The Sunday News
Continued from last week…
The Carter Land Commission had to wait till the cessation of hostilities in 1919.
The Second World War broke out in 1939 and that delayed implementation of the LAA. However, after cessation of hostilities in 1945 the provisions of the LAA were revisited and implemented. There emerged a litany of rural grievances, some of which had already been introduced and implemented in earlier years. Poll tax, hut tax, dipping fees, farm rents and labour in exchange for residence on alienated land had already been introduced.
Centralisation, where homesteads were arranged in lines had already been effected in some areas. African Councils, with chiefs as ex-officio members, were already functioning. The settler colonial government introduced what was termed technological development in rural ideas. These were new ideas that had been developed in the United States of America. Dr Alvord was instrumental in the introduction of contour ridges, imigelo. Agricultural demonstrators trained mostly at Domboshava and Tsholotsho (Mavela), were the drivers of modern agriculture.
Related to that was the demarcation of grazing lands and crop fields.
Vaccination (umnkento) against smallpox was introduced alongside other diseases such as polio. Nothing by way of teaching or explaining the purpose of vaccination measures was done. As a result, the measures found their way into a litany of rural grievances. However, it was land evictions that caused the most bitterness, in terms of loss of land and attendant brutality and insensitivity. Evictions from virtually everywhere were carried out. Most noted and imprinted in people’s minds were those from Filabusi and eMakhandeni (Fort Rixon).
There were evictions from Matobo North to create land for animals in what was called Rhodes Matopos National Park. The people that had occupied those lands were scattered to various places: Prospect, Sear Block, Seula, Beula and Mambale. Some from the latter two areas found themselves being relocated to Tsholotsho (to places such as Patalika) where they lived side by side with evictees from eMakhandeni under Chief Siphoso Dlodlo, son of Chief Mdala, okaMsindazi.
In 1951 the settler government promulgated the Land Husbandry Act. It was an act that cut like a sharp knife into hearts of Africans. Their cattle were culled and were identified by having their tails cut. The cattle were later bought by the whites for a song. Agricultural produce attracted different prices depending on who was selling to the agricultural boards that were created following the Great Depression as a measure to cushion white producers at the expense of black producers. A tonne of maize produced by a white farmer attracted higher prices than that produced by a black farmer.
Only recently did I come across a people who are still settled where they settled from before 1825. These are the Mabusa (Mabusha) people in the Zhomba area close to the Tuli River (near its confluence with Mwewu River), just south of Gwanda town. As part of the Babirwa people, they settled there and today they are still occupying the same lands where they settled as Nyathi/Nare (Luphade/Serumola) people, a section of the Babirwa to which this writer belongs. It is easy to see why their lands were not alienated; they are marginal lands occupied by the Zhawunda people.
What we have furnished above are some of the rural grievances that provided political fodder for political activists to take advantage of in their campaigns to fight oppression and racially inspired pieces of legislation and administrative measures. This article is a precursor to one that will deal with movement of ideas from sites of higher concentration to those of lower concentration. It is about the process of politicisation in rural areas. The process took advantage of existing and burning rural grievances.
What was the nature of politicisation? How did political ideas permeate communities, from person to person, from family to family, from group to group and from community to community? Who were the carriers of these political ideas? When these questions are adequately answered, a way to understand politicisation and mobilisation in preparation for the support of the guerrilla war would have been paved.
That done, the focus will shift to urban centres and identify their own unique urban grievances and how these were taken advantage of to politicise and mobilise urban communities for the political and military struggles that lay ahead. In the end, we shall deal with linkages between urban and rural areas, between both and the external wings of political parties. Finally, we shall look at how international links were forged, for various purposes such as provision of training facilities, provision of military hardware, medical supplies , food and other logistics. We should never imagine that the war of liberation in Zimbabwe was a localised affair pitting whites against blacks. It bore regional and international dimensions.
