Abstract
This chapter examines the soft power of colonialism which I call Rhodesian discourse. The chapter interrogates the interplay between Rhodesian discourse and Zimbabwean theatre produced in colonial times with occasional reference to other forms of cultural production such as literature. Past and present Zimbabwean theatre established its identity in discursive negotiation and contestation with Rhodesian discourse. I ask what is/was Rhodesian discourse and how did it affect the field of theatre production? At independence, Rhodesian discourse was sidelined from the public sphere to give way to the dominant patriotic and socialist discourse. However, the former reconstituted itself in other forms such as neo-colonialism, and colonial mentality within Eurocentric theatre institutions such as the National Theatre Organisation (NTO).
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Notes
- 1.
Anthony Chennells (1996) first used the epithet Rhodesian discourse to refer to white Rhodesian myths about blacks. He investigated a number of novels written by white Rhodesians and saw common disparaging views about Zimbabwean blacks expressed through these works.
- 2.
The term power has various dimensions. When used to mean the exercise of force or control over individuals or particular social groups by dominant groups (Edgar and Sedgwick 2008), it tallies with rule. However, when legislative power is exercised to limit the behaviour of individuals, it is executed without coercion and in some instances with ‘justifiable force’ exercised within the limits of legality. The other dimension of power has little to do with coercion. Foucault defines power as imbedded in knowledge. Discourses of knowledge are in fact an expression and embodiment of power.
- 3.
The class nature of white Rhodesia began to change after the Second World War. European continentals, Afrikaners from South Africa, Jews and whites retreating from decolonisation in Asia and elsewhere in Africa, started pouring into Rhodesia and eventually outnumbered Britons by a third (see Alexander 2004). Class distinctions disappeared as being white was enough to have access to government and private capital.
- 4.
Between 1953 and 1963 Malawi (Nyasaland), Zambia (Northern Rhodesia) and Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia) became one country called the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland or the Central African Federation (CAF) under the premiership of Godfrey Huggins.
- 5.
Black discourse refers to counter-narratives created by blacks in the form of ideologies such as Ethiopianism (African syncretic Christian doctrines created by African independent churches), black power and nationalism, as well as orality in the form of songs, dances, myths, legends and cultural performances such as celebrations, rituals, drills and social drama.
- 6.
In 1900, for example, a global outbreak of bubonic plague reached Salisbury from Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. In 1902, rabies broke out in Matabeleland and was followed by typhoid fever in 1904. Syphilis also continued to be used to spread the panics until about 1929, when cures (salvarsan and penicillin) were discovered. In 1918 soldiers returning from the First World War brought back with them Spanish influenza which ‘within two weeks (…) spread throughout the territory’ (McCulloch 2000, p. 58). What is interesting is that for all these diseases, the white community blamed blacks for their spread. Rhodesians used bubonic plague to justify the first separation of blacks from whites by building the first black location (Harari, now Mbare). Spanish influenza led to the banning of black people from travelling by train, which later led to segregated travelling. White men had a fear of sex from black men (the black peril) and protected their women. Whether the issue was fear of disease or fear of black men, the components of fear were similar. The white body was at risk and the cause was the vice of black bodies because a racial boundary had been crossed. If the white family was at risk, then the solution was to draw ‘a cordon sanitaire between the white and black communities’ (McCulloch 2000, p. 83).
- 7.
All three of these Acts and their diverse strands were combined to form the Censorship and Entertainments Control Act of 1967.
- 8.
The Pearce Commission of 1972 was actually set up to find out the truth of this claim and the result was a survey which revealed an overwhelming ‘no’ to the claim.
- 9.
Of the twenty-nine novels and stories published in Shona and Ndebele, the Rhodesia Literature Bureau sponsored twenty-seven. The Bureau sponsored all four novels in English. Of the twelve books on the Shona language, customs and literature, the Rhodesia Literature Bureau sponsored five and two were textbooks. Of the sixteen handbooks on family, health and recreation, Rhodesia Literature Bureau sponsored eleven and two were textbooks. The Bureau sponsored the nine books on animal husbandry for Africans. All the others, in Shona and Ndebele, were religious (O’Callaghan 1977, p. 271).
- 10.
This privilege of white people continued well into the late 1990s, well after the lapse of the ten-year grace period. Robert Mugabe was knighted in 1994 by the British with the Order of the Knight of Bath. He got several honorary degrees, some of which have now been withdrawn, from American and British Universities (Michigan, Massachusetts and Edinburgh) as a sign of approval of his leadership.
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Ravengai, S. (2021). Colonial Zimbabwean Theatre, Cultural Production and the Interplay with Rhodesian Power and Discourse. In: Ravengai, S., Seda, O. (eds) Theatre from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe. Contemporary Performance InterActions. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74594-3_2
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