A nation, in black and white

So is the atmosphere at the elegant president’s enclosure at the Harare Sports Club. Elderly remains of the rapidly depleting white farming community, in striped shirts, ties attached with club pins, watching the India-Zimbabwe test match, as if time had not moved for them. That the capital of Zimbabwe was Salisbury, changed to Harare after Mugabe’s party won independence in 1980, is a colonial detail which strikes one repeatedly.

And the contest with colonialism is nowhere near conclusion. The Sourav Ganguly-Greg Chappell disagreements are temporary. A much more lasting contest is between white and non-white cricketers that is tearing apart Zimbabwe cricket. A Swedish consultancy firm investigating sports in the country concluded that ‘‘racism’’ was at the bottom of declining cricket standards. Until independence, 95 per cent of the players were white. There were two Asian clubs and the remaining clubs were white. The first black player to play league cricket was Peter Chinkonga in 1976.

Cricket in Zimbabwe represents a microcosm of the white-supremacist agenda in all fields, including land ownership. This agenda is still in quest of a rear-guard action. Traces of this tussle are visible in what is billed as the Blair-Mugabe fight to the finish. Mugabe is highlighting this part of the struggle. And Blair, by not delivering on some provisions of the Lancaster House Agreement, is lending credence to this interpretation.

In a population of eleven million, there were 2,50,000 whites in the country owning 70 per cent of the arable land in the mid-’70s. By 1980 there were 1,50,000 whites. From 80,000 in 1995, the white population has dwindled to about 30,000 at present. Keeping pace with the white exodus has been the exodus of millions of highly educated black Zimbabweans, one million to Britain alone, both the cause and the result of the collapsed economy.

At the hotel by the mighty Zambezi River, my driver keeps me engaged on Zimbabwe’s predicament. He is a graduate in computers. He invites two of his ‘‘intellectual’’ friends, highly educated but unemployed (unemployment is 80 per cent), each more bitter with Mugabe than the other. As I leave, the driver follows me — could I spare a few dollars so his friends can eat?

On the flight back, Dr Geoffrey Chada, in charge of research and development in key areas, is angry. ‘‘The youth do not know we are building a political nation’’. He continues, ‘‘The settlers were part of the British political nation. During the war we killed Lord Salisbury’s grandson in the bush. We took over the lands because that is where the mineral wealth is hidden. Do you know the Anglo-American Corporation owns a farm the size of Belgium?’’

Shamuyarira knows the West has decided on ‘‘regime change’’ for Zimbabwe. Well, Mugabe is 83 years old. The regime will change. But not by opposition parties being supported by western TV networks, not by blocking the flow of oil, imposing sanctions and pushing Zimbabwe out of IMF. This way, Mugabe will not collapse. The country will, along with its splendid infrastructure.

Surely it was unfair that a minority of white farmers should own 70 per cent of the best land or 40 per cent of all the land in Zimbabwe? It was equally unfair to have thrown out the farmers without giving them a chance to redress the situation. Shamuyarira says the conservative regimes in London were much more interested in an amicable settlement of the land issue. Maybe the Tory aristocracy had some affinity with the farming gentry. But Labour’s Claire Short said, ‘‘Labour is not interested in colonies’’. Or is something else in operation here? Time was when American and British mercenaries were fighting communism along with the white rulers in Zimbabwe. Now that the Cold War is over, the impetus to engage Zimbabwe is gone. But, please do not destroy a once beautiful country in a fit of pique with Mugabe, and carelessness.