Saturday, 7 June to Saturday, 15 June 1986 – White Zimbabwean Attitudes

June 16, home of Steve & Beryl, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe 

The afternoon of my arrival in Zimbabwe, my Rotarian host, Adrian Feather, drove me over to a local Bulawayo park with two reservoirs.  It was good to stretch my legs a bit after having been in a tightly-packed train for about 15 hours.  The lower reservoir was completely dry while the water in the upper one was way down.  Drought has been a serious problem in Zimbabwe for several years although the eastern and northern parts of the country received abundant rainfall this year. 

My conversation with Adrian that afternoon was reminiscent of what I’d heard from white South Africans.  Adrian wanted to set me straight about the alleged inequalities of the former white Rhodesian government.  He pointed out that Ian Smith’s government was often criticized for not doing more for black education.  How could a couple hundred thousand white taxpayers afford to educate a couple million black kids? He explained that only whites paid taxes under the white Rhodesian government.  Along the same vein, was it fair to expect white tax-paying parents to accept inferior education for their children?  Thus, the educational system was unequal for blacks and whites under the white government and he wanted me to understand why.  I see his point but it avoids the larger question regarding the fairness of 250,000 whites having political control over more than 4,000,000 Africans prior to Zimbabwean independence in 1980.  But, as I’d learned in South Africa, it was better to listen than try to argue these kinds of issues.    

That first evening, Adrian and Penny invited their friends Roy and Annette to join us for dinner.  Annette was concerned about the future of Zimbabwe and felt their children would probably not stay here after they were grown.  Prime Minister Robert Mugabe, supposedly an avid Marxist, has made it clear that he’d eventually like to get all the whites out of the country.  Roy is the managing director for a rapidly-growing Zimbabwe corporation and is somewhat more optimistic.  Because of Zimbabwe’s debt problems, he feels that the country will essentially become a “colony” of the US-dominated International Monetary Fund.  The IMF will dictate strict terms to the Mugabe government if they are to receive any international loans.  And these terms will foster a healthy economic climate for local business – and here, business largely means white men’s business. 

Bustling Bulawayo downtown, 8 July 1986.  Note Barclay’s Bank building on right.

Last week, I attended a Bulawayo South Rotary Club meeting.  I sat across from two African guys.  One of them, John, is in personnel with a large local mining company.  He’s very personable and articulate.  Back in the early 1960s, he studied in Moscow and London.  Adrian tells me that John will be the first black president of any of the three Rotary clubs in the city.  The newest club has six black members.  

Adrian says the clubs have difficulty getting blacks to join Rotary.  Bernard (I stayed with him and his wife, Sally, last Sunday and Monday nights) attributed this problem to the following:  1) Blacks see Rotary as a white man’s organization and 2) Black Africans don’t have a tradition of community service.  He claims (and I’ve heard this before) that Africans’ loyalty is to their families.  They don’t much care what happens to the guy next door.  Okay, maybe that’s a cultural difference that can be pointed out without placing value judgments on it.  Coming from Bernard, however, there is probably a negative judgment in this statement as he openly admits he doesn’t care much for blacks.  That’s sad as he’s lived in Africa most of his adult life and will stick it out here until forced to leave.  Despite his racism, I can’t help but like Bernard.  He’s a sarcastic, balding Englishman in his early 60s with a good sense of humor and an entertaining gift of gab. 

Sally is wife #3 and quite a character herself.  I think she was born in Scotland but has lived in Bulawayo since 1953.  She has an ostrich-like attitude about Zimbabwe.  She really doesn’t know what’s going on politically and doesn’t much care.  Problems here always seem to work themselves out, she contends.  Sally proudly told me she doesn’t read the local papers and has only voted once.  She holds on to her U.K. citizenship and passport despite having lived here 33 years.  She works as a secretary/girl Friday and seems to get along fine with blacks.  Sally has high praise for Constance, their housekeeper who has been with them for several years. 

Bernard is a construction engineer and has worked in West Africa (Nigeria, Ghana, and Sierra Leone) as well as Zimbabwe and South Africa.  He has nothing good to say about West Africa.  The climate is very oppressive (hot and humid most of the year), nothing works and living conditions are the pits.  He much prefers Zimbabwe where he enjoys a comfortable lifestyle and his ham radio equipment.  Bernard points out what a mess has been made of Africa since the various European colonies achieved independence.  One of his major complaints about black Africans is their lack of innovation.  If you give a black engineer a project, he will look in books for a plan he can copy instead of designing something to fit the situation.  This is why, according to Bernard, so many African engineering projects are a flop. 

Despite the negative stuff I hear from my white hosts here, I have concluded after a few days that black/white relations are much better than in South Africa.  I noticed, for example, that Adrian frequently waves at blacks walking along the streets as we drive by.  They generally smile and wave back.  You never see this in South Africa.  Penny an Adrian have an African guy who cleans they house and does the gardening.  Their interactions with him seem very warm and casual.  He is going to night school, and they sometimes help him with his homework.  They feel he is very bright and is wasting his talents working for them.  Penny and Adrian hope he graduates and moves on to a good job.    

Bernard, Sally, and I came over here for dinner with Steve, Beryl, and several other friends last Monday.  Beryl introduced us to their smiling housekeeper who served us dinner.  Beryl is an excellent cook and as we finished the meal, Freddie joked with the housekeeper to please bring us another round of dinner.  With the exception of my “radical” friends (by South African standards) in Halfway House, I’ve never seen these kinds of friendly, joking interactions between whites and blacks in South Africa.  I commented to Steve, Beryl, and their other guests about my observations.  They claimed that black/white relations here have always been better than in South Africa.  They claimed they remained good even during the war years from 1965 to 1979.  Of course, it might be that whites are nicer to blacks because the latter are now in charge of the government.  Maybe it’s the white people’s way of saying, “See what nice people we are.  So, please don’t throw us out of the country.”  At the same time, I do sense a genuine warmth from the black people here.  In South Africa, they ignored me and I assumed they were afraid of me, hated me because I am white or simply didn’t want to be bothered with whites any more than necessary.  Fine. I could understand the way they feel and gave them their space.  While it’s still difficult to communicate with blacks here, they are, on the surface, some of the friendliest people with strangers that I’ve ever met.  South Africans would, I’m sure, attribute that to the fact that the Africans in Zimbabwe are from different tribes than those in South Africa.  I think it has something to do with whites here being mostly of British background.  Few Boers settled here.  While the Rhodesian government practiced segregation, they never had the rigid system of apartheid found in South Africa.

As I write this, I’ve been watching a little African girl who is about 5 or 6 taking a bath, washing her hair, and rinsing out her clothes in a tub of water about 50 feet from my window in Steve’s study which doubles as his clock workshop.  There are no less than 20 clocks in here.  I think this little girl is the housekeeper’s daughter.  She’s very cute and really fun to watch.