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Land as a racial issue and the lost opportunities to resolve the
matter
Mandivamba
Rukuni, Sokwanele
April 12, 2012
http://www.sokwanele.com/thisiszimbabwe/archives/7469
"..1953-58
was a period of hope for those whites who recognised that, in the
long term, safety and progress for all depended upon a sharing of
political power - theirs for the time being - with an
ever-increasing number of blacks..". Garfield Todd in foreword
to book by Hardwick Holderness (1985). "Lost Chance- Southern
Rhodesia 1945-58" ZPH.
Introduction
In this article
I take a 60 year historical perspective (2012-1952) of hindsight
to discuss the lost opportunities to de-racialise and resolve the
land issue. This article is the second of 12 instalments, concluding
the introductory and historical context to the series.
The
historical thesis
In this article
I offer additional insight beyond the popular theses as to how Zimbabwe
eventually ended up with the fast-track land reform programme. By
adding the contentious component of 'race' to my thesis, I hope
to persuade the reader on the need for Zimbabwean society to address
this issue head-on and openly, if we are to improve prospects for
stability and prosperity moving forward. On the land issue, race
is by no means the whole story, yet race accounts for the greater
part of decades of tensions as well as 'cat' and-mouse' games within
the greater scheme of local and global politics. This essentially
is the premise of my historical treatise of Zimbabwe's land issue
as elaborated in this article. Trying to base solutions to Zimbabwe's
land issue sorely on the recent fast-track land reform alone is
not sufficient.
I have divided
the article into 3 discussion periods:
- The first
lost opportunity (1950.1980)
- The second
lost opportunity (1980.2010)
- The last
(but not yet lost) opportunity (2010. 2040)
The
First Lost Opportunity (1950-1980)
When liberal
'white' politics of the 1950s gave way to 'conservative'
white politics of the 1960s, this led to the political constant
throughout the interim period, symbolized by 'black nationalists'
on one hand and 'white farmers' on the other -
as the political elites so to speak - and the two became mortal
political enemies. This rivalry has been playing itself out since
then and continues to do so today. Essentially, each has been poised
to take the other out at any opportunity, be it the armed struggle
for independence, or the evolving partypolitical dynamics of recent
times.
Much has been
written about this period, and my own favourite is the book by Holderness
cited above. The period 1953 to 1958 experienced the most 'liberal'
white government during Garfield Todd's reign as Prime Minister
of Southern Rhodesia. Holderness argues that Zimbabwe then had a
firm ground for establishing a stable 'multi-racial'
society. The challenge of transformation was in managing the pace
of change. Todd was perceived as too fast in embracing blacks and
in unravelling the racial laws and infrastructure, and the white
electorate unseated him in 1958 ushering in Edgar Whitehead. Of
the 'apartheid' infrastructure that Todd and his supporters
had started dismantling included: the Land Apportionment Act (LAA)
of 1930 which segregated the races. He also targeted the racial
labour, industrial, educational and electoral laws. The white electorate,
by electing Whitehead, it seems, wished to slow down the pace. But
there was a further white backlash as the Rhodesia Front (RF) party
was established and won elections in 1962 on the promise to halt
all these reforms. And the RF, in the minds of black nationalists,
was essentially the conservative white farmers and, regrettably,
the Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU) and its previous formulations
were perceived as a proxy of the RF.
I am old enough
to remember how my parents engaged these issues of the 1950s. I
am also young enough to perceive the continuity of national events
up to today into one trajectory. It has been one long attempt to
transform from long periods of an apartheid society (1890]-1950)
to what initially in the 1950's was referred to as 'multi-racial'
society. Today we refer to an inclusive and caring democratic society
which protects rights of minority groups.
The main tool
used by Todd was the parliamentary Select Committees. In the mid-1950s,
a Select Committee on Land was established in order to dismantle
the racial land laws. The committee recommended that all unallocated
European land be designated Special Areas and to be settled by people
of any race. For the period leading up to the ushering in of the
RF to power, blacks where settled in the Special Areas. The RF abolished
the programme, restored the LAA, and removed all blacks settled
in the Special Areas without compensation. The RF froze all other
similar reforms. This is the point at which the Black Nationalist
movement started gravitating towards radical action. After UDI in
1965 both ZANU and ZAPU started crafting the armed liberation struggle,
taking a very pointed turn from the nationalist philosophy of ''gone-man-one
vote'' to a struggle to ''liberate the land''.
While I don't
imply that the transformation was going to be easier if the white
liberals had succeeded in the 1950s, what I can point to is the
great affinity and common ground of shared values between the black
elites and the white liberals then. In other words a black/white
united middle class was a real possibility. Whether or not that
would have evolved to transcend major class conflicts I cannot say.
One has to appreciate, however, that the black elites that were
held in high regard by white liberals in the 1950s included Hebert
Chitepo, Leopold Takawira, and many others who went on to lead the
military armed struggle. This underscores the radical transformation
of these nationalists in the wake of the RF agenda.
The
Lost opportunity in 1980-2010
With benefit
of hindsight, one could argue that at independence in 1980, what
was coined as 'reconciliation' was really more of a
'truce' between the two mortal enemies. The only change
in that scene was the swap in power positions - with the black
political elite assuming State power from the out-going political
elite of white farmers. This truce or 'accommodating each
other' ran out of steam as the two camps drifted further apart
in the wake of more recent multi-party politics. The negotiated
Lancaster House agreement was essentially to 'put the guns
down' and reconstruct society through dialogue and constructive
engagement. With hindsight, I think Mugabe and his team expected
white farmers to stay out of politics and confine themselves to
farming and making money! The white farmers, on the other hand,
expected the political freedom to resume opposition politics; moreover
the two camps never shared a common vision of the future. The only
brief period when black and white political elites shared such a
vision was in the mid-1950s as I discussed earlier.
To explain the
fast track land reform programme in terms of Mugabe looting land
for his 'cronies' is therefore a paradigm that misses
a bigger point. I would say that once the political 'truce'
was thrown out on Mugabe's part, he immediately set to take
out the white farmers before they took him out. In terms of cold-blooded
political strategy, the fast track would quickly dilute the white
farmers' economic, social and political power base. Paying
out 'cronies' with land, in my opinion, was a collateral
and secondary issue, and does not adequately explain the evolution
of the land issue. Neither is that thesis fully collaborated by
relative amounts of land allocated to 'cronies' vis-à-vis'
ordinary and poor Zimbabweans. The white farmers, on their part
and in response, built their strategy around opposition politics
as well as support from a powerful and sympathetic international
community. With the ascendance of the MDC into the GNU
in 2009 on the back of the GPA,
this brought in new black political elite, seated variously in between
the old rivalries and adding to the definition of the current situation
and prospects moving forward.
So the period
1980 to 2010 was another missed opportunity to resolve the race
issue around land. By 1985, at least one important puzzle was answered
- being evidence that smallholder farming can contribute significantly
to overall economic development as small farmers outstripped large
farmers in maize and cotton production and marketing. This meant
therefore that both smallholder black farmers and large scale white
farmers had a major complementary role to play in national economic
development as long as the economic policies were conducive and
as long as appropriate public sector investments into agriculture
were maintained. The second missed opportunity was in the slowing
down of the land reform programme after 1985. I did argue, as Chair
of the Land Tenure Commission (1993/4), that it was more beneficial
to have a slow but continuous land reform programme than a 'start-and-stop'
approach. Thirdly and as part of that Commission we invested time
with all key governmental departments and the CFU levels at provincial
and national levels. To my disappointment, neither the Government
nor the CFU could articulate a long term vision and strategy for
transforming an agrarian base of society and economy into a post
agrarian industrial society.
Specifically
the Commission engaged the CFU Council in 1994 requesting options
for a land reform programme in the event that Government went ahead
with its plan to acquire an additional 5 million hectares from them.
The response was that the CFU farmers retain access to remaining
productive land 'so as to feed the nation' and preferably
in contiguous lots to maintain social networks. I then made an observation
and proposition. The observation was based on a study by a retired
visiting German professor in my Department of Land Management at
the University of Zimbabwe in the mid-1980s. The study noted poor
racial integration and concluded that the social cohesion of 5,000
white farmers doted all over the country was not sustainable and
their social networks based on country clubs would crash if numbers
continued to dwindle. My question to the CFU then was the possibility
of a self-accelerated land redistribution - creating small
and medium sized farms most of which would be settled by commercial
black farmers. And if we ended up with say 30,000 of these, surely
the number of white farmers could actually be maintained at about
4-5,000 or even possibly increase to say 6-7000. Moreover, we would
craft a broader and more viable integrated rural middle class, as
opposed to a few thousand white 'landed-gentry' with
no real integration. The CFU response was that this was idealistic
and not practical. I cannot assume that my idea was viable, but
I still struggle to foresee the future ideal Zimbabwean society
without a more serious level of racial integration.
The mortal enemies
therefore kept the window open for further clashes in the period
under discussion and history led us into the fast track land reform
programme. I believe that the 2 missed opportunities are a form
of history repeating itself. Life happens. History unfolds. It will
be more rewarding moving forward, however, to create a new progressive
history out of the old.
The
Last (but not yet lost) Opportunity (2010-2040)
I will touch
briefly on the next 30 years since I will cover this in a later
article. The period 2010 to 2020 therefore, and based on my thesis,
represents the last opportunity to resolve this rivalry once and
for all, and for the nation to evolve from the 60 year period of
land politics, to post-agrarian political dimensions. Essential
dialogue between Zimbabwe's black political elite and white
farmers has to start in earnest. That is the dialogue that represents
real national leadership. The international community is an essential
component of the discourse, of course, but they need to be guided
by the national engagement. I dare say that the nature and quality
of discourse between the Africa Union and the International Community
on Zimbabwe's land issue can also be characterized by the
same 'cat and mouse' indirect engagement as each side
avoids the real contentious issue of race and colonial legacy. I
will delve into the current activities and possibilities for the
future in subsequent articles.
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