This book will break your heart with its sparely narrated stories of individuals of all colors and classes in Zimbabwe. Events of great irony, courage, tragedy and humor are related with understatement that increases our sympathy and our outrage at the injustices being done to both black and white since 1980 under Mugabe's rule.
I picked up this book because a branch of my family settled in Southern Rhodesia sometime during the fifties; my cousin and her husband died there, as did my aunt who emigrated there from Virginia after her husband's death in the eighties. Communications from them were brief and free of political comment. I once asked why they did not write more and was told, "The mail is censored and it would be dangerous." I knew that they were moderates politically and were not in favor of the conservative Ian Smith government which determinedly maintained white minority rule from 1965 to 1980. I had no idea why this would be so dangerous, but now I know.
The book covers the years between July 1996, when Peter goes back to Zimbabwe because of his father's failing health, and February 2004, when his father dies. Only during this illness does Peter learn that his father was born Kazio Goldfarb, a Polish Jew who met and married his mother in England after serving in World War II, and who emigrated to Rhodesia in 1949 as George Godwin, "a new man...fleeing racial persecution and war, mayhem and genocide." We come to love Peter's parents George and Helen. They are honest, fair, thoughtful and loving people who show unbelievable courage and inventiveness in dealing with declining health in a society that is sinking into chaos. Whenever things look dreadful, Helen makes fun of the danger by flapping her hands beside her ears in an imitation of a "box elephant" - when an elephant charges with ears flapping (like the flaps of a cardboard box), he's just trying to scare you. You don't have to worry unless the elephant's ears are flat against his head! Black humor (no pun intended) threads delightfully through this book which is so full of sadness - much of the humor from verbal snapshots of Peter's parents.
Peter Godwin interweaves family history with much fascinating information about African/Rhodesian/Zimbabwean history. While reading it, I kept putting little markers in for things I wanted to remember, but by the end I had a forest of markers and wanted an index! That drove me to the Lonely Planet guide to Africa to get a thumbnail sketch of Zimbabwe's history and then to Wikipedia to look up Zimbabwe, Ian Smith, and Sir Garfield Todd. But you do not need this background to realize what is going on in Zimbabwe in the 21st century. Godwin witnesses many of the "land seizures" that began in 2000, in which productive commercial farmers who employed thousands of farm workers were attacked by gangs of war veterans (whose compensation fund had been raided by government fat cats). The senseless destruction of irrigation systems, animals, equipment, and people, with the help of the government, has brought Zimbabwe from a productive country to a wasteland of agricultural incompetence and poverty. Anyone who supports the opposition to Mugabe is labeled a racist and in need of conversion to the proper point of view, by murder, beating, or starvation if necessary. Shortages of food and fuel are common, except at the few outlets for those who work for Mugabe's government - who fuel their SUVs to drive out to their "farms' where they sit on their verandas drinking cocktails and surveying the cropless land.
Yes, the seeds of the "politics of envy" which fueled these attacks were sown years earlier under Cecil Rhodes and fertilized under Ian Smith. But Mugabe could still rise above his own greed and lust for power to put the interests of all his people first - Ndebele as well as Shona, white as well as black - as his regime first promised to do. He could recall the advice of an earlier prime minister, Sir Garfield Todd (expelled from office as a dangerous liberal when he supported interracial marriage and majority rule). Godwin believes that if Todd had remained in office, the years of war could perhaps have been avoided and blacks and whites could have cooperated. Perhaps this is overly idealistic, given the conservatism of many of that generation. However, Todd gave Mugabe his first chance as a teacher, supported the guerrillas during the liberation war, freely donated his land to the war vets, only to be rewarded with house arrest and stripped of his citizenship when he dared to criticize Mugabe. When he died in 2002, he was still hopeful for Zimbabwe's future. Long before, in 1958, he said, "We must make it possible for every individual to lead the good life, to win a place in the sun. We are in danger of becoming a race of fear-ridden neurotics - we who live in the finest country on earth."
Peter Godwin quotes the opinions of several living Zimbabweans:
"We don't want these extra people." - Didymus Mutasa, a senior Zimbabwean government minister.
"We've gone from bread bin to dustbin. Mugabe's persecuting his own people. But our time will come. Every dog has his day." - Tapera, municipality foreman, Pioneer Cemetery, Harare.
Zimbabwe may be the last century's "cause" when it comes to needy countries - but, like Haiti, it does not deserve to be forgotten. Please read this book!
