zimbabwe's white writing, 1980 to 2011

224 Pages·2014·2.37 MB·English

‘SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO?’
ZIMBABWE’S WHITE WRITING, 1980 TO
2011

by

CUTHBETH TAGWIREI
Dissertation presented for the degree of Doctor of English Studies in the
Faculty of English at
Stellenbosch University
Supervisor: Prof. Leon de Kock
December 2014
Stellenbosch University http://scholar.sun.ac.za
Declaration

By submitting this thesis electronically, I declare that the entirety of the work contained therein is
my own, original work, that I am the sole author thereof (save to the extent explicitly otherwise
stated), that reproduction and publication thereof by Stellenbosch University will not infringe any
third party rights and that I have not previously in its entirety or in part submitted it for obtaining
any qualification.

December 2014

Copyright © 2014 Stellenbosch University

All rights reserved
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Abstract

This thesis finds its epistemological basis in two related motives: the re-conceptualisation of white
writing in Zimbabwe as a sub-category of Zimbabwean literature, and the recognition of white
narratives as necessarily dialogic. The first motive follows the realization that writing by
Zimbabwean whites is systematically marginalized from “mainstream” Zimbabwean literature
owing to its perceived irrelevance to the postcolonial Zimbabwean nation. Through an application of
Even-Zohar’s polysystem theory, this thesis argues for a recognition of white writing as a literary
sub-system existing in relation to other literary and non-literary systems in Zimbabwe’s polysystem
of culture. As its second motive, the thesis also calls for a critical approach to white Zimbabwean
narratives built on the understanding that the study of literature can no longer be left to monologic
approaches alone. Rather, white narratives should be considered as multiple and hence amenable to
a multiplicity of approaches that recognize dialogue as an essential aspect of all narratives. The
thesis attempts, by closely reading nine white-authored narratives in Zimbabwe, to demonstrate that
white Zimbabwean literature is characterized by multiplicity, simultaneity and instability; these are
tropes developed from Bakhtin’s understanding of utterances as characterized by a minimum of two
voices. To consider white writing in Zimbabwe as a multiplicity is to call forth its numerous
dimensions and breadth of perceptions. Simultaneity posits the need to understand
opposites/conflicts as capable of existing side by side without necessarily dissolving into unity.
Instability captures the several movements and destabilizations that affect writers, characters and the
literary system. These three tropes enable a re-reading of white Zimbabwean narratives as complex
and multi-nuanced. Such characteristics of the literary system are seen to reflect on the experiences
of “whiteness” in postcolonial Zimbabwe. The white narratives selected for examination in this
thesis therefore exhibit crises of belonging that reflect the dialogic nature of existence. In sum, this
thesis is meant as a dialogue, culminating in the proposition that calls for a decentred and
redemptive literary experience.

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Opsomming
Hierdie tesis vestig sy epistemologiese basis in twee verwante motiewe: die herkonseptualisering
van skryfwerk deur wit skrywers in Zimbabwe as ’n sub-kategorie van Zimbabwiese letterkunde, en
die erkenning van wit narratiewe as onontkombaar dialogies in aard en wese. Die eerste motief volg
die argument dat die skryfwerke van wit Zimbabwieërs stelselmatig gemarginaliseer is uit
“hoofstroom” Zimbabwiese literatuur, as gevolg van dié skryfwerke se beweerde irrelevansie tot die
koloniale Zimbabwiese nasie-staat. Deur Even-Zohar se polisisteem teorie toe te pas, pleit hierdie
tesis vir die erkenning van letterkunde deur wit skrywers as ’n literêre sub-stelsel wat bestaan in
verhouding tot ander literêre en nie-literêre sisteme in Zimbabwe se polisisteem van kultuur. As sy
tweede motief, vra die tesis ook vir ’n kritiese benadering tot wit Zimbabwiese narratiewe, gebou op
die verstandhouding dat die studie van letterkunde nie meer suiwer aan monologies benaderings
oorgelewer behoort te word nie. Inteendeel, wit narratiewe moet as veelsydig beskou word, en dus
vatbaar vir ’n verskeidenheid benaderings wat dialoog as ’n noodsaaklike aspek van alle verhale
erken en verken. Deur nege wit outeurs se verhale in Zimbabwe noukeurig te lees, dui hierdie tesis
aan dat wit Zimbabwiese literatuur gekenmerk word deur veelvuldigheid, gelyktydigheid en
onstabiliteit; hieride is teoretiese konsepte wat ontleen is aan Bakhtin se begrip van uitsprake
(“utterances”) as bestaande uit ’n minimum van twee stemme. Om wit lettere in Zimbabwe as
veelvuldig te verklaar is om die talle dimensies en breedtes van persepsie in letterkundige korpus te
erken. Gelyktydig postuleer die tesis die moontlikheid dat teenoorgesteldes/konflikte langs mekaar
kan en móét bestaan, sonder om noodwendig in ’n eenheid te ontaard. Onstabiliteit, soos dit hier
verstaan word, omvat die verskillende bewegings en ontstuimige roeringe wat skrywers, karakters
en die literêre sisteem beïnvloed. Hierdie drie konsepte laat ’n herlees van wit Zimbabwiese verhale
toe wat as kompleks en multi-genuanseerd bestempel kan word. Sulke kenmerke van die literêre
sisteem moet in ag geneem word om die ervaring van “witheid” in post-koloniale Zimbabwe
effektief uit te beeld. Die wit verhale wat gekies is vir herlees in hierdie tesis beeld dus krisisse van
bestaan uit wat die dialogiese aard van die menslike bestaan omvat. Ter afsluiting is hierdie tesis
bedoel as ’n dialoog wat kulmineer in ’n oproep vir gedensentraliseerde en verlossende ervarings
van die letterkunde in sy geheel.

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Dedication

I dedicate this work to my loving friend and wife Beatrice Mazviita Kahlamba and our children
Tawananyasha, Tinayeshe …

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Acknowledgements

I am indebted to all those with whom I constantly dialogued. Without dialogue, any dialogue, this
thesis would not have materialized. Like the mythical Adam, it would have remained locked in its
own silences, unable to be heard or to hear the voice of another.

I have learned that dialogue need not be for its own sake. This is due, in large part to the remarkably
insightful dialogues with my supervisor and mentor, Professor Leon de Kock. I cherish every word,
every utterance, and look forward to more of our conversations beyond this research project.

I have also learnt that no word is useless. Every word merely needs the right person to encounter it
and its character is transformed in multiple ways. I am grateful to Dr Nyasha Mboti, my friend and
inspiration since 2002 in this regard.

Thanks is also due to Maria Geustyn, graduate scholar at Stellenbosch University, for possessing a
most perceptive eye for missing words and letters. Through her diligent editing, the thesis has
attained an acceptable semblance of organisation and fluency.

I am grateful for the conversations shared with colleagues in the Department of English and
Communication at Midlands State University, Zimbabwe: in particular, Dr Javangwe for being more
than just a colleague, but also a father figure; Dr Musanga for believing in the intellectual future of
every one of our students and for always having a brilliant idea to share; and Dr Jakaza for the
patience when I constantly asked about Stellenbosch University and sheltering me at Stellenbosch
during my first visit.

I have learned that the words of language are shared. No individual has a monopoly on words. I owe
this to the dialogues with all my students at Midlands State University. I am particularly grateful to
Reuben Williams, Shamiso Misi, Joseph Maveneke, Tawanda Nhari, Trevor Imedi, Mitchel Raposo,
Tanyaradzwa Munyuki, Lenah-Lisa Bususu, Rutendo Taonezvi, Andrew Mutingwende and Nyasha
Munyaradzi. They kept me reminded that other words exist besides my own and made this thesis
possible in their individual ways.
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I am hugely indebted to Rebecca Rafunya, my loving mother and friend whose love is like no other.
She never misses a moment to pray for me, my family and all those she loves. I can never repay
what she has done for me.

I am privileged to have other mothers besides Rebecca. Rhoda Matambo and Sarah Muzividzi are
excellent mothers who deserve every child’s respect and loyalty. I implore my brothers and sisters to
reciprocate the love these women have provided, whatever it takes.

I happily reserve the best thoughts for my father, Cosmas Rafunya. The wise words you imparted
have been put to good use. Loving thoughts also go to my siblings Simbarashe Tagwirei, Caroline
Tagwirei and Cathrene Mwazha. You are a family of which I am proud to be part.

Several people have been parents to my children when I was under pressure during the research and
my wife was committed elsewhere. My sisters Bibiana, Beauty, Bridget, Brilliant and Bertha
Matambo are stars like no other. In the three years of my study, they witnessed the birth of my two
sons and raised them like their own.

I reserve special thanks to Hugh Mangeya, a brother and colleague. Your forthrightness and crude
honesty taught me the value of the “not-so-decent” word; that it need be freed so that it can free the
speaker in turn. I am grateful to Tinashe Muzividzi for being a wonderful young brother during the
last three years, especially in moments when I could have missed the companionship of another’s
word. You kept me sane with the friendship and insightful jokes at a time when I could easily have
lost the uses of words.

Finally, I will always be thankful to all the people who befriended me and supported me in any way.
The dialogues are not in vain.

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Table of Contents

Declaration .....................................................................................................................................i
Abstract .........................................................................................................................................ii
Opsomming...................................................................................................................................iii
Dedication .....................................................................................................................................iv
Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................v
Chapter One: Introduction
1.1. Introduction ..............................................................................................................................3
1.2. Justification of the Study..........................................................................................................8
1.3. Goals and Theoretical Framework............................................................................................9
1.4. White writing as a literary system in the Zimbabwean literary polysystem ..........................19
1.5. Methodologies .......................................................................................................................30
1.6. Chapter Delineation................................................................................................................32
Chapter Two: White Zimbabwean writing as a multiplicity
2.1. Introduction ...........................................................................................................................35
2.2. ZANU PF meta-narrative on the war in Rhodesia .................................................................39
2.3. Alternative meta-narratives about the war..............................................................................44
2.4. White narratives about the war...............................................................................................46
2.4.1. Polyphony in Tim McLoughlin’s Karima...........................................................................51
2.4.2. Heteroglossia in Bruce Moore-King’s White Man Black War……………………………58
2.5. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………..68
Chapter Three: The search for emplacement in white Zimbabwean narratives
3.1. Introduction……………………………………………………………….............................70
3.2. Dialogic places………………………………………………………………………………73
3.3. The politics of land in Zimbabwe…………………………………………………………...75
3.4. Whites landscape writing: an overview……………………………………………………..77
3.5. Peter Rimmer’s Cry of the Fish Eagle (1993)………………………………………………80
3.5.1. The Discursive Appropriation of “bush”………………………………………………….81
3.5.2. Bush as metonym for Africa………………………………………………………………86
3.6. Enclaves in the bush………………………………………………………………………...91
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3.6.1. Rogers’ The Last Resort………………………………………………………………..….92
3.6.2. The entanglement of farm and country……………………………………………………93
3.6.3. The transformation of bush into farm……………………………………………………..97
3.6.4. Juggling the bush………………………………………………………………………...105
3.7. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………109
Chapter 4: The simultaneity of past and present in white Zimbabwean narratives
4.1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………………...111
4.2. The uses of the past in Zimbabwe………………………………………………………....113
4.3. Conceptualizing simultaneity…………………………………………………………....120
4.4. Ian Smith’s The Great Betrayal……………………………………………………………123
4.4.1. The past as an endurance of founding principles of colony……………………………..124
4.4.2. The Rhodesian past as an indictment of the Zimbabwean present………………………127
4.4.3. Rhodesia as country and tribe………………………………………………………..…..132
4.5. Godwin’s Mukiwa………………………………………………………………………….136
4.5.1. Narrative Distance and the past in Mukiwa……………………………………………...136
4.5.2. The uses of a re-imagined childhood consciousness in white Zimbabwean narratives….141
4.5.3. The Rhodesian past as bane in the Zimbabwean present………………………………...143
4.6. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………149
Chapter 5: White Zimbabwean narratives and the question of “whiteness”
5.1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………………...151
5.2. Understanding whiteness in Zimbabwe……………………………………………………152
5.3. Making whiteness visible in Eames’ The Cry of the Go-Away Bird………………………157
5.3.1. The articulation of a “black” gaze……………………………………………………….158
5.4. Whiteness as an ephemeral experience in Fuller’s Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight….169
5.5. From “whiteness” to “whiteliness” in Eppel’s Absent: the English Teacher.......................180
5.6. Conclusion............................................................................................................................188
Chapter six: Towards the Literary Prokaryote
6.1. Summary and Conclusions………………………………………………...........................190
6.2. The literary prokaryote: An index to further research……………………………………..195
Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………………202

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Chapter 1: Reconceptualizing white writing in Zimbabwe

Two voices is the minimum for life, the minimum for existence. (Bakhtin, Dostoevsky’s Poetics
252)

The aim is not to construct a premature identity, but a tensile unity of simultaneities. (Holquist xi-
xii)

Uniformity need not be postulated. (Even-Zohar 291)

1.1. Introduction
This thesis forms part of what must at this stage still be regarded as a constricted dialogue on
white writing in Zimbabwe. The dialogue is constricted precisely because prevailing discourses
on nationalism have the effect of excluding white voices from any meaningful “narration of the
nation” (cf. Bhabha, Nation and Narration) in Zimbabwe. Nevertheless, the thesis has been
written in the awareness that, in literary evaluation, “there is neither a first nor a last word and
there are no limits to the dialogic context” (Bakhtin, Speech Genres 170). The intention is to
open up and expand the dialogue on white writing by proffering an alternative conceptual
perception of this sub-field as inescapably multivalent. Broadly, the research takes its cue from
an acknowledgement, following Bakhtin, of the fundamentally dialogic nature of utterances. For
Bakhtin (Dialogic Imagination 104), two aspects define the text as an utterance: its intention and
the fulfilment of this intention. The nature of every text-as-utterance is therefore determined by a
dialectic relationship consisting of its intention, on the one hand, and the process of realizing the
intention, on the other. The intention represents the “centripetal” need to unify a text and
stabilize its meaning while the process fulfilling this need demonstrates the “centrifugal”
destabilization of the text amid heteroglossia (cf. Bakhtin, Dialogic Imagination 269-270; 272;
423). One might argue, extrapolating from Bakhtin and others, including Derrida, that this
process involves divergences, slippages, simultaneities and contradictions as utterances move
through the “normative-centralizing system of a unitary language”, participating in its
“centripetal forces and tendencies”, while “at the same time [partaking] of social and historical
heteroglossia (the centrifugal, stratifying forces)” (Dialogic Imagination 272). This is a struggle,
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