Searching for a Common Idiom Among African

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, xxxiv:4 (Spring, 2004), 595–599.

AFRICAN TEXTS Robert I. Rotberg Searching for a Common Idiom among African Texts President Robert Gabriel Mugabe is remarkable for hav- ing transformed a well-managed, thriving, promising southern African country into a failed state—all within the last six years. In 2003, inºation in once wealthy Zimbabwe was racing along at 500 percent; staples and fuel were in short supply; unemployment reached 80 percent; hospitals barely functioned; and schools were without textbooks and teachers. Mugabe, a latter-day despot, had rigged a re-election in 2002, attacked civil society, killed and maimed opponents, suspended the rule of law, and thumbed his nose at President Bush and other foreign and local critics. In 2003, Mugabe had been a dominating prime minister and president for twenty-three years. Yet, before Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980, Mugabe had not always been the key ªgure in his people’s struggle against white-settler rule. Indeed, had one of his better-known competitors taken power, Zimbabweans could have avoided the home-grown tyranny under which they now chafe. First came Joshua Nkomo, but his easy-going and compro- mising ways led to a fratricidal battle; Ndabaningi Sithole, Herbert Wiltshire Chitepo, and Mugabe emerged from it as the leaders of a Shona-speaking nationalist movement called the Zimbabwe Af- rican National Union (zanu). Nkomo thereafter (from 1963) led the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (zapu). zanu was backed by China and zapu by the Soviet Union. Sithole and Mugabe were jailed for almost ten years, to late 1974, by the internationally illegal white-settler government of Rhodesia, which usurped power in 1965. Meanwhile Chitepo, of the Manyika branch of the Shona, from eastern Zimbabwe, headed the war council of zanu, based in neighboring Zambia. Chitepo was a polished, urbane, liberal lawyer, educated at Fort Hare College in South Africa and later at the Inns of Court in

Robert I. Rotberg is co-editor of The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, President of the World Peace Foundation, and Director of the Program on Intrastate Conºict at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. © 2004 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Inc.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/002219504773512552 by guest on 25 September 2021 596 | ROBERT I. ROTBERG London. In 1954, he returned home to become Zimbabwe’s ªrst African barrister. Ten years later, after the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland collapsed and zapu and zanu split, he became national chairman of zanu. In 1966, when zanu began planning a guerrilla war from bases outside Zimbabwe, Chitepo assumed the leadership of that external effort. By the mid-1970s, Rhodesia was under serious attack by zanu irregulars; even the cities felt threatened. But all was not well among the guerrillas. zapu and zanu were bitter rivals; zanu itself was rife with factional competition, especially between military cohorts loyal to Chitepo, Josiah Tongogara, Solomon Mujuru (Rex Nhongo), and many others. Soviet-style purges were not uncommon, and kangaroo courts dispensed justice. Although some of the rivalries may increasingly have ºowed along ethnic lines, White is unwilling to credit the importance of an emerging ethnic consciousness within the ranks of zanu’s freedom-ªghting Shona speakers. She also slights the relevance of networks that were based on notions of extended kinship. Yet, Chitepo’s origin as a Manyika, not a Zezeru or a Karanga, became a point of contention, notwithstanding the common language of Shona (with subtle linguistic differences). Given the intense intra-zanu competition for primacy, fund- ing, and political and military direction, it is no wonder that Chitepo had enemies. Everyone in the movement did, and even in the absence of outstanding suspicions and jealousies, the Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organization was more than capa- ble of provoking rumor and division among its enemies. Spies and collaborators had inªltrated both Zimbabwean liberation armies. Spreading disinformation was among the more accomplished Rhodesian counter-terror specialties. Chitepo, who might otherwise have led Zimbabwe to independence, was blown up by a car bomb early one morning in March 1975. Among the immediate suspects were other zanu militants, Zambians loyal to President Kenneth Kaunda, and sev- eral special operatives of Rhodesia. Kaunda’s government jailed many of the key zanu ªgures in Zambia; Mozambique blamed Tongogara. Eventually, the ofªcial Zambian inquiry that White analyzes exhaustively began. A host of variably plausible confessions by zanu operatives ensued, but the most detailed confession came a decade later from white spies sent by Rhodesia.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/002219504773512552 by guest on 25 September 2021 AFRICAN TEXTS | 597 Unfortunately for those who want to know who assassinated Chitepo, and thus who swung the pendulum of leadership toward Tongogara (killed in a car crash in 1979) and Mugabe, White is not so much interested in the forensic problem as she is in the historical conundrum of text and narrative. Repeatedly, she stresses that the important issue is “how texts construct historical narratives, and how historical narratives are constructed and construct themselves through texts” (93). She is “less concerned . . . with ªnding out which bomb was the murder weapon than... with ªnding out why some bombs are described in detail and others are not” (67). How did the competing details of confessions ar- ticulate “the relationship between the seemingly opposing audiences of Rhodesians and Zimbabweans?” (68). Audience matters; construction matters; so does the original design of the inquiry, as well as the underlying, even unwitting, motives. More- over, since the Zambians may have coerced some zanu soldiers to confess, how were the particular confessors chosen? Why were Tongogara and Joseph Chimurenga implicated in the confessions, and not other prominent insurgents (53)? Why was Mugabe spared? White subjects the Chitepo texts—the ofªcial inquiry, the many confessions, and assorted conversations and recollections— to detailed scrutiny. She takes apart texts, in an admirably meticu- lous manner, turning every statement this way and that to eluci- date its meaning, its lack of meaning, and its potential relevance for solving the mystery of who killed Chitepo. She asks what each text offers to its originator and to its intended audience or audiences. Her bravura performance exploring deep meanings, and providing fuller, oft unexpected, contexts, is excellent, setting a standard for this kind of analysis. Yet, given the dozens of factual errors—most of them minor, but a few major—in chapters 1, 2, and 6, and in the extensive notes, her manipulation of the texts may mask serious evidentiary problems. She grasps the texts more thoroughly than she does the individuals who were struggling with myriad motives to turn Rhodesia into Zimbabwe. Moreover, readers are left to speculate about who killed Chitepo. White’s mastication of the evidence leaves us, and perhaps the author as well, unsure whether Rhodesian whites, Zimbabweans orchestrated by Tongogara (who vehemently denied being responsible), or—as many want to believe—one of

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/002219504773512552 by guest on 25 September 2021 598 | ROBERT I. ROTBERG Chitepo’s zanu rivals like Mugabe, placed the bomb. Or did the Zambians, who favored zapu, arrange it? These are not idle questions, if not directly answerable by White. Contemporary Zimbabweans (as she so deftly shows) con- tinue to be concerned, almost obsessed, by Chitepo’s fate. Given the context of their current political, social, and economic national disintegration, creating a common text—a truth—about their freedom struggle gives these inquiries a new grasp on legitimacy. For those reasons, as well as old-fashioned historical ones, de- termining the exact circumstances of Chitepo’s death is crucial. Who killed him, and on whose orders? What was the nature of the Zambian investigation of the bomb that blew up Chitepo as he left his house for downtown Lusaka? The Zambians originally claimed that Chitepo had been killed by a land mine. Who sifted the forensic evidence, if anyone? Why and when did the story change from mine to bomb? The Rhodesian operatives supposedly breached the fence around Chitepo’s locked premises with a special kind of wire cutter early on the morning of his death, and placed the bomb in a wheel well of his automobile. Did anyone ever report on where and how badly the car was damaged? White derides the detail supplied about the wire cutter, and about its mis- placement and subsequent retrieval outside the house. She seems to think that the information supplied by the Rhodesian confessors suggests a false speciªcity, perhaps masking reality. She also wonders whether Rhodesian intelligence would have wanted to eliminate Chitepo, a relative moderate compared to Tongogara, Mugabe, and others. Moreover, Ian Smith, then Rhodesia’s prime minister, subsequently denied any involvement of his Special Branch. White suspects the Rhodesian-supplied confessions because they are too complete, too authentic, and too persuasive. But among the many Zimbabwean freedom ªghters and factionalists who might have wanted to remove Chitepo, each presumably had, or has, a decisive story to tell. White, however, does not priv- ilege any of them. Nor does she ªnd any of their grievances against Chitepo unusually compelling. Too many factions, by her accounting, would have beneªted from his death for any to stand out. She also cannot ªnd a plausible connection that would tie Chitepo’s death to Tongogara or to Mugabe, either of whom would have wanted their rival removed.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/002219504773512552 by guest on 25 September 2021 AFRICAN TEXTS | 599 Many of the interested parties and potential perpetrators were alive when White undertook the research for this fascinating book. Oral texts would have been helpful, if not conclusive. Knowing what Solomon Mujuru (accused of providing the murder weapon), Joyce Mujuru, Eddison Zvobgo, George Nyandoro, and others remembered would have been helpful. White also talked to President Kaunda, but apparently not at any length. She might have interviewed his security ofªcials, if any remain. How would the white operatives, some of whom are still reachable, re- spond to her skepticism about their confessions? Smith likes to talk, too. White’s narrowly focused, not quite interdisciplinary work stimulates other avenues of inquiry. A leading white commentator hinted that Mugabe was behind not only Chitepo’s assassination but also the death of Tongogara, thus enabling Mugabe to assume full control of Zimbabwe’s move to independence in 1980. The argument is built on guilt by association: Since Mugabe, while in power after 1980, is known to have had his own Central Intelli- gence Organization eliminate, maim, and intimidate opponents, rivals, and suspected dissidents, surely his ruthlessness in power implies that he clawed his way to zanu dominance over Chitepo and Tongogara as he did over Sithole. This line of questioning needs to be explored, although White’s focus is elsewhere. Texts and consciousness are important, and require analysis in a variety of different modern African historical settings. It is also wise, and critical, to unmask obscurantist rhetoric, and to reevalu- ate received, politically correct, accounts. Subjecting the nationalist period to heightened commentary is essential, and White’s book shows how the dissection of the recent past can usefully be entered. But re-ordering the past so as to unmask the distortions of despots and other abusers of their own truths is also necessary. Fully discovering who killed Chitepo would be an earnest of that endeavor.

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