Review published in Mukai// Vukani Jesuit Journal for Zimbabwe 52, April 2010


NO WAY FORWARD

White Gods Black Demons, by Daniel Mandishona,

Weaver Press, Harare, 2009, 110 pp.

The author, a graphic designer and architect, draws his images of the people of Zimbabwe of recent years with a sharp pencil. These people really do exist, Venus who despises Zimbabwe’s current rulers, but has run away to the United States and the good life there, and her old friend and admirer who tells us her and his story, who “wants progress, but not change”, sees the absurdity of it all, but repeats obediently the current propaganda lies, and who has decided to stay – “I like it here”. There is much wit and irony, but no vision, no real alternative, no hope.

There are no heroes in these tales, except possibly the WOZA heroines who appear briefly, “The women scream, shout, wail, and then wilt under the onslaught. The violence is over as quickly as it began. Torn banners and shoes lie scattered on the tarmac, a forlorn reminder of the power of brute force….”

Zimbabweans in foreign exile figure large in these stories, perhaps because the author himself lived in London for fifteen years, as a student. But they too are no heroes, come back with no answer to their homeland’s misery, may not even have gained personally much for themselves. “In the thirty years that was your secret life in the land of the BBC, the Queen, cricket and snow you had achieved nothing.  You had wasted thirty years of your life and come back….with only the clothes on your back and a baggage of bittersweet memories”.

One emigrant, come back to his home country after years of chasing money in crime-ridden South Africa, eventually decided that he had to take sides in the violent conflict and promptly got himself assassinated by ruthless party agents. Eldridge Gunguwo, at last married to a woman he really loved with two adorable little daughters, seemed destined for a quiet life as a family man. What made him become “an active member of the opposition, an unforgivable sin in the turbulent and brutal politcis” of the country? The clinical report on the autopsy, quoted at length, does not tell us. Was he a hero or just a fool?

The writer does not expect anything from the Church either. “According to Eldridge, there were three professions that required a fair measure of ruthlessness, dishonesty and cunning in a man: law, politics and the priesthood”.

This is illustrated in the final story. A married couple, addicted to TV, but unable to agree on which programme to watch, introduce us to Pastor Johannes Dollar whose devotees they have become.  His luxurious wedding to a young girl attended by most prominent people in the country is a TV sensation. His preaching voice which keeps the dollar rolling has made it possible. But the dream collapses with a big bang when he is convicted of abuse and rape. “Society has to be protected against monsters like you,” says the magistrate.

If you look for ways out of our Zimbabwean mess, neither white gods nor black demons have an answer.