| reviews Sites of Struggle: Essays in Zimbabwe's
Urban History Book Review For The BSF Newsletter 2001 The study of urban life in Zimbabwe has increased in both quantity and quality in recent years. It is noteworthy, though not perhaps entirely coincidental, that this collection of such studies has appeared at a time when discontent and resistance to ZANU-PF rule has been expressed in overhelming urban support for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in the 2000 elections, and the continuing possibility of further urban unrest challenging the rule of President Robert Mugabe. Raftopolous and Yoshikuni are clearly conscious of the potential role of the urban civil society in providing an alternative to ZANU-PF, and the studies in this volume provide not only a rich and diverse history of urban Zimbabweans coping with and resisting colonial forms of control, in their efforts to survive and prosper, but also illustrate a (mostly unspoken) continuity between these historical struggles and those of the present day. Rhodesian towns were founded on an inherent belief that they were domains of white dominance. The equally important idea of Africans as essentially rural people, and the importance of keeping them that way, was consistently promoted by the British South Africa Company and later settler governments. This ideology, supported by legistration (the 1901 Masters & Servants Act, and the 1902 introduction of Pass Laws), instituted the concept that Africans could migrate to towns only to labour for Whites, and should then return to their villages. However, the need for this and further legislation (for example, the 1946 Native (Urban Areas) Accommodation and Registration Act) to restrict the movements of Africans, demonstrated the difficulties of such efforts, in the context of the economic contradiction upon which rhodesia rested. Whites settlers sought to prevent urban settlement, and to restrict African workers to mines and settler-owned land; but economic development required a growing and stable population of skilled African urban workers who were simultaneously consumers. As some of the writers in this book demonstrate, this contradiction created opportunities for Africans to make a living and become residents in Salisbury (now Harare), Bulawayo and other towns, despite the law, and periodic attempts to limit their numbers and room for manoeuvre. Stephen Thornton shows that in Bulawayo, the growth of European-owned business provided opportunities for Africans, not only to settle and sell their labour on a more-or-less permanent basis, but also for some to establish small businesses, at least until the gaps in colonial control were closed in the 1920s and 1930s. Theresa Barnes shows how in the same period, African women were in some respects exempt from legislation aimed at controlling 'native' males, and were therefore able to enter towns independently, to the concern of African men, who encouraged the authorities to take action against unaccompanied women, including deportation to rural areas. As alternative economic opportunities narrowed in both town and countryside, economic growth and relatively liberal government in the 1940s and 1950s drew increasing numbers of Africans into urban employment. However, as Raftopolous shows, the uneven impact of colonialism created different African presences and perspectives in Bulawayo and Salisbury. The decisive impact of settler agriculture in Matabeleland created a significant Ndebele presence in Bulawayo, where employment in industry was the basis for trade unionism and nationalist politics from the 1940s. In contrast, the peasantry in Mashonaland survived relatively intact, and the majority of the African population of Salisbury was made up of migrants from neighbouring territories, who inevitably had limited interest in the future of Rhodesia. This changed substantially in the 1950s, when increasing implementation of the 1934 Land Apportionment Act pushed more Shonas into urban migration. In both areas, urban Africans sought to improve their lot in diverse individual and collective ways, through employment, education, cultural organisations and the Church. From the late 1950s, the aspirations of educated and elite urban Africans to improve their individual lot, and (as was occurring throughout sub-Saharan Africa) to provide the foundation for post-colonial governance, were rudely shattered by the increasingly repressive settler-dominated government. Instead, they turned to alliances with the mass of urban Africans, through both trade unions and nationalist organisations, such as the Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union and the Bulawayo City Youth League. The problematic nature of the relationship between unions and nationalists is touched upon, but not explored in detail in this book. However, Raftopolous makes clear that the diverse interests of the urban African population mean that support for particular nationalist organisations was never inevitable Following the Unilateral declaration of Independence in 1965, the nationalist struggle moved into exile and to the rural areas. The practical retreat from an unwinnable urban conflict was justified by an ideology of guerrilla warfare, which was based on the peasantry as the engine of change. Academic study on this period has therefore tended to focus on rural areas, most notably Terence Ranger's work on peasant consciousness and the liberation movement. Unfortunately, this volume provides few studies which rectify this imbalance, an exception being John Pape's tantalising glimpse into domestic servants in Salisbury and their support for ZANLA forces in their areas of origin. Founded on nationalist ideology, independent Zimbabwe has tended to recreate the colonial idea of Africans as fundamentally rural peoples. As oppositon to ZANU rule has increased, its urban opponents have been painted as relatively priviledged, and living off the wealth of the peasantry, to whom ZANU's policies were centrally directed. As the studies in this book show, rural-urban links are in fact more complementary than exploitative, the rural poor benefit from wage remittances, visiting town for jobs and markets, and many urban workers returning to their areas of origin to retire. It remains unclear, however, if the victory of ZANU in rural areas in this year's Parliamentary election was due simply to oppression, or based on a perceived difference in the interests of rural and urban Zimbabweans - the current state of the country clearly precludes any such examination for the immediate future. This study provides a valuable counterbalance to the existing literature on rural Zimbabwe, and its studies demonstrate convincingly that urban Africans have played as important a role in the making of relations have been consistently dependent on, and intertwined with, each other. Future studies of Zimbabwe, both historical and contemporary, need to break down the urban-rural divide in such studies, and establish a new Zimbabwean historical discourse, which makes all its people the subject of their own history. © The author/publisher |