African Laughter: Four Visits to Zimbabwe

by Doris Lessing

  THE FIGHTERS

  Two veterans of the Bush War are talking in the sardonic but wistful way of their kind.

  ‘General So-and-so said the other day…’

  ‘General? General? There are Generals and Generals.’

  ‘I mean a real General, from our War.’

  ‘I see, you mean a General.’

  ‘The General said, why don’t the young respect us? I said, It is because they don’t know you. There’s a generation who cannot remember our War. He said to me, But we won Zimbabwe for them. I said, But we Boys in the Bush are history now. He said, But what were we fighting for? I said, Yes, I often wonder myself.’

  ‘Virtue has to be its own reward,’ said the second veteran.

  ‘Ah, I see. I hadn’t thought of that. When I see the General next I’ll tell him, General, I shall say, virtue is its own reward. He’ll say, Shit to that, I want to be in the history books with full honours. I’ll say, We might be in the history books, but are these kids going to read them?’

  A priest who ran a mission far from Salisbury all through the Bush War says, ‘The boys used to drop in when the Security Forces were looking the other way. They wanted an evening of being ordinary. We had a meal, they drank, they danced–had a bit of a party. They taught me how to jive–want to see me? They were very young men, boys some of them, sixteen, seventeen.’

  Another man who saw the Freedom Fighters often, playing box and cox with them and the government troops said: ‘The War didn’t end because of the bravery of the Boys in the Bush. They were demoralized, drinking themselves silly every night because their lives were so hard. The War ended for economic reasons–sanctions, and because everyone was fed up with it.’

  A former Freedom Fighter says, ‘They made use of us. We fought for them. We listened to what they said and we believed them. Suddenly no one believes it any longer.’

  A book called White Man, Black War by a white combatant is just out. It is like the books by American soldiers in Vietnam, full of horror at what they were part of. The author was wholeheartedly for the whites, but he has had a conversion. What he admired he now hates, all evil was on the white side, all the blacks blameless. This is not an uncommon psychological switch, but what is interesting is his castigation of the whites now, presented as–every one of them–arrogant, racist, ill-wishing the blacks. I know that many such must exist, but on this trip I haven’t met any. Whites who were like this, have become good citizens. Considering that only six years have done it, what changes can another six or ten achieve?

  The Freedom Fighters in the War of Liberation were advised by the ngangas, who told them how to conduct their campaigns. Is this fact in the history books? It is in the books written by serious historians. What is taught as history to that boy or girl in the secondary modern school? Unless they are lucky in their teachers, political slogans, political myths. But if you are talking to a fighter about the Bush War he or she will give credit to the ngangas.

  I say this to an ex-combatant from Smith’s armies, and he says, ‘The ngangas were advising us too. Probably that’s why we lost.’

  An evening party. The guest of honour is a female Chef. Although many women fought with the Boys in the Bush, few became Chefs. Some have turned out well, some badly–just like the men. The people in this room all know each other well, and this Chef was a friend long before she became a Chef or even before she was a fighter.

  ‘They’ say she didn’t want to be a Chef, but Comrade Mugabe said, ‘It’s an order.’ He likes her because she speaks her mind and he is surrounded by sycophants.

  She talks through dinner and then afterwards, while we sit about drinking coffee and Zimbabwe wine. I had been told, ‘She has to choose her words these days…’ but she talks as people do who normally watch their words, but now need not, because they are with friends.

  She was talking about the camps in the bush, where she had been first as a girl, then as the War went on and on, as a young woman. Her formative years had been with the guerillas. Her job was to teach girls and boys deprived by the War of schooling, and, too, young men and women who had escaped from the miseries of village war-time living, and who would have to face competitive life after the War–without training. How very far ordinary life must have seemed, then, in those classes held under the trees, always alert for an enemy.

  Her talk sounded for minutes at a time like an official history of the War, full of licensed phrases like, War against Imperialism, Forces of the People, but then other phrases and words came in, and soon the Authorized Version had given way to her own thoughts and words. She was remembering…

  Certain official figures, now presented as perfect, with the finality of statues…Such and such a famous soldier, now a Father of the Revolution, the best soldier of them all, knew nothing about politics–he despised politics. One was always drunk…Another’s behaviour to women soldiers was so bad they had to be hidden until he went away. Once a woman Commander said to this man, who had sent to her demanding a girl for the night, ‘I am responsible for these girls. They are here to fight for freedom, not to be whores for you.’ Then she talked about ‘the trials’ in the camps, modelled on the ‘treason trials’ of the great communist exemplars. These trials went on in the bush, in the wilderness, people hanged and shot because they were convicted of–well, what? Treason, of course, but it was a power struggle, that was the point. ‘It was really about power,’ she said and said again–had to say, and say again, distressed, unable to stop talking. All those Comrades, good Comrades, had been killed and it was for their suspected ambition.

  The room in that quiet Harare suburb seemed full of the ghosts of young men–very young men, boys really, murdered by their comrades to the accompaniment of judicial phrases, the judgements of the People. How many? No one knows how many now. These killings went on in the camps, dozens of soldiers, perhaps hundreds. That was a time when ‘now I think we all went mad’.

  These murdered people were one of the bricks or stones that had built this ‘communist’ state, just as long ago the corpse of a sacrificed person, later an animal, was put into the foundations of a temple or sacred building, a cornerstone.

  Listening to her, who, presumably, had been at least ‘on the side of’ the killers, we all had to reflect how we have become accustomed to barbarity. She had been sucked into some madness, as millions of people all over the world have been, like being dragged over a waterfall, and now there was left only, ‘now I think we all went mad’.

  Next day the evening was discussed–a strange occasion, it had been. Why, now, so many years after the events, did she have to talk and talk, the way an animal slowly licks and licks a sore place.

  Then slowly details hardly noticed came forward…for instance she had remarked that she was wearing a pair of trousers allotted to her from a common store of clothes, after the clothes she had on were blown off her by blast from a bomb. She could not make herself throw them away, those old green pants that had had their day.

  What we had been listening to all evening was the monologue of the old soldier about a time so vivid, every minute so strong in memory nothing can ever be as real again. How could I not have recognized it at once? After all, I had been brought up with it, with my father talking, talking, about his war. It suddenly occurred to me–and why had it not before?–that all the men and women in the machinery of government, Big Chefs and Little Chefs, have come out of camps, out of the War in the bush, and they spend at least all their working lives together. War bound them, and memories of war bind them now. They sit talking, Do you remember?–but there is no need to ask, for they know they all remember and cannot forget. A great deal of their talk is about that war even when it is apparently about something else: this is always true of people who have been scarred by violent emotions. Nothing will ever happen to these people as powerful as what they lived through, before many of them were even twenty years old.

  That evening a curtain had been briefly lifted for us on the loneline
ss of the old soldier, whose war is in the past, and now the world is full of new people and they don’t want to listen.

  But what is most interesting, is the future. The official histories, the Authorized Versions, are given out as fact, are part of official ceremonies, taught in schools. A whole generation of young people have been brought up on them, as the sacred Foundation of Zimbabwe. But the people who fought in that war and know what it was like are in their twenties and thirties. Soon at least some will be writing their memories, autobiographies, reminiscences. Then the truth about the War will be exposed, and there will be two versions, the official histories and the truth. It must be obvious to everyone that this is going to happen. Yet the Authorized Version continues to be insisted on, to the point where a novelist writing about the War mildly enough, suggesting that the Comrades were not always perfect, was attacked by all the critics. In fact there is already a verbal history and an official one and, inevitably, the Chefs will be made to look silly.

  If there was ever a case of, How do these politicians’ minds work?–then it is this one.

  EDUCATION

  I am interviewed by a clever young woman, product of the University of Zimbabwe. She was one of the best students of her year. I am so impressed I mention her to various people, and what they say adds up to this: She wouldn’t do so well now. First, she is white. Second, she is not political. Third, she is a woman. Any one of these, by themselves, all right: put them together and she wouldn’t make it. I mustn’t think this is what Zimbabwe is like everywhere. On the whole it is good-natured, friendly, easy-going. No, the bigotry is where the Stalinists are entrenched. And by the way, have I thought how extraordinary it is, the white politico who identifies with black racism? They hate and persecute their own kind, while, of course, complaining about racism.

  Nor are some ideas from the past going to be shifted easily. Already a generation of young people studying literature or history have been imbued with Stalinist, or socialist-realist, ideas. An historian, the father of Rhodesian–Zimbabwean history, told a class in the university that he had made a mistake in certain interpretations. The students would have none of it. ‘But that’s not what we were taught.’ ‘But I’m telling you, what you were taught is wrong. I wrote that history and now I know parts of it are wrong.’ But it was no use: what they knew was history. As marxism, communism, is rejected everywhere, the people who were marxists and communists will remain, but calling themselves something different, and even thinking of themselves as different, but with large blocks of ideas that belong to marxism, to communism, intact and unexamined in their minds.

  A friend visiting an American university where history is taught as it was twenty or thirty years ago, said he kept thinking of Fathers and Sons, the chapter where Bazarov takes his friend to visit the past in the shape of two little old people who are embodiments of the Enlightenment, unchanged by everything that has happened, living in a dream of past righteousness, triumphant rectitude.

  Straws in a Variable III Wind

  On this trip–not the previous one in 1988–I have heard the word ‘intellectuals’ used pejoratively from many different kinds of people.

  ‘What is meant by intellectuals?’

  ‘The students, they are rocking the boat.’

  ‘The dissidents.’

  ‘What dissidents?’

  ‘Oh you know, negative people who criticize.’

  Similarly, people talk about ‘sell-outs’, used as mindlessly as the phrase is here. ‘Sold out what?’ ‘If you have to ask then I’m afraid I can’t help you.’ The 1960s still cast a long shadow.

  In Zimbabwe the term comes from the War, when dozens of people were murdered, ‘got rid of’ because of its power to destabilize the thinking processes. Now it can mean people you disapprove of, not unlike our recent use of the word ‘fascist’ as an all-purpose term of abuse.

  ‘Sell-out’ is often indistinguishable from ‘South African spy’. In Zambia, where things fall apart and scapegoats are needed, South African spies are glimpsed everywhere. Eight months ago in Zimbabwe I heard nothing about South African spies but this time some obviously harmless citizens are ‘spies’. Of course there are South African spies, but South Africa need never employ spies at all: if the aim is to ‘destabilize’ its neighbours, their paranoia would be enough to cripple them.

  On a road between Bulawayo and Harare, at a road block, a policeman was suspicious because a map was spread on my lap. What did we need a map for? We replied this was not the main road, and therefore we needed a map. Thoughts common to such occasions, such as, that real spies would hardly be likely to spread maps open on their laps, seemed to lack force, faced with the man’s furious hostility. That region of romping farce, so useful for the theatre, is because of the contrast between the seriousness (we have to suppose) of the spy processes, and its manifestations lower down; for instance, a petty official told to keep an eye open for spies from The Republic. South Africans abound in Zimbabwe but mostly as tourists. In every place of beauty or interest, which means nearly everywhere, are groups of South Africans taking the air and admiring the view. All of them, when driving on little-frequented roads, would have maps spread open on…but already we are in farcical area that characterizes spies and spying.

  Tekere is of course in the pay of the South Africans: government propagandists and the C.I.O. spread rumours that he is, and he makes an advantage by joking about it. When Joshua Nkomo was out of favour he was supposed to be a spy. No one believed it. Any effective critic, the student leaders, people who show signs of talent and originality–any or all of them may find themselves suddenly described as South African spies. This is not, as we know, an uncommon thing in totalitarian societies. And envy was ever a great breeder of spies.

  There are sane people in high places who try to combat this lunacy. Canaan Banana, at the university, is one. He has just said publicly that Zimbabwe is a democracy and everyone is entitled to say what they think at all times.

  The university has been in trouble ever since Liberation. First, it has students. Second, people work in it who think. Third, a great many academics come from other countries with ideas and information. Every kind of effort is made to keep the university subject to the control of the Party, but it is like an ebullient ox that has no intention of being inspanned. The latest restriction causing shame and fury is that people coming to do research must have permits from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. But often this kind of thing is ignored: all the time, in every way, on every level, you see people desperate for the honour of Zimbabwe trying to save it from its own follies. ‘One of these days Mugabe will get the point.’

  Everyone is uneasy about the new Ministry of Political Affairs. At its top levels the Ministry is staffed by impressive men and women, all young, at least scarcely middle-aged. They are dedicated, efficient. But in a country like Zimbabwe, with not enough trained people, what goes on at lower levels does not necessarily reflect the competence of its Chefs.

  Sometimes I think that Chefs in every country formulating policies that sound so brilliant as they enunciate them among clever colleagues, might stop and wonder how these same policies will sound–well, for instance, in the mouths of some local official. ‘Why have you got that map on your lap?’

  A newspaper editor: ‘Mugabe should take the Central Intelligence Office dogs off our heels. You wouldn’t notice it because you are a visitor, but they are always around sniffing things out. For instance, a novelist was planning a thriller about a country where a coup was being planned from outside. He talked about his idea to a friend: a few days later the CIO came around and warned him not to write the book; people would think he meant Zimbabwe. So he didn’t write it. It is easy to say he should have ignored them. If I lived in Britain I wouldn’t take any notice either. But it’s no joke when those CIO men drop around for a chat. They know how to scare you. And don’t forget the best editor this country ever had–The Chronicle in Bulawayo–got the sack. If there’s a tricky i
ssue, just when you’re thinking, I’ve got a wife and children to look after, it’s funny how the CIO boys just happen to be around, “Let’s have a drink and talk things over.”’

  In London an international expert talks about the disaster of Zambia, the demoralization. ‘They are always looking over their shoulders to make sure the secret police aren’t listening.’ I said I saw nothing like this in Zimbabwe. On the contrary, everyone I met said what they thought at the top of their voices: hard to imagine these exuberant, irreverent, witty people putting up with the Thought Police. ‘That’s not what I’ve been told by my people,’ she says. ‘I reckon Zimbabwe has only a short time to decide whether it’s going to be like Zambia. Their culture is authoritarian, it’s hierarchical, not easy for them to challenge authority. Big political movements are one thing, but it’s another to challenge a petty boss out in the sticks somewhere. There is something in their traditions, or their culture, or their history which makes them helpless when they encounter ours. Our organization gives out money for projects, but part of that money will always be stolen, unless you can arrange for checks all the way–and what example do they get from their leaders? All they see when they look at Harare is the Chefs getting rich on fiddles. And what would happen to them if they complained? And now Mugabe is insisting on a one party state and then there won’t be any opposition at all.’

  I asked if she ever went out of Harare when she visited Zimbabwe. She was uncomfortable: ‘No, I’ve never been out of Harare, I’m afraid.’

  A poem from Tso Tso.

  Strong strings tie my…my

  Strong strings tie my tongue tight