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Lovemore Ranga Mataire The Reader
Most liberal white authors who lived in Rhodesia are known for their obtrusive condescending attitude in their portrayal of the country’s history from colonialism to independence. While pretending to be on the side of the subjugated majority their narratives are not in any way revolutionary but advocates for a humane treatment of blacks.

A human treatment of blacks does not transcend to be an equal.

This kind of narrative is much revealed by Doris Lessing in “The Grass is Singing”, where the author failed to outgrow her personal prejudices by constantly referring to blacks as kaffirs and savage beings.

The same condescending narrative bordering on self-amnesia is also found in Martin Meredtith’s “The Past Is Another Country”.

Typical of most white liberal authors, the book fails to articulate and contextualise the major grievances of the black majority in taking up arms to dislodge a colonial regime led by Ian Douglas Smith.

The failure to contextualise these major grievances by Meredith is not a matter of simple conjecture but deliberate attempts to deodorise the white man’s devious acts on the black man including the deprivation of land.

Land deprivation was the major source of discontent among black people as they were pushed from their ancestral virgin lands to arid and congested lands that barely sustained any agricultural activity.

Any reader would expect that Meredith, a former journalist, would be able to shirk off his white prejudices and meticulously chronicle the real issues that led indigenous blacks to wage an armed insurrection against the colonial regime.

The major weakness of Meredith’s account is that it focuses mainly on the political players rather than on the actual issues that affected the ordinary African.

There are glimpses of the beginnings of the involvement of individuals like James Chikerema, George Nyandoro and Dr Joshua Nkomo who according to the author played key roles in mass mobilsation against the colonial regime.

While the trio’s contribution in the early period of mass agitation is not in dispute it is not accurate for the author to assert that the formation of the City Youth League marked the beginning of organised African nationalism.

This is clearly a historical misnomer in that any nincompoop who has read or followed the history of Zimbabwe is aware of the role the late Benjamin Burombo played in awakening the African populace to the realities of the colonial oppressive rule.

Burombo is a colossus in pioneering the mobilisation of African people against colonial segregation at workplaces. It just boggles the mind why Meredith would obliterate Burombo’s contribution in his book.

Why was it necessary for Meredith to state that as early as 1948, Burombo was largely instrumental in organising a countrywide strike that led to an urgent examination of wages by the Native Labour Board?

He bitterly opposed the proposed Native Land Husbandry Bill and when it became law in 1951 he successfully challenged a number of cases where the Act had been wrongly implemented by the native commissioners.

Burombo’s successes in trade unionism were the bedrock upon which the next generation of nationalists got the impetus to challenge colonial hegemony.

Meredith conveniently leaves out a chunk of pivotal information that is essential for any reader seeking an informed understanding of Zimbabwe from colonialism to independence.

His racial prejudices became apparent in his eventual book: “Mugabe: Power, Plunder, and the Struggle for Zimbabwe” where he feels irked by President Mugabe’s final fulfilment of one of the major grievances of the liberations struggle through the implementation of the land reform programme.

He shows his disdain for President Mugabe’s empowering policies that threaten white supremacy because in his mind a black man must only be treated in a humane manner but must remain an inferior being.

He thus paints a picture of President Mugabe in the same terms that Doris Lessing describes Moses in The Grass is Singing.

Moses is described in animalistic terms in his speech and mannerism, the same way President Mugabe is described as a dictator who has turned “Zimbabwe’s wealth and resources as spoils of war for his inner circle”.

Meredith’s partial and narrow narrative is a clear challenge to all well meaning Zimbabweans to document the country’s history from an African perspective and put at the periphery other narratives that seek to demonise our heroes and heroines.