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NEWS/ The Charlotte Post
November 27,1996
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Zimbabwe: Paradise lost?
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By Terry Leonard
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
HARARE, Zimbabwe - On
manicured private school
grounds, white hoys dressed
in white play cricket, a gentle
man’s game meant to instill a
sense,of fair play.
The sport and its traditions
are a link to the Old World
and the old ways. It is a hand-
me-down firom colonialism and
white rule, a genteel reminder
of the days when whites built
themselves a paradise in
Africa.
With gun and law, whites
disenfranchised blacks, took
the continent’s riches and
prospered on the toil of poorly
paid hlack workers and min
ers.
Now, a generation after
Africa’s great rush to indepen
dence, paradise is far less cer
tain.
Many whites contributed
greatly to Africa’s develop
ment, spreading literacy, med
ical knowledge and technical
skills. But those who stayed
on wonder if they have a
future in Afiica, or more pre
cisely, if their children do.
“I think as far as my genera
tion is concerned, we are here
to the bitter end,” said David
Irvine, who inherited a 15-
acre chicken farm and built it
into a 10,000-acre agricultural
empire outside Harare,
Zimbabwe’s capital.
“We have a high standard of
living, a good life,” Irvine
added. “Certainly I see a
future for us here. Whether
my son will be here in 30 or 40
years, I don’t know.”
Formerly white-ruled
Rhodesia, Zimbabwe gained
independence in 1980 after a
seven-year bush war that
ended with about 170,000
whites fleeing. That leaves
about 100,000 whites in a
country of 10.5 milhon people,
still.endugh to wieM influence.
A’iceyiissue now is that
while whites no longer rule
any country in sub-Saharan
Africa, they keep a firm grip
on much of Africa’s wealth,
ensconced inside their gleam
ing office towers and behind
the high walls of comfortable
homes.
Today many black Africans
find liberation a hollow
promise without economic
power.
Questions about who has
money, who doesn’t and who
is to blame are stoking age-old
fires of racial tension, resent
ment arid hate.
“It seems the white man is
saying that the blacks should
always feed from the white
man's plate," said Phillip
Chiyangwa, head of Africa
Action Group, a militant black
empowerment organization
that sometimes resorts to
threats of violence against
whites in Zimbabwe.
Afiica, he argues, is a black
continent, a place where
blacks deserve not just a piece
of the pie, but the lion’s share.
“Whites are as welcome as
any other people as long as
they realize they are in some
body else’s country,”
Chiyangwa said.
Whites whose families have
lived in Africa for generations,
some since the 1650s, bristle
at that kind of talk.
“We are a little anxious
when the government refers to
indigenous as meaning only
black people,” said Nick
Swanepoel, the white presi
dent of the Commercial
Farmers Union in Zimbabwe.
“After independence, massive
amounts of whites left the
country. Those who stayed
generally had the country at
heart.”
Whites came to Afiica from
all over the globe, but during
the heyday of settlement and
colonialism they arrived
chiefly from England, France,
Belgium, Portugal, Germany
and the Netherlands.
The colonial powers divvied
up Africa and imposed their
own languages, customs and
architecture. Ties to the old'
world are still strong.
The most common criticism
of white Africtms is they live
like expatriates in their own
countries.
“That feeling of being part of
a nation just isn’t there,” said
Danny Meyer, the white presi
dent of the Zimbabwe
National Chamber of
Commerce.
Most African whites live in
exclusive white suburbs, join
posh private clubs and go to
private schools and hospitals.
They depend on black workers
to help them make mon^ and
' clean their homes, while the
black population needs the
jobs offered by white business
men.
Most blacks regard white
Africans as a “necessary nui
sance,” said John Makumbe, a
black political scientist at
Zimbabwe University.
“They have focused on mak
ing money rather than on gov
ernance or social integration.
But that focus has created
employment, and nothing is
as good at distributing eco
nomic development as employ
ment,” he said. “In Zimbabwe,
whites are part of the solu
tion, not part of the problem.”
South of the Sahara, whites
are only a minuscule and
shrinking part of the popula
tion. In most countries, they
are much less than 1 percent.
Despite their tiny and
diminishing numbers, whites
are the frequent targets of
black political leaders eager to
play the race card to disguise
their own problems and fail
ures. Since whites once ruled
Africa ■with an iron fist, there
is an audience ready to blame
them for every failure.
“A black man sees the white
man did better and is doing
better. He says it is because I
am black and because he is
white,” Makumbe said. “We
have had the whites to blame
for every ill. Now, there are so
few whites left we can't blame
them for everything that goes
wrong.”
In Kenya, for exEunple, there
were 60,000 whites in the
country at independence in
1962. Today there are only
about 40,000 out of a popula
tion of 26 million, and about
90 percent are expatriates
rather than Kenyan citizens.
White Kenyans are “an
endangered species,” said
John Githongo, the associate
editor of the business monthly
Executive in Kenya's capital,
Nairobi. They are lea-ving not
because blacks arc chasing
them out but because they see
their futures elsewhere, he
said.
In Zimbabwe, for the first
time, there is a feeling among
many of the whites who
stayed after black rule that
there is no future.
“Verbal attacks on whites by
the government of Robert
Mugabe have become really
pronounced over the last three
years and have served to
polarize the communities,”
Meyer said.
Many Zimbabwe whites who
sent their children abroad for
education or work experience
are encouraging them not to
return, he said. Some are so
determined they sold family
businesses to give their chil
dren less incentive to come
home.
Only in South Africa do
whites live in significant num
bers. There are more than 5
million, or about 14 percent of
the population of more than
40 million, and they hold most
of the economic power.
“Whites have concluded they
don't have a future in Africa,
but in South Afiica it is differ
ent,” Makumbe said. “There
Eire not such numbers leaving.
Their role in political life gives
them a future. There has to be
a future for them in South
Afiica.”
Countries such as the Ivory
Coast and Nigeria in West
Africa, Kenya in East Africa
and Zimbabwe in the south
have erected some barriers to
Education fails boys
By Grerta Guest
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DETROIT - Black boys are
being destroyed in public
schools and think that scholas
tic achievement is for whites,
says a Chicago-based consul
tant.
Jawanza Kuiqufii, speaking
Saturday at the National
Alliance of Black School
Educators’ conference in
Detroit, encouraged black edu
cators to develop teaching styles
that can lure black boys back
into classrooms and school
books.
“There’s £m anti-intelligence
culture among our black chil
dren,” Kunjufu said. “They
think that acting smart is acting
white... Then how do our chil
dren act black?”
He said teachers are compet
ing with athletics, drugs and
rap music when they try to con
vince black boys that s^olastic
achievement is worthwhile.
“Our boys and girls are not
convinced there’s a rainbow at
the end (of school),” Kunjufu
said.
Nearly 6,000 educators from
across Ihe coimtiy were expect
ed to attend the 24th annual
three-day event. The conference
ends Sunday
Genita Pacely, principal of
Arroyo High School in San
Lorenzo, Calif, said black kids
who made the honor roll at her
school were ashamed at first.
But then the school began
offering something called the
Renaissance Roll that’s possible
for every child to make.
Depending upon their achieve
ments, they get gold, silver or
white cards that eJIow them to
receive free goods from local
businesses.
“These kids are into instant
gratification. You can’t lure
them in -with this, “You’ll get
something later,’ stuff,” Pacely
said.
Kuiqufu said black boys espe
cially need to be taught to read,
adding that 91 percent of black
males in prison cannot read
past the sixth-grade level. He
encouraged teachers to use
more interactive methods to
keep them interested.
Roudell Kirkwood, associate
principal at Hamilton High
School in Sussex, Wis., agreed
with Kunjufu that America’s
pubhc schools are failing black
males.
His answer is to get adult
black men involved in mentor
ing youth.
whites in the economy. There
is a push to force companies to
hire blacks at the expense of
whites.
Zimbabwe and South Afiica
also are studying plans to
redistribute lands held by
whites to black farmers.
But many blacks in West
Africa complain their leaders
favor whites in a lingering
vestige of colonialism.
Wealthy blacks educate their
children, take holidays and
get medical treatment in
Europe or the United States.
In some countries, preferen
tial hiring of blacks and
efforts to redistribute land
seek to rectify inequities
caused by white-rule. Whites
fear that black governments,
for political expediency, will
go too far and deny white chil
dren a future.
Nelson Mandela, South
Africa’s first black president,
counters that governments
must take some action to bal
ance the ledger.
“Apartheid and other colo
nial societies in Afiica vested
power, wealth, skills and com
fort within white minority
communities,” he said. “It is
natural that liberation should
entail a protracted process of
spreading these advantages -
of building a better life for
all.”
Perhaps it is a sign of the
times that years after
Rhodesian whites’ bloody
resistance to majority rule,
their last white leader, Ian
Smith, looks to South Africa
and sees in one black man the
last best hope for African
whites and racial harmony.
“Fortunately, they have a
Mandela,” Smith said. “My
God, I wish we had a
Mandela. He is Africa’s first
statesman.”
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“We have to give them the
same opportunities we give to
all other males. Let them play
the piano. They don’t only have
to be sports icons,” Kirkwood
said.
Other ways to make public
school programs more relevant
to black boys, Kunjufu suggest
ed are:
• Mandatory training semi
nars for teachers of black males.
• Role model program reach
ing out not only to white coUar
males, but those with blue collar
jobs as well.
• Moratorium on placing black
boys in special education classes
unless they have a physical dis
ability.
• Increasing the number of
black teachers.
• Establishing a Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. classroom
where boy^ can learn to resolve
conflicts -without -violence.
• Establishing a Malcolm X
classroom where boys who are
expelled or suspended will
spend time with strong, black
males for a “scared straight”
curriculum.
“I want you to deprogram your
kids by teaching them being
smart isn’t being white,”
Kuqjufu said.
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