Storms Over Africa (29 page)

‘Just as you had taken the land from the Bushmen,' Richard interjected.

‘In those days, only the fittest survived,' Joseph justified his story. He looked back at Steve, ‘Now, to tell you about the Matabele I have to tell you about Shaka, or, to be more precise, one of his generals, Mzilikazi.' Richard heard Tshuma's distaste at the mention of the founder of the Matabele nation.

Unaware of the depth of historical hatred and distrust, Steve took a sip of her whisky, loving the sound of the unfamiliar names rolling off Joseph's tongue.

‘Shaka became chief of the Zulus by murdering one of his brothers who had been named chief. Shaka only lived another ten years before he himself was murdered by another brother, Dingane.' Joseph shook his head at the treachery of the Matabele. ‘In the years he was chief he completely reorganised the Zulu army and they were impossible to beat in any battle. He forbade marriage until a man reached forty which meant the men were committed to only one thing, war. He modified the assegai and he insisted his troops went barefoot to give them more mobility. He raided . . .'

‘Whoa, whoa,' Steve interrupted. ‘He modified what?'

‘The assegai.' Joseph looked surprised that she didn't know what it was. ‘It's a spear. Shaka altered it to make it more effective.'

‘How?'

‘He made the blade broader and shortened the handle. They still carried spears but, once the fighting got down to hand-to-hand range, the new weapon was much easier to use and much more useful than knives.'

‘Is it like a
panga
?'

Richard intervened. ‘It's nothing like a
panga
. It's a shorter, fatter version of the assegai. It's a stabbing weapon. The
panga
is more of a tool. Traditionally it's not used as a weapon, although these days anything goes.'

‘Thank you.' She turned to Joseph. ‘Sorry to interrupt but I wonder what gave him the idea?'

Joseph shrugged. Greg leaned forward. ‘I might be able to help you there, Steve. I believe Shaka got the idea from the British.'

‘The British! You're joking!'

Greg grinned. ‘Not at all. Think about it. Shaka and his army were no match for the bullets but, once the British were out of ammo, he believed he had a real chance. So what do the British do? They stick a bloody great sword on the end of their guns and go for the throat at a safe distance. Shaka was so impressed he immediately developed something similar. Basically he was after something
to combat the bayonets but he had such success against other tribes that the weapon became a part of the Zulu war kit.'

Joseph agreed. ‘By the time others copied the Zulus, they had become so good in battle no-one stood a chance. Shaka raided and conquered most of the land south of here.' He waved his arm towards the land across the river.

‘You mean that Shaka ruled the whole of what is now South Africa?' Steve asked.

‘South Africa, Swaziland, Botswana, Lesotho and Namibia,' Joseph told her. ‘He had fantastic success because he mustered all the clan's fighting men instead of having them split into groups and controlled by sub-chiefs. The only thing the Zulus couldn't beat were firearms, although they had some spectacular success against firearms, too. If you know your South African history, Steve, you might remember the story of Rorke's Drift.'

‘The Zulus had firearms themselves by then,' Richard pointed out.

‘Don't interrupt, Daddy.' Penny had never heard Joseph speak about the history of his people before.

‘If he's going to tell it, he might as well tell it like it was,' Richard grumbled.

Joseph ignored the interruption. ‘Mzilikazi was one of Shaka's top generals. The reason for this is probably that Mzilikazi's people had
joined forces with Shaka, rather than waiting to be conquered. Mzilikazi led his own regiment to a number of victories but his successes eventually went to his head. After one such victory he refused to send Shaka his share of some captured cattle. This was tantamount to treason. Shaka's reaction was swift and sharp and Mzilikazi's regiment was defeated. Mzilikazi himself fled with about 300 men. Before long though, he had recruited, either by defeat or by rhetoric, an army of over 5,000. He made his headquarters in the area now known as Pretoria and his people were known as the Matabele, which means “the people of long shields”.

‘He probably would have stayed in the Transvaal except the Boers were on the move from Cape Town. The inevitable happened, the Boers and the Matabele clashed and the Matabele were defeated. They fled north, into the land of the Monomatapa, my ancestors. Before long they were raiding us.'

‘And you'd been living in peace for rather a long time by then hadn't you?' Steve commented sympathetically. ‘That must have been hard for your people.'

‘We had enjoyed a peaceful existence for about 150 years and were no match for the battle-sharpened Matabele. They called us the Mashona—“the lost ones”—and to Mzilikazi, we were regarded as spear fodder.' Joseph sounded bitter.

‘You didn't take it lying down,' Greg knew his history as well as Joseph. ‘You were guilty of some pretty gruesome raids yourselves.'

‘It's true.' Joseph's glasses glinted in the firelight as he nodded. ‘We learned to fight back.'

‘What happened next?' Steve was fascinated by his tale. It was something quite outside her own experience.

‘Mzilikazi died when he was a very old man which is surprising since history tells us he was practically an alcoholic by then. According to Matabele lore, at the precise moment of his death lightning flashed out in an otherwise clear sky and a number of his people fell down dead.' Joseph sounded dubious about this event. ‘The Matabele people were without a king for a year. No-one wanted the job, it was considered to be dangerous. Eventually the elders named Lobengula as the new monarch.'

‘I've heard of him. Wasn't he the king who signed this country over to the English?'

Joseph nodded. ‘He was a weak fool,' he said contemptuously. ‘He was a son of Mzilikazi by a Swazi wife. He had not been groomed for the job, took it reluctantly and ruled badly. He might have got away with it but, by this time Cecil Rhodes was on the scene and, in 1888 Lobengula signed a treaty giving Britain undisputed leadership of this country.'

‘Why did he do that?' Steve asked.

‘Like I said, he was a fool. He believed,
because the British had told him, that a mere handful of white men would come and dig a hole somewhere out in the
bundu
and remove the gold they so desperately coveted. In return, the British gave him money, rifles and ammunition to increase his military power. They even gave him a gunboat. But, vain and stupid as Lobengula was, he soon realised he'd made a bad deal and repudiated the concession. By then, however, the rot had set in. The grip of Britain was too firm. Her Majesty's Government granted Rhodes a Royal Charter to control Lobengula's land. Lobengula himself was going the way of his father . . . he had gout and he was an alcoholic. The British came in and they stayed in. There were many skirmishes between the Matabele and the British, but in the end an uneasy truce was called and they learned to live side by side.'

‘What about the Mashona?' Steve asked.

‘They rebelled, just like the Matabele,' Richard said. ‘But they were already a conquered people. For some reason, most of our history concentrates on the Matabele.'

‘If that's so, and the Matabele were the warlike conquerors, how is it possible that the Shona are the ruling tribe now?' Steve queried.

‘It's simple,' Richard replied. ‘They are by far the bigger tribe.'

‘It's more complicated than that.' Joseph
took up his story again. ‘Most of Mugabe's followers are Shona, it's true. Robert Mugabe believed that war was the only way to win independence for this country, all else having failed. Joshua Nkomo continued to hope Britain would intervene. But the Matabele were traditionally warlike and some of them wanted war, and some of the Shona, who were basically a peaceful people, wanted dialogue. The old fanatic tribalism was put aside as people from each tribe switched allegiance according to their beliefs. Only one thing was constant, they all hated Ian Smith and white rule and they all wanted independence. No-one was helping. America had no comprehensive African policy. Henry Kissinger came up with a ten-point plan for majority rule, but this confused rather than clarified their position because of their refusal to back an armed struggle. South Africa didn't want to lose their “buffer zone”. Britain appeared to sit on the fence. They'd already lost Malawi and Botswana and it seemed they'd lost the will to rule, despite David Owens's desperate attempts to keep the Rhodesian issue alive in Whitehall. Joshua Nkomo steadily lost credibility by trying to be all things to all people. Bishop Muzorewa was seen as nothing more than a white man's stooge. Robert Mugabe saw the opportunity and took it.'

‘So, after all those centuries of tribal wars
and Matabele domination, Zimbabwe is ruled by Robert Mugabe because he was the better politician?' Steve shook her head. ‘That's fantastic. It almost makes a mockery of all the history that has gone before it.'

‘Only if you isolate Zimbabwe,' Joseph was backing off. History was one thing, talking about the present quite another. ‘If you look at the world you'll see similar happenings.'

‘Are you happy with the way things are now?' Steve was unaware of the special attention Greg was paying to the conversation.

‘Who, me? Or Zimbabweans as a whole?'

‘Both I guess.'

‘Nkomo's people aren't too happy, why would they be?' Joseph answered. ‘As for me, I suppose I'm happy enough.'

‘You don't sound too sure,' Steve said.

But Joseph had said all he was going to say. He shrugged. ‘We've got independence which is what we wanted.'

Encouraged by Joseph's openness she turned to Richard. ‘The war you fought was for Ian Smith who was against majority rule. He stated quite openly that there would never be majority rule in his lifetime. Why?'

‘We wanted white rule, not black,' Richard answered. ‘It was generally agreed that European rule was the only hope for this country. We had the experience and the technology to turn Rhodesia into a major force in Africa.'

‘I don't know how you justified it, Daddy,' Penny broke in. ‘There were four million Africans and only a quarter of a million whites living here before the war.'

‘I don't have to justify it,' Richard scowled at her. ‘Not even Britain was committed to the idea of majority rule.'

Steve, feeling she had opened a can of worms, tried to divert an argument between father and daughter. ‘How do you feel about it now?'

‘It's okay. Some things have changed but it's still a good life.' Richard was careful with his answer, not wanting to let her see how much he hated the new order.

Penny was not about to be distracted. ‘Britain was only concerned with her precious Commonwealth,' she told Steve. ‘She paid lip service to the ethical issue of majority rule but that was all. Britain was gambling with such rhetorical bullshit as African rule would drop living standards and cause economic havoc, against the promise that majority rule would take place as soon as the Africans were educated to acceptable white standards.'

Richard snorted. ‘Where do you get such rubbish?'

‘It isn't rubbish.' She was set for an argument. ‘Ian Smith never made a move without first consulting Britain, South Africa and the Portuguese in Mozambique. There was a nice
clubby atmosphere in southern Africa and he didn't want to spoil things for the whites.'

‘You're white,' Richard shouted at her, exasperated.

‘Sometimes, Daddy, that fact embarrasses me.'

‘Don't be such a bloody fool,' Richard snarled.

‘You're so damned smug about your whiteness you have no idea how it was for the Africans,' Penny grated. ‘When did you ever stick your lilywhite nose into one of the workers' huts? You went off to fight without having the faintest idea how these people really lived. All you were interested in doing was keeping your bwana lifestyle intact and to hell with the rest of the population.'

Richard lost his battle to remain calm for Steve's sake. His voice went soft and his eyes turned to steel. ‘For your information, Missy know-it-all, I went off to fight so I could help save this country from turning out like all the others in Africa that have gained independence. I poured blood and sweat into my land. I did it for your mother and me, then I did it for you and David and then I did it because I came to love this country. I'm as African as he is.' Richard stabbed his finger at Joseph. ‘I've as much right to a say in the running of things as he does.' His finger stabbed again. ‘I don't give a shit how unjust it was. It was unjust
because the Africans were incapable of running this country and, young lady, in my opinion, they still are.'

‘See what you're up against? This is the mentality that still exists.' Penny smiled up at Joseph who simply looked back at her. Fired up, she unwisely went on. ‘Freedom fighters were imprisoned simply because they disagreed with the Smith regime. Natural leaders who meant opposition to Smith were exiled. No-one held a position of authority. It was a case of “do what we say or suffer”. The Africans were deliberately held back. Their education was nowhere near as good as ours. They were discriminated against at every level, right down to the apportioning of land.'

‘How can you give land to a people who sit under a tree as soon as they've enough to eat themselves?' Richard raged. ‘It never occurred to them to produce more. They never considered the benefits of export or the wisdom of stockpiling to feed themselves in the event of a drought. Without minority rule, these people would still be sitting under their bloody trees.' Richard caught sight of Tshuma's face and stopped abruptly. The man was smiling. He stabbed his finger towards him again, this time just missing Joseph's arm. ‘Don't take this personally, I know there are many intelligent blacks who have the education to hold
office, but even you have to admit that the majority of blacks are still simple, rural people who, given the chance, would be living their lives as they did 150 years ago.'