May 15

There is a common misconception that all white people in Africa are very rich and entitled and that this is the way it has always been.  The way the land issue is presented often suggests that white people were just given land or were able to buy it very cheaply.  This is not the case at all and many white Rhodesians were, in actual fact, very poor.

It is this section of society that interests me in my research.  An elderly man I spoke to when researching This September Sun told me that in the 1930s, there were many white people who could neither read nor write and had very menial jobs, often on the railways.  Not only was life very hard for many people, but there was a type of class system within white society.  At the top were those who were British or of British descent; those who were Greek, Portuguese, Italian and/or Jewish were somewhere in the middle and the Afrikaner, generally, was at the bottom.

'Poor whites' held an uncomfortable place in white society.  When I was a child, there were a number of white men, ex-Rhodesian soldiers, who used to sleep rough. They may have suffered from PTSD or developed addictions to various substances in their struggle to return to civilian life. Many white people refused to help them, regarding them as 'a disgrace'.  People who will give generously to charities and poor black people will hold poor white people in suspicion: they must be alcoholics or have mental problems.

The average white Rhodesian led quite a down to earth lifestyle. Not many people had their own swimming pool, for instance, and most children went to government schools.  However, after Independence, the white population retreated inward and tried to cling to their own little enclaves. So many white people have left Zimbabwe in the last forty years, that the ones left here tend to be the ones who can maintain a certain lifestyle.  According to a friend of mine, a very cynical friend, we are now left with the dregs of the gene pool!  Besides those who either can't go because they do not have the right to a passport from a different country, or those who are too old or have family reasons why they can't leave, the ones left are the ones making money in unorthodox ways.

These are the ones who were not academics at school - they are wheeler-dealers, buyers and sellers, entrepreneurs, to use a word in current favour. They are the nouveau riche with their wrap-around sunglasses, hulking great 4x4s and designer wives.  They send their children to private schools and, whilst supportive of the sporting side, do not take well to their children being disciplined - mainly because it reminds them of when they were in trouble at school in an era in which the teacher reigned supreme. 

Few have a particular job.  If asked, they are into a bit of this and bit of that. Some of them have sold their souls and bankroll the government.  The old Rhodies with their long socks and veldskoens are more or less a thing of the past. The new Rhodie does not smoke; they are gym addicts and fad diet followers.  They don't go to the club anymore and drink at the bar, but they socialise at home around the braai with selected friends of the same ilk

I think I may have digressed a bit here, but at this point I am going to open it up to the floor. I am sorry if I have offended anyone of the wrap-around sunglass class, but you're welcome to fight back. I would appreciate any thoughts on the matter.