad managers or they steal.  I would argue that such problems are the results of years of denying educational and employment opportunities to black Africans.  Adrian argues that blacks have the standard of living they do because of the white efforts to modernize the country.  Others like Bernard, with whom I’m currently staying, feel the white man’s time in Africa is nearly up. 

Then there’s the safety issue.  Like South Africa, Zimbabwe seems very tranquil on the surface.  Several whites mentioned that even during the Rhodesian War in the early 1970s, white neighborhoods, like the ones I’ve been staying in, were completely untouched by violence.  Yet, one is reminded of potential danger when you see a ranger at Matopos National Park carrying around a semi-automatic rifle (and it’s not primarily for protection against wild animals).  When I asked Adrian why a ranger would need such a weapon, he spoke of the possibility, remote though it was, of a gang sneaking up on a tourist family, robbing them, then killing them.  Just recently, the remains of several foreign tourists were discovered between Bulawayo and Victoria Falls.  They had been ambushed four years ago.  Such dangers don’t stop gutsy people like Adrian and Penny from living here and enjoying the outdoors.  But, such real and perceived dangers keep away a number of potential tourists and white professionals.

In South Africa, I heard several whites say “What’s happened in Zimbabwe is what will happen to us if we allow the blacks to take over here.”  While white Zimbabweans haven’t really lost all that much (other than the ability to easily obtain imported goods), more than half of them left after the war ended and black rule came in 1980.  Some are actually returning now.  Many originally went to South Africa but found it was no bed of roses.  Rather than go through another revolution, they prefer a place where black majority rule is already a known situation.  Whites who have stayed or returned to Zimbabwe seem to be hedging their bets.  Most have illegal bank accounts overseas which are managed by a relative.  They also keep foreign passports.  The major problem for people who leave the country is the nearly total barrier to getting money out of the country.  At least, one can take R100,000 out of South Africa.

Maybe we shouldn’t be all that concerned about the future of these white neo-colonialists.  Are they simply living high off the exploited sweat of the African brow?  And is there a place for them in post-independent Africa?  It could be argued that the Europeans mucked up this continent by introducing Western culture and values to people in traditional African societies who shouldn’t be forced to cope with an entirely alien system.  But, if the white man has stolen Africa, then white Americans have stolen our country from the Native Americans, and the Aussies stole theirs from the Aborigines. Should we get out of our respective continents as well?  White South Africans are quick to point out that the difference between European settlement of America and that in Africa is that we killed off most of the native people and they didn’t.  Once again, I’m forced to admit that there are no simple answers to these dilemmas.  It’s so easy to solve all the world’s problems while sitting in a comfortable American living room listening to Dan Rather.    

Despite these uncertainties, I don’t feel the presence or absence of the white man is the real issue threatening the future of Africa.  The scourge of Africa is not so much the tsetse fly or the periodic droughts that plague the continent.  It’s totally unbridled population growth.  Adrian, Bernard, and I all agree that efforts like the Band-Aid and Live-Aid concerts are ultimately not an answer given the current and projected rates of population growth.  Famine aid to Africa temporarily sooths Western guilt.  Otherwise, it’s futile in the long term.  Over the past few years, Western medicine has greatly reduced infant mortality and lengthened African lifespans.  On the surface, these developments are very humanitarian.  But introducing artificial “death control” without bringing about a corresponding use of artificial birth control is going to prove to be cruel and unusual punishment in the long run.  Africans’ ability to feed themselves is diminishing, timber is disappearing, and the environment is being ravaged.  An advanced Western society could perhaps cope with the skyrocketing population growth rates on this continent.  African societies cannot.  Ultimately, I fear the only answer is massive famine unless radical population control measures such as those now enforced in China, are introduced. 

Some demographers argue that population growth levels off naturally as industrialization proceeds.  Look at the United States.  Gone are the farm families of 10 kids which was normal 50 or 100 years ago (my mother was the youngest of 10 in an Ohio farm family).  Problem is that Africa isn’t really industrializing all that fast – and certainly not fast enough to absorb the huge work force now reaching adulthood.  Adrian cited figures the other day to show that creation of new jobs in Zimbabwe is lagging way behind population growth.  Who is going to feed these people?  Bob Geldof?  The Pope?  The American taxpayer?  The Russians?  Bernard, the aging British cynic with a sense of sarcastic humor, thinks the best thing that could happen if for the Russians to take over Africa.  He says they would find it as much of an economic drain as the British did, which is why the British and the French finally pulled out.  Some will label me a callous racist for expressing these views.  Maybe someone can give me reason to be more optimistic but I doubt it.