Terence Ranger
New members of the Britain
Zimbabwe Society may not realise how long it has been established. It
is not a reaction to the current Zimbabwe crisis but was founded as
a response to Zimbabwe's independence in 1980. This year in fact marks
the Society's silver jubilee and 25 years of existence.
The Society was set up in
1981 on the model of the Britain Tanzania Society, still happily flourishing
today. The BTS was a model 'friendly' society, bringing together all
those interested in Tanzania's future, publishing a very informative
bulletin, arranging tours for its members and working with a Tanzanian
'chapter' to effect development projects. I was myself - as I still
am - a member of the BTS and for a brief time editor of its bulletin.
But then it became clear that information about Zimbabwe was flooding
across my desk rather than information about Tanzania; in 1980 I began
a Zimbabwe research project and was able to return to the country for
the first time since my deportation in 1963.
I concluded that what was
needed was a friendly society able to counter-act the propaganda against
Zimbabwe which was spewed out by the British right-wing press and to
provide accurate information about the new nation. In those innocent
days I went to Prime Minister Robert Mugabe and asked him whether he
thought such a society would be a good idea. 'Yes', he said - and fixing
me with a gimlet eye - 'but you are not to lead it. It must be led by
Guy Clutton-Brock.'
It was of course the ideal
choice. Guy enjoyed the confidence of every Zimbabwean, no matter what
their party. He had established the famous non-racial cooperatives at
St Faith's, Nyafaru and Cold Comfort Farm; he had been detained and
imprisoned with other African National Congress members during the 1959
emergency; in 1970 his citizenship had been taken away from him by Ian
Smith in order that he could be deported. So I drove out to North Wales
where Guy and Molly were living in their little shepherd's cottage.
Although he was 74 Guy agreed
to become President of the new society and remained so until ill health
forced his retirement. It was a very important symbolic office. Guy
was a hands-off President, regularly attending the AGM, but otherwise
not taking part in planning the Society's activities. But he was an
enormous source of moral authority and advice. I used to go out to see
him with this or that knotty problem - and some of them were indeed
knotty. Guy's constant advice was that one couldn't expect Zimbabwe
to be perfect after a hundred years of colonial capitalism. One had
to offer support for the long haul and invest in youth.
Some of the Society's great
events hinged on Guy - his 80th birthday party in 1987 and the compilation
of a fascinating book of reminiscences by his family and friends; the
memorial in 1996 service in St Martin's in the Fields after which Guy's
ashes were handed over to Robert Mugabe to be carried back to Heroes
Acre. In those days it seemed a real reason to celebrate that Guy should
have become, and has so far remained, the only white Hero.
Equally important to the
success of the Society in its early days was the fact that we managed
to persuade Professor Richard Gray to become its first Chair. In 1981
Richard was Professor of African History at the School of Oriental and
African Studies in London. He was the author of the first significant
academic study of the Rhodesias, TheTwo Nations, 1960, a book very much
before its time. At SOAS he had supervised or advised many Zimbabwean
doctoral students, among them Professor Ngwabi Bhebe, today Vice Chancellor
of the University of the Midlands, and Dr Stan Mudenge, today Minister
for Higher Education. If Guy Clutton-Brock represented a tradition of
social activism, Richard Gray represented a tradition of scholarly engagement
with Zimbabwe. Gray had a moral authority almost as great as Guy's,
possessing what an obituary last year called 'a singular quality of
gentleness and charm'. Richard was Chair of the Society until 1984,
when his research began to focus on the Vatican Archives and took him
away from southern Africa.
But it was under his guidance
that the Society grappled with the violence in Matabeleland and tried
to work out what its position should be. In the end we opted - like
almost all NGOs and church bodies - for private representations rather
than public condemnations. I wrote to my close friend Maurice Nyagumbo
protesting the violence of the 5 Brigade and got back a furious reply.
During this time David Caute was a member of the Society's executive.
He had a better idea than most of us what was going on in Matabeleland
and insisted that at the least the Society should distance itself from
the Zimbabwean regime. It was at this time that the executive passed
the resolution which has stood us in good stead ever since, namely that
the Society existed to represent the best interests of the people of
Zimbabwe as a whole and not of any particular government or party.
In the first years of the
Society I was based in Manchester where I remained until my appointment
to an Oxford Chair in 1987. Manchester was not the best base from which
to run a national Society but when Richard resigned as Chair I took
over in 1984. (Ultimately I took over as President from Guy).
When the Society was founded
there were not nearly so many Zimbabweans in Britain as there are now.
But some senior Zimbabweans - Edgar Moyo, Percy Murombe Chivero, Millius
Palawiya - were with the Society from the beginning. Asylum was not
then an urgent issue. From the beginning the Society was busy providing
news and information and in organising links. To begin with BZS circulated
to members the very useful newsletter which the late John Conradie edited
for the Zimbabwe Project. When that came to an end I compiled for many
years a digest of news from the Zimbabwean press. (Our email news service
is a much more recent development). There were regular meetings in London;
branch meetings in Manchester.
Gradually the present pattern
of BZS activities developed. I organised the first Research Day in London
in 1986 bringing together researchers on Zimbabwe for a shared report
on what work was going on where. As reports were made I stuck pins in
map - it soon became clear that two thirds of research was going on
in Manicaland and nothing at all in Matabeleland, a position now happily
more balanced. At that first meeting there was no theme, just all researchers
of any kind, but since then Research Days (now always held in Oxford)
have become much more narrowly defined. In their twentieth year, however,
they still fulfil their function of creating a Zimbabwean research community.
No other African country, it is fair to say, has enjoyed such an institution.
The sporadic meetings in
London gave way to annual day schools organised by a team led by Margaret
Ling, focussing on community links, town twinning and wide participation,
including children. These covered a wide range of topics and involved
many activists interested in Zimbabwe though not members of the Society.
More recently, of course,
BZS has worked closely with newer Zimbabweanist organisations, like
the Zimbabwe Association. BZS has set up a panel of academic experts
on Zimbabwe who can comment in asylum cases. It is seeking to relate
much more intensively with the new Zimbabwean diaspora. I like to think
that Guy Clutton-Brock and Richard Gray, who died on 7 August 2005,
would both be pleased that the Society has survived and renewed itself
over 25 years. Our current Chair, Diana Jeater, was recruited to the
Society by Richard Gray, a nice emblem of continuity and Molly Clutton-Brock
at 94 still receives and reads the Society's publications.
*The Society's papers are
deposited at Rhodes House in Oxford for anyone who would like to write
a longer history.
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