Jacana

“The inhospitable Cape has reared its ugly head once more,” said Premesh Lalu speaking at the launch of Becoming Zimbabwe: A History from the Pre-Colonial Period to 2008 edited by Brian Raftopoulos and Alois Mlambo.

“This ugly head has taken the form of the politics of blame which is clearly unforgivable.”

He said it was vital to hold a critical intervention at this crucial point in the discussions that are happening in southern Africa, particularly in relation to Zimbabwe.

“We ought to have a far more sophisticated reading of what is unfolding in the region. Becoming Zimbabwe flies in the face of rather banal and ahistorical formulations on Zimbabwe, particularly those that have proliferated in the print media and more generally in the public sphere. This book is more meaningful than one might automatically anticipate for South Africans; one that opens onto a very important set of questions about how we think about this region.

He said the lesson in this book was for South Africans and the entire southern African region to always historicise. “I suspect,” he said, “that what’s happening in many of the discussions unfolding over the last while is a refusal to do just that – to follow the injunction to always historicise.”

He said it had been a privilege and pleasure to have Brian Roftopolous at the Centre for Humanities Research at UWC for the past year. “He encouraged us to always think about question of the present historically.” Lalu welcomed the book which challenges one to think differently. He acknowledged the District Six Museum that was “always a hospitable place” where one could open up difficult topics, like the discussion around the issue of forced removals.

Fanie du Toit, the Director of the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, said they were delighted to be part of the project. “We see history as fundamental to coming together and learning to share an understanding of the past. We’ve been working in that field and this book is the result of a long and ongoing conversation between us. Brian took the initiative and drove the project, producing an outstanding work of scholarship.”

He said, “We all know that there is an importance to some sort of liberation history that brings people together after conflict. But the danger of such a liberation becoming hegemonic in itself is always a huge spectre hanging over such a discourse. We are grateful because Zimbabwe testifies to the danger and the possibility of this, and, in terms of this discourse, the solution to this crisis. To form historical common ground without becoming hegemonic is the challenge. This book opens the debate, not with slogans, but with solid scholarship.”

Du Toit concurred with Lalu on the aptness of the timing. With the current situation in De Doorns this book offers a way of making sense of the bigger issues.

Brian Raftopoulos acknowledged the support he received from the Centre for Humanities Research, which he’d experienced as “extremely enriching”. He spoke at length on the chapter he’d written, and the paradoxes that are Zimbabwean issues and the issues of the region. He said the book tried to understand how people come to see themselves as part of a nation. He noted that the idea of the collective “Shona” identity didn’t exist in the pre-Colonial period. This became a political subjectivity much later.

He suggested that Zimbabwe was a domestic issue for South Africa.

“It’s on your doorstep. It’s here, in your face. It’s been one of the central problems of both of the previous presidencies and remains so for the current one. In both defining South Africa’s relationship to the region, as well as defining the ANC’s relation to its own traditions it remains a problem, because in the manner in which it has dealt with Zimbabwe also reflects the contested debate within the alliance about the future of the ANC.

“As I’ve said before, Zimbabwe is extreme, but it’s not exceptional in its problems. These problems can be found in many forms in many parts of the region, thus Zimbabwe is an important place to study and understand.”

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Book details

• Becoming Zimbabwe: A History from the Pre-Colonial Period to 2008 edited by Brian Raftopoulos and Alois Mlambo
  EAN: 9781770097636
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