RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Mugabe and the White African

I browsed through the globalresearch website and read the pambazuka article and even noted Sam Moyo’s article, “The Political Economy of Land Acquisition and Redistribution in Zimbabwe, 1990-1999,” Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 26, No. 1  (Mar., 2000), pp. 5-28 Publisher(s): Taylor & Francis, Ltd. I am not an expert on Zimbabwe, but like many Africanists, have followed the news accounts and read and listened to my share of academic articles and papers on the increasingly desperate situation in Zimbabwe. I periodically review academic sources on this issue as I teach an African Civilizations course and my students are always interested in current affairs.  I did not put exact dates with my earlier response, as it was a general observation of recent political events in Zimbabwe. 

 

In looking at the small avalanche of academic articles on the last 20 years (1990 – 2010) of Mugabe’s reign it is somewhat difficult to pinpoint when good intentions changed to political maneuvering. In reality such changes often occur in stops and starts, so some regions may have experienced more order in the land reform implementation than other areas and at different times.  This is the work of a field researcher to sort out.  

I do not doubt the interference and destruction of Western powers in African countries within the neo-colonial context and believe that I opened with a statement to that effect in my earlier e-mail. What I am referring to is the total mismanagement of Zimbabwe’s political situation within the past 1 to 2 decades due to Mugabe’s increased stranglehold on the government apparatus, which includes economic institutions, has changed to some degree what may have been a well intentioned land reform policy into part of political mayhem, where no one is winning.  If you do just a search of JSTOR, you will find 200 plus articles (most refereed – so not journalists’ impressions) on Mugabe’s political activities and how land reform issues enter into these activities.  As Zimbabwe suffers from severe and chronic food storages, most of which are politically manufactured, it is amazing to me that anyone (Chambi or Goodwin) would just leave the cause and effect analysis to a macro (international) level rather than including the obvious present micro (national) issues.  I don’t think Zimbabwe’s opposition parties or the suffering masses of Zimbabweans will see things as so BLACK and WHITE.

 

Here are a handful of citations (I agree Moyo’s is a balanced account – although the article I read did not include the past 10 years), but again there are hundreds to choose from that provide a range of analysis regarding Mugabe’s management of the land reform policy and its implementation over the past 2 decades.

 

Land Reform in Zimbabwe

Author(s):  Neil H. Thomas

Source:  Third World Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 4  (Aug., 2003), pp. 691-712

Publisher(s): Taylor & Francis, Ltd.

 

Africa's Mess, Mugabe's Mayhem

Author(s):  Robert I. Rotberg

Source:  Foreign Affairs, Vol. 79, No. 5  (Sep. - Oct., 2000), pp. 47-61

 

The 'Fascist Cycle' in Zimbabwe, 2000-2005

Author(s):  Timothy Scarnecchia

Source:  Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 32, No. 2  (Jun., 2006), pp. 221-237

Publisher(s): Taylor & Francis, Ltd.

 

Desperate Days in Zimbabwe

Author(s):  Ian Phimister; Brian Raftopoulos

Source:  Review of African Political Economy, Vol. 34, No. 113, Imperial, Neo-Liberal Africa?  (Sep., 2007), pp. 573-580

Publisher(s): Taylor & Francis, Ltd.

 

I am not, and I don’t think anyone else in this exchange, is against land reform measures that provide equitable reparations to Black Zimbabweans. 

 

 

Thank you,

Jamaine Abidogun

 

 

 

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of kenneth harrow
Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2011 10:48 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Mugabe and the White African

 

thanks godwin; you are right, i am giving general impressions, nothing based on solid research. i have very bad impressions--and more--relative to what the zimbabwean army controls re mines, but the land redistribution is based on nothing more than the occasional newspaper accounts.
i have enough of a small historical knowledge of the conditions under which white farmers obtained their lands, and i have little sympathy for them. probably a proper compensation for appropriation of their lands is the most those people should expect. i know that many white landowners were recruited when rhodesia broke off from england, and they were anything but long-standing owners of the lands. but i also saw the movie; saw the brutalities visited on the farmers, and the only way to condone it is to be a racist against the whites, or whatever the word is you might choose for that.
if we were to choose a decent system of restorative justice, do you think it would look like the one mugabe instituted?
ken

On 7/28/11 2:23 PM, Godwin Murunga wrote:

You are spon-on Chambi:

Ken, you are correct that the strength of this list rests on “solid arguments utilizing credible points....” You are however only partially correct about Mugabe’s “own land grabs and redistribution to his political and military cronies.” This is only a proportion of the full story; and as someone said, excellence can never be a proportion. Which is why you, like Jamaine Abidogun before you, need to cite credible research on the ground (not that manufactured by journalists peering into Zimbabwe from outside its borders), and conducted over years to establish a consistent historical pattern that all that Mugabe has done in his ‘land grabs’ is “redistribution to his political and military cronies.” We have to go beyond this standardised Africanist model of dismissing Africans. 

Sam Moyo, who has done research over the years in Zimbabwe acknowledges the “achievements and limitations” of land redistribution in Zimbabwe but concludes that “the popular assumption about failed land redistribution in Zimbabwe is wrong on several counts: the character of Zimbabwe’s land reform has been redistributive, and the extent of this has been wide enough to trigger significant progressive changes in the agrarian structure.” He adds that “the productivity of small producers has grown slowly with output escalating recently. Three decades of land reform has recast land-based social relations in important ways, with the poor gaining more than previously believed.” [see Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 38, no. 3, July 2011]. Let us have your empirical evidence, Ken, which I suspect is somewhere but I haven’t sufficiently engaged. Only this way can we have “solid argument utilising credible points.”

Godwin

 

 

On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 12:32 AM, kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:

what is the issue here? not the injustices of whites in their colonization of southern rhodesia, and their reprehensible land grabs, but the excuses mugabe has given for his own land grabs and redistribution to his political and military cronies.
this is not real land redistribution, but an abusive leader replicating injustices, and whose rhetoric, all so transparently self-serving, is replicated here on the list as if it were gold coin.
the same with chinweizu's anti-arab rants, which have the same depth of analysis as msjoe's support of ghaddafi.

i don't feel that we get anything from racist blasts, be they anti-white or anti-arab or anti-black or anti-semitic. instead of communicating historical information that we need to know, they communicate ideological venting that no one needs to hear.
there are two strengths to this list that stand out: solid arguments utilizing credible points made by people even when opposing each other; and great ironical retorts that quicken the brain.
ken

On 7/27/11 10:09 PM, Abidogun, Jamaine wrote:

While I am sympathetic to the many injustices that are the result of colonial regimes and neo-colonial regimes, forced land redistribution without a plan for peaceful transition or economic maintenance is dangerous.  I don’t think that the issue is land reform; most would agree that Africans of European descent (just like Americans of European descent) obtained their land historically through invasions.  Mugabe has a reputation for redistributing land to his political allies regardless of their ethno-national claim to the land and regardless of whether they can or want to maintain the farm production.  This has resulted in a significant decrease in food production over the past years, as well as created more political conflict among Black Zimbabweans as Mugabe uses land to gain political ground.

 

It is not this individual that is the issue nor should he be the main issue. It is how to compensate for past losses without further destroying the country that is at issue.

 

While South Africa is far from a perfect example of land reform (as they have probably given too many concessions to Euro-Africans), they do have some lessons to offer Zimbabwe.

 

Sincerely,

Jamaine Abidogun

 

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Michelle King
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2011 11:45 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Mugabe and the White African

 

I really have no sympathy for any so called native born whites in Africa.  The only reason they are native born there is because they are illegal immigrants and remnants of european imperialism, a crime against africa, that still has not been accounted for.  Its interesting when whiites want to dictate to Black Africa what their rights are, but the hundreds of years of injustice that they pervasively stole African land that did not belong to them is never an injustice that needs to be addressed.

 

While the tactics of the Mugabe regime have not all been correct, he at least started what most African countries should have done, and that is remove the white parasites who have now disguised themselves as 'white africans' they are europeans period, and if they are so concerned with justice, they should be demanding that Britian, France and the other colonial interlopers pay reparations for the years of destruction they impededed upon African soil, which continues to be the core problem in Africa today.  Africa is still reeling from this injustice and not one imperial power has had to pay for their genocidal wars upon Africa, Zimbabwe, South Africa etc. 

 

So while this one european has been given a lens to tell his story of injustice, its too bad the story of injustice against the Africans that the British put upon Zimbabwe has yet to be fully told. 

 

M.King

On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 2:03 PM, Tracy Flemming <cafenegritude@gmail.com> wrote:

Mugabe and the White African, much of which was filmed clandestinely,
tells an alarming story from one of the world's most troubled nations.
In Zimbabwe, de facto dictator Robert Mugabe has unleashed a "land
reform" program aimed at driving whites from the country through
violence and intimidation. One proud "white African," however, has
challenged Mugabe with human rights abuses under international law.
The courage Michael Campbell and his family display as they defend
their farm — in court and on the ground — makes for a film as
inspiring as it is harrowing.

http://www.pbs.org/pov/mugabe/full.php

Film Description

The Campbell family of Zimbabwe — Mike Campbell, his wife, Angela,
their daughter, Laura, and their son-in-law, Ben Freeth — may have
been white people determined to hold on to their farm, but they were
not in the mold of colonialists hanging on to land extorted from
blacks. They were among the native-born whites who did not flee in
1980 when Zimbabwe, the former Rhodesia, achieved full independence
and black majority rule. Embracing the new country, Mike and Angela
expanded their small farm that same year, buying additional land to
create a game preserve, with the full approval of the newly elected
government led by independence fighter Robert Mugabe and his Zimbabwe
African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party.

Twenty years later, the Campbells found themselves in the crosshairs
of a brutal land redistribution program enacted by the same Robert
Mugabe. Lucy Bailey and Andrew Thompson’s Mugabe and the White African
is an inspiring and chilling account of the Campbells’ efforts to
fight the government.


Mike Campbell (l.) , Ben Freeth (r.) and workers on their farm in
Chegutu, Zimbabwe. Credit: Arturi Films Ltd.

Filmed over 12 months in 2008 in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia and
Great Britain by Bailey and Thompson, with Thompson and sound
recordist James Snowden working clandestinely in Zimbabwe under risk
of arrest, Mugabe and the White African discovers a family of
remarkable courage, one that stands up to violent intimidation and
dares to take a despot to an international court. The secretly shot
footage in the film also shows the violent methods that despot used.
On April 6, 2011, Mike Campbell, age 79, paid the full price of his
courage: He died in Harare, Zimbabwe from the brutal beating he
received on June 2, 2008, as recounted in this film.

It is widely recognized that land redistribution is a ticking time
bomb in Zimbabwe and neighboring South Africa, where native-born
whites continued to own most of the land even after the arrival of
black-majority rule. To avoid violence and keep their skilled white
populations, many of whom, like the Campbells, identified as white
Africans, governments in both nations adopted cautious approaches to
land redistribution. In South Africa, such caution has so far
succeeded in averting violent civil conflict. But in Zimbabwe, by
2000, something had gone seriously amiss.

That was the year armed gangs of supposedly landless former
independence fighters, urged on by Mugabe, who had “cancelled” all
title deeds and declared all land to belong to the government, began
invading white-owned farms. The gangs squatted on the land, threatened
and beat owners and workers and, if all else failed, burned the farms
to the ground, killing those who got in their way. The land invasions
were soon exposed and widely condemned as a cynical land grab meant to
entrench Mugabe’s power while lining the pockets of the ruling circle.
Adding insult to injury, the removal of so much land from productive
use sent food prices and hunger soaring — especially among poor black
Zimbabweans.


Deputy Attorney General Advocate Prince Machaya, Lead Council in
President Mugabe’s legal team, at SADC Court. Credit: Arturi Films
Ltd.

When Mugabe and the White African opens in December 2007, Mike
Campbell and his family are among a handful of holdouts against
Mugabe’s tactics. The film affords a harrowing taste of the constant
vigilance and physical courage required of Mike and son-in-law Ben to
defend their land. They must be ready to confront dangerous thugs — or
well-connected Zimbabweans — at all hours. They typically arm
themselves, but it soon becomes clear that cool heads, brave fronts
and fast talk are their best weapons. They must also attend to the
fears of the farm’s workers and their families (some 500 people), who
face equally violent intimidation. In one revealing and terrifying
scene, the son of a government minister shows up in an expensive car
and berates Ben for not abandoning the land, saying that he wants the
farm, that there is no place for whites in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe and that
worse retribution awaits the family members if they don’t give up.

The Campbells realize they won’t be able to hold on to their farm in a
country where the police offer no recourse and court orders halting
the invasions are simply ignored. As 2008 opens, they have two hopes.
In presidential elections that year, Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC-T) presents credible democratic opposition to
Mugabe. And, in an unprecedented and highly public challenge, Mike has
charged Mugabe with racism and human rights violations in an
international court, the Tribunal of the South African Development
Community (SADC), sitting in Windhoek, Namibia. The tribunal, created
by the 14 nations forming the SADC, is charged with protecting the
individual rights of citizens of the member nations.


Mike Campbell (l.) and Ben Freeth (r.) at the SADC court, Namibia.
Credit: Arturi Films Ltd.

On June 29, 2008, just two days after a stolen presidential run-off
election, Mike, along with Angela and Ben, suffer horrendous beatings
at the hands of ZANU-PF thugs. With hope for democratic change all but
gone, Mike and family pin their hopes on the SADC court, which is due
to hear their case in November. Their lawyers are precise and
articulate in pressing their claims. The judges are solicitous and
scandalized. Mugabe’s large team of lawyers offers little defense. The
sight of Ben, still hobbled by the beating, being wheeled into court
in a wheelchair is heart-rending but also heartening. Yet it is also
an ominous sight. And when the court rules decisively in the family’s
favor, the critical question remains: Does the court have the means
and the will to protect the Campbells in Zimbabwe?

Mugabe and the White African is a rare inside report on a growing
economic and human rights disaster in a country that should be one of
Africa’s richest. It is also a portrait of almost unbelievable
fidelity and bravery on the part of a family that, in other
circumstances, might seem quite ordinary.

“There’s been a lot of reporting on the deteriorating situation in
Zimbabwe, but we felt the white farmers’ story had been mostly
overlooked and needed telling,” says co-director Lucy Bailey. “For one
thing, the SADC court case represented a watershed moment in southern
Africa, where those nations were challenged to stand up for basic
human rights.”

“The film is a window on what is happening in Zimbabwe now,” says co-
director Andrew Thompson. “It is also fundamentally a story of the
bravery and faith of ordinary people confronting corrupt power, and
that’s a story that seems to be breaking out a

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kenneth w. harrow 

professor of english

michigan state university

department of english

east lansing, mi 48824-1036

ph. 517 803 8839

harrow@msu.edu

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If you are going to have parallel students, why not also have parallel
lecturers.
Taban Lo Liyong at meeting 19th Sept. 2008

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professor of english

michigan state university

department of english

east lansing, mi 48824-1036

ph. 517 803 8839

harrow@msu.edu

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