Archive for the ‘Zimbabwe’ Category
by Amy on Apr 2nd, 2013
The 4000 farms that were occupied in Zimbabwe in 2000, which caused a world-wide outcry at the time, are doing fairly well these days, Joseph Hanlon, Jeanette Manjengwa and Teresa Smart find in their new book, Zimbabwe Takes Back Its Land. Hanlon and Manjengwa presented their findings at a public dialogue organised by the Centre for Conflict Resolution and chaired by Sam Moyo at the 6 Spin Street Restaurant.
Hanlon began by placing the land grabs into historical context. He referred to the Land Apportionment Act of 1931, which expropriated large tracts of arable land from black farmers. The struggle for independence was led by the children of these dispossessed black Zimbabweans, Hanlon pointed out. In 2000, 42% of the country’s agricultural land was controlled by about 4500 white commercial farmers, who make up 0.03% of the population. Land reform happened too slowly for most of the population and over Easter weekend of 2000, farms were seized.
Manjengwa said that now, 13 years later, agricultural production has returned to the level it was at before land reform. They attribute this, in part, to the fact that the land reform farmers really have a passion for farming, as evidenced in their preparedness to fight for agricultural land.
There were roughly 1 million people working on the former white farms, but now four times as many people are employed in agriculture in Zimbabwe. The new farmers are using more land and labour but less technology than their white predecessors, Manjengwa said. She did however, admit that there are some environmental concerns due to the current intensive farming methods.
Manjengwa cautioned that one has to allow 20 years for a farm to start running properly after a new owner takes over and pointed out that the new farmers are only halfway there.
Hanlon noted some of the problems facing the new farmers, including the fact that white farmers had received lots of financial support, while the land reform farmers are receiving very little help. “You can’t be expected to farm without lots of money and training,” Hanlon said. “I’m happy to write about farming, but I wouldn’t want to do it – it’s hard work!”
Zimbabwe Takes Back Its Land draws on plenty of studies done on land in Zimbabwe and also includes some case studies. Hanlon shared their experience interviewing a white farmer, Keith, who had invited the war veterans in and negotiated with them to keep part of his land. He had seen how the black population lived and knew that land had to be distributed more equally. They also spoke to a group of black women who had allowed a white farmer to keep part of his land, but when they planted maize, he had driven this cattle through their crops. So they camped out under his window and had parties that lasted until the early hours of the morning, until he had enough and left. “Land reform happened in all kinds of ways!” Hanlon said.
In response to a question from the audience about Zanu PF members who appropriated land for themselves, Hanlon said that about 10% of the land was taken by those who “could be called ‘cronies’”. But even on these farms, the “cronies” realise that the land can be a means of wealth accumulation and they are using it profitably. He mentioned a farm of “one of the more nasty people” that they visited, which is now exporting citrus fruit.
An audience member also wanted to know whether the white farmers, whose land had been grabbed, should not be compensated. Hanlon said that he is usually in favour of compensation, but that the Zimbabweans who were displaced in the 1940s and 50s would have to be the starting point for any compensation.
The public dialogue wrapped up with a question on the viability of land reform in South Africa. Hanlon pointed out that the people who took over the land in Zimbabwe were mostly the descendants of farmers and benefited from Zimbabwe’s good education system, which meant that their knowledge of farming methods is adequate. In South Africa, Hanlon said, land reform would have to go hand-in-hand with extensive training.
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Carolyn Meads livetweeted from the event using #livebooks:
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by Amy on Mar 22nd, 2013
The Centre for Conflict Resolution (CCR), Cape Town, invites you to a public dialogue on the book Zimbabwe Takes Back Its Land, edited by Joseph Hanlon, Jeanette Manjengwa and Teresa Smart. Hanlon and Manjengwa will discuss the book with Professor Sam Moyo, executive director of the African Institute for Agrarian Studies in Harare.
The event will take place at 6 Spin street, Cape Town, and starts at 17:30.
See you there!
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by Amy on Mar 20th, 2013
When 170 000 black farmers occupied 4 000 white farms in Zimbabwe in 2000, it caused world-wide shockwaves. A decade later, Zimbabwe Takes Back Its Land finds that the new farmers are doing relatively well, improving their lives and becoming increasingly productive, especially since the US dollar became the local currency. While not minimising the depredations of the Mugabe government, and accepting that many of President Mugabe’s supporters benefited from the ruler’s largesse, the book counters the dominant media narratives of oppression and economic stagnation in Zimbabwe.
The book is based on a detailed study of what is actually happening on the ground, drawing on the authors’ own fieldwork and extensive other research. Hanlon, Manjengwa, and Smart show how, despite political violence and mind-boggling hyperinflation, “ordinary” Zimbabweans took charge of their destinies in creative and unacknowledged ways. This raises important questions for the upcoming elections, and also presents new issues for the international community, because United States and European Union sanctions are not just against a corrupt and dictatorial elite, but also against 170 000 ordinary farmers who now use more of the land than the white farmers they displaced and are already producing nearly as much as those white farmers.
With stories and pictures, real farmers tell of their own experiences of setting up the farms and building up production. Fanuel Mutandiro tells how he built up his farm and the 70 trips to Mbare Market in Harare with a tractor and trailer full of tomatoes before he could afford a truck. Esther Makwara shows off her maize field with 8 tonnes per hectare – better than nearly all white farmers. And Mrs Chibanda shows off with pride her new tobacco barn where she cures the tobacco from her 1.5 hectare. But these stories are backed up by data – from the authors’ own fieldwork and extensive other research.
About the editors
Joseph Hanlon is visiting senior research fellow at the Open University, Milton Keynes, England; visiting senior fellow at the London School of Economics; and honorary research fellow at the University of Manchester.
Helen Manjengwa is the deputy director of the Institute of Environmental Studies, University of Zimbabwe.
Teresa Smart is visiting research associate at the Institute of Education, University of London.
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by Amy on Sep 10th, 2012
Two of Jacana Media’s authors were recently highlighted in the Guardian Online’s list of the 10 best contemporary African books, compiled by Granta Deputy Editor, Ellah Allfrey.
Originally published in the Observer, the list includes Tendai Huchu’s The Hairdresser of Harare and Lauren Beukes’ Zoo City.
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by Amy on Jul 19th, 2012
The Durban International Film Festival, which takes place from 19 to 29 July this year, will hold two screenings of a documentary about the presidential elephants of Zimbabwe entitled All the President’s Elephants.
The documentary follows Sharon Pincott, who wrote about her work with the elephants in the book Battle for the President’s Elephants: Life, Lunacy and Elation in the African Bush. Screenings will be held at Suncoast Cinema on 23 July and at Blue Waters Hotel on 25 July.
Watch the trailer:
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by Amy on Jul 16th, 2012
Travel Africa’s Kate Eckman spoke to Sharon Pincott, author of Battle for the President’s Elephants: Life, Lunacy and Elation in the African Bush.
In the following interview, Pincott talks about the reasons why she was drawn to the elephants and explains her system for naming and identifying the 20 different families that she works with.
Kate Eckman sits down with Sharon Pincott, author of The Elephants and I, to hear her personal story of hope and heartbreak while trying to protect the Presidential Elephants of Zimbabwe.
Sharon Pincott may not have any biological children of her own, but she serves as a nurturing, loving and protective mother to more than 400 African elephants who are known as the ‘Presidential Elephants of Zimbabwe’.
Although this large herd of wild elephants comprises more than 20 family groups, Pincott can recognise and name each individual.
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by Amy on Jul 12th, 2012
On a chilly Cape Town evening, a large crowd gathered in the basement of The Book Lounge for the launch of James Kilgore‘s latest book, Freedom Never Rests. Kilgore lived for years under the alias John Pape on the lam from American justice for 27 years before being arrested in Cape Town in 2002 for his involvement with the Symbionese Liberation Army. Following his arrest, he was extradited to California where he served six-and-a-half years in prison.
Kilgore began by thanking his friends in attendance and those who wrote to him while he was in prison, “Who actually writes letters these days?” he joked.
Former colleagues also came to the launch, including Colleen Higgs, who taught with Kilgore at Khanya College in Johannesburg. In addition to thanking his 99-year-old mother who “couldn’t be here, for obvious reasons”, he thanked his wife, Terri, for keeping everything going, for pushing and fighting, and keeping him alive in people’s memory.
Kilgore then spoke briefly about the plot of Freedom Never Rests but asked for interaction from the audience instead of him standing there giving a speech. Terri read a section from the book, which elicited much delight and amusement from the audience. Kilgore told the audience that the starting point for the book was a leaky tap, gushing out free hot water for the inmates in the American jail where he was imprisoned. As he watched this precious resource being wasted, he thought about the poorest communities he had encountered in southern Africa, and their struggle to access water. This theme developed into a greater story about service delivery protests in the Eastern Cape.
During a vibrant question and answer session, the audience pressed Kilgore for details of his time in prison. However, he told the audience that he didn’t think he would ever write about his involvement in the Symbionese Liberation Army, stating that “I’ve moved on. If I wrote about it, there could easily be a way someone would twist it and it would be wrong. Also, in writing your own story you have to write about other people’s stories, you have to include relationships, and there is no way I could have done that, had I wanted to, without jeopardising someone else’s freedom. There might have been someone who helped me, or did something that could place that person in prison. So, I wouldn’t have been able to. I don’t want to. You know, I’ve read biographies of that time and some of those events, texts from the sixties and seventies, and they seem hollow, without a certain depth. There’s a reason for that.”
Questions about his capacity to remember events in great detail, brought forth further interesting responses: “In my last year of prison I did keep a diary, a sensory diary of sorts where I would jot down what people wore, their tattoos, conversations. I interviewed a number of people about their experiences. It was a place where you could have a conversation with someone who had a tattoo of a swastika on his forehead. That was just how it was.”
Once the formal part of the launch was over, guests stayed to mix and mingle over glasses of wine. There was a lot of laughter, catching up with old friends and the sense that, as the title of the book implies, there’s still much work to be done, loose-threads to tie up, new causes and conversations to follow.
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Luso Mnthali tweeted from the launch using #livebooks
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by Amy on Jul 3rd, 2012
Daniel Musiitwa of Africa Book Club recently spoke to Tendai Huchu, author of The Hairdresser of Harare, about growing up in Zimbabwe and developing as a writer:
What was it like growing up in post-independence Zimbabwe?
It was great for the few of us whose parents climbed into the middle class. We went to great schools, took holidays, had maids and gardeners, essentially enjoyed the perks of our former colonial rulers and pretended this was normal. People like to say how great post-independence Zimbabwe was, that’s nonsense, it depends on which side of the fence you found yourself on. Whilst the lucky few enjoyed these advantages, we were surrounded by a sea of poverty, so essentially were Rhodesia-lite. Those advantages however were not passed down to the next generation, thank God for that, and we now find ourselves worse off than our parents were. I won’t bore you with the politics of it all which is well known.
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by Amy on Jun 29th, 2012
The year 2012 marks the return of James Kilgore to South Africa, where he lived as a fugitive from 1991 to 2002 under the name John Pape.
Join him at The Book Lounge on 10 July and at the University of Johannesburg on 18 July as he discusses his journey from fugitive to felon to fiction writer, and launches his new book Freedom Never Rests.
See you there!
Event Details: Cape Town
Event Details: Johannesburg
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by Amy on May 22nd, 2012
In an interview with LitNet’s Janet van Eeden, James Kilgore says that his fiction teases out the contradictions between political rhetoric and the reality of what politicians and activists are actually doing.
His latest novel, Freedom Never Rests, focuses on post-apartheid South Africa. The interview is preceded by Van Eeden’s review of the book:
James, even though you are an American by birth, you spent eleven years in Africa in exile from your own country in a way. Are your novels inspired by Africa rather than America because you were here during a very volatile period in this continent’s history? If not, can you explain why Africa is such a strong source of inspiration and story to you?
Actually I spent eighteen years in Africa – seven in Zimbabwe and eleven in South Africa. So I guess it’s not surprising that Africa has inspired my work. But there are two other things as well. Firstly, the period of time I was in southern Africa was incredibly dynamic – the transition from white minority rule to some form of democracy. Secondly, in both countries I drew incredible inspiration from the ways people organised themselves and sacrificed for freedom, particularly how culture and tradition were integrated into a sort of class struggle model. Yet at the same time, that freedom never did rest, it was never a static thing, a singular destination. Rather freedom became more and more complicated and elusive once political power was gained. This process of hope and disillusionment was both triumph and tragedy, the essential ingredients of a novel.
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