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Class,
Not Race, War Grips Zimbabwe
Tafi Murinzi
April 24, 2005
http://www.ipsnews.org/africa/interna.asp?idnews=28431
BULAWAYO - Blamed,
along with the opposition party, for a lot that has gone wrong in
Zimbabwe, many among the white minority have packed their bags and
left.
Those remaining are learning
to live like expatriates. Their heads almost permanently down, they
are careful to stay out of trouble: but not writer John Eppel.
He was cautious in the
early years of independence not to go beyond a mockery of fellow
whites. Now, however, even the current rulers are fair game.
"Seeing the bad behaviour
of black Zimbabweans in power, my conclusion is that the conflict
arising is primarily class; race is only secondary," he says.
At 58, Eppel has been
around a long time, as he is quick to point out. But he says his
recognition is fairly recent; ironically, and in large part, the
result of a weariness with Zimbabwe's dominant nationalist theme.
As part of post-colonial
studies, 'marginal writers', who include whites, women and radicals,
are beginning to receive much attention.
Eppel feels nationalist
authors, who had hogged the limelight since independence from Britain
in 1980, are running out of ideas like many of neighbouring South
Africa's apartheid-era writers.
And if that is true of
Zimbabwe's major voices, that would be understandable. If anything,
the last three general elections, including last month's, may point
to a revolution gone wrong.
Intimidation, violence
as well as allegations of electoral fraud by the incumbent government,
a former liberation movement, has made a mockery of the struggle.
Its main goal was extending the vote, and opportunity, to the black
majority.
Yet half the population
is in need of food aid following a five-year-old racially-charged
land-reform programme. "All of us as whites have suffered the backlash
of that hatred," Eppel says.
The economy continues
to crumble. Over 70 percent are out of employment, while a quarter
of Zimbabwe's 13 million people have emigrated.
Looking back, Eppel says
his happiest time was the bygone days soon after independence. As
a teacher in a private school, he observed the racially-divided
student body merging, slowly.
But this only lasted
until 2000 when the turmoil surrounding the farms began "and the
whites became enemies again" while each racial group started "withdrawing
into their tribe."
Racial tension, which
Eppel describes as colonialism that has yet to purge out of Zimbabwe,
has also proved a defining thing in his battle to get published.
Local publishers, he
says, found him "politically-incorrect" because he is white. But
another reason, he admits, was his style. "Satire isn't popular
and poetry even less popular and those are my two genres," he says.
It took the writer 14
years to get his first novel out in pre-independent South Africa.
The book, "The Great North Road", went on to win South Africa's
Mnet Prize in 1992. His first book of poetry, "Spoils of War", published
after 12 years of trying, had received South Africa's Ingrid Jonker
award a year earlier.
To date Eppel has published
10 books. One of them, "The Giraffe Man", was recently translated
into French. Yet despite such hard-won successes, he enjoys no warm
relationship with fellow writers in Zimbabwe. "There's never been
any sense of come in with us, you're our contemporary," he says.
He feels marginalised,
and is hurt by being made to feel less of a Zimbabwean. But Eppel's
writing reflects none of this frustration.
Vibrant and hilarious,
his fiction tackles the present socio-economic situation in the
southern African state, albeit with tongue-in-cheek liveliness.
Most surprising, however, is his harshness towards white characters.
"I have this double vision
somehow," he says. "There's a part of me that needs to deal with
that I was part of a white oppressing race. The other part is I
love this country, I feel rooted in this country and that part I
express in my poetry more."
He describes his first
book, which is also semi-biographical, as his most vicious attack
on the white community where he grew up in Colleen Bawn, a cement
plant in southern Zimbabwe.
In another, "The Holy
Innocents", Eppel creates an assemblage of beer drinking, loud-mouthed
white characters. Most of them dress badly, drive company cars although
they do not actually do much work.
They are the quintessential
'Rhodies' - white Zimbabweans who carry the colonial Rhodesian attitude.
Ironically, Eppel says it is mainly the liberal-minded whites, like
the Jews, who have been the first to emigrate, leaving the "dyed
in the wool racists who couldn't go anywhere else because they didn't
have the qualifications."
But he says his focus
has now changed. It is the "emerging bad behaviour of black Zimbabweans
who're in power" that he is mainly concerned with.
Now "I attack anybody
who's behaving badly - I don't consider race anymore. I consider
being Zimbabwean, being human. And if you're cruel, greedy, hypocritical,
self-righteous, I'll nail you if I can. It's the revenge of the
weak, the guy who uses his pen rather than his fist."
Presently head of the
English department at a boys-only private school, Eppel says the
satire does worry the white community, who respond with a characteristic
silence. Even then, many still buy his books, especially his poetry
which those who are emigrating find nostalgic.
Born in Lybdenburg, South
Africa, Eppel moved to Zimbabwe at the age of four. The cement plant
and its social club, near West Nicholson in southern Zimbabwe, is
the setting for his short story "The Caruso of Colleen Bawn".
Also in his 2004 short
story collection, going by the same name, is an assortment of fables
of various themes.
In a piece titled "The
Very High Ranking Soldier's Wife"', Eppel is at his most cynical,
describing the story's main character as being fussy about hats.
Her role model in this regard is the First Lady, who is described
as wearing hats than be converted into yachts should that need arise.
(Zimbabwe's First Lady is a reputed flamboyant dresser).
But Eppel says he is
often misunderstood. Many black critics, he argues, have dismissed
him as a racist as in his novels he often uses rude words in the
local language. He also admits readers often find his language obscene
and issues too shocking, to the extent that he might have limited
his readership.
"The problem with
satire is that you get conflated with your characters," he
says. "Because you have characters who use words like kaffir
(a derogatory term for blacks) or nanny, they think you are like
that. But what you're trying to do is purge yourself through this
art-form of that kind of thing."'
Eppel will be launching
another collection at the forthcoming Harare International Festival
of the Arts (HIFA). Titled "Songs My Country Taught Me", this is
a collection of 80 poems dating back 40 years from the time he was
18.
The title, he fears might
"rub up" some people the wrong way. "They will say, 'how dare a
white say that it's his country'. That's very hurtful because this
is the only country I've got."
Whites used to make up
one percent of Zimbabwe's population at independence. Now their
number has dwindled to about 30,000 or less, thanks to migration
mainly to Britain and Australia.
Apart from South Africa,
the dwindling members of the white communities in the 13-nation
Southern African Community Development (SADC) keep away from politics
for fear of infuriating black rulers. South Africa's whites make
up about 10 percent of the country's population. They are mainly
descendants of Dutch, French and English settlers who arrived in
the late 17th century.
In Namibia, a handful
of fearless whites like Gwen Lister, editor of the 'Namibian' newspaper,
continue to highlight the plight of the poor and minority. Whites
account for about six percent of the country's population.
A sizeable population
of whites also resides in Mozambique, Angola, Zambia, Swaziland
and Lesotho.
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