Rhodesian farm memoirs framed all development as exclusively white achievement
Evidence
We drove through verdant pastures where fat cattle grazed contentedly, and soon came to one of the irrigated tobacco lands where the crop was standing high and lush, and about to have its first reaping. Then along the dam wall- this was the largest of the twenty-one dams we had built … Then we drove through the workers’ village, their houses ranging from three to five rooms- all brick-under-asbestos with thatched kitchens and blair toilets. Several of these had been electrified in an on-going exercise, and safe water had been piped in from a borehole … Then on we drove, to the other irrigated tobacco field, watered by the Israeli drip-irrigation system-every plant a clone of its neighbour-with the first reaping already curing in the barns. We passed the maize field, the plants only ankle high at this stage, but looking quite promising … Then back to the homestead-past the tobacco barns, the milking parlour, and the aircraft hangar and workshops. Thirty-eight years earlier there had been nothing-no fields, no buildings, no standing water-just three thousand and three hundred acres of untamed bush. (Barker, 2007, p. viii) Barker’s assertions about the role of white agency in unlocking the value of so-called vacant and undeveloped spaces that had purportedly stood untouched since the beginning of time are not without precedent in the history of the Afro-European entanglement. — Tavengwa Gwekwerere, Davie E. Mutasa, and Kudakwashe Chitofiri, Settlers, Rhodesians, and Supremacists, 75
Categorization
- XREF: The ‘nothing… just untamed bush’ framing is the classic terra nullius trope the reader tracks: a grievance-circuit test case needs to see whether this developmentalist claim to virgin land survives the loss of power intact. — connects to: White Zimbabwean authors write from a sustained Rhodesian supremacist mindset even after losing land — Tavengwa Gwekwerere, Davie E. Mutasa, and Kudakwashe Chitofiri, Settlers, Rhodesians, and Supremacists:…, 13; White Rhodesian memoirs narrate the liberation war so as to erase black military efficacy — Tavengwa Gwekwerere, Davie E. Mutasa, and Kudakwashe Chitofiri, Settlers, Rhodesians, and Supremacists:…, 67; Harrison’s memoir frames Rhodesian land acquisition as earned by white work ethic — Tavengwa Gwekwerere, Davie E. Mutasa, and Kudakwashe Chitofiri, Settlers, Rhodesians, and Supremacists:…, 48 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Rhodesian memoirism erases 90 years of black land hunger as legitimate motive
#corroborates(0.93) — Tavengwa Gwekwerere, Davie E. Mutasa, and Kudakwashe Chitofiri, Settlers, Rhodesians, and Supremacists, 80 - Harrison’s memoir frames Rhodesian land acquisition as earned by white work ethic
#exemplifies(0.92) — Tavengwa Gwekwerere, Davie E. Mutasa, and Kudakwashe Chitofiri, Settlers, Rhodesians, and Supremacists, 48 - White Rhodesian memoirs recast Black land reclamation as incomprehensible criminality lacking popular support
#expands(0.90) — Tavengwa Gwekwerere, Davie E. Mutasa, and Kudakwashe Chitofiri, Settlers, Rhodesians, and Supremacists, 80 - White Zimbabwean memoirs contest land loss via colonial-era ideology.
#corroborates(0.80) — Tavengwa Gwekwerere, Davie E. Mutasa, and Kudakwashe Chitofiri, Settlers, Rhodesians, and Supremacists, 4