oil and water

When most people think of the Rhodesian culture, they seem to conjure up an image of south african apartheid mingled with southern (US) slavery systems. Thus their views of whites who lived there during the Rhodesian era is really a projection of themselves and their own pasts, plus something scandalous (and objectively wrong) that they saw on a media broadcast. What happened on the Rhodesian periphery, with the war that was being fought, was the real barbarism, which was not observable within the suburbs most of the time. (In my whole formative years, I never saw anything like the barbarity I saw in the Western workplace during just one day.)

The realities of this culture were quite different. If you want a rather humorous depiction of what my parents' generation was like, watch War of the Worlds. There you can see the 1950s gender roles and humble scientism in action. That wasn't really what it was like, but it is a better (for more accurate) picture of how things really were than the Jack-booted nazism that automatically comes to most people's minds (another Western projection).

My own generation were different again, for those of my parents' generation. We generally had a healthy anti-authoritarianism about us that was most often expressed by playing practical jokes behind various adults' and teachers' backs. We also accepted a certain amount of authority and discipline, because we had to. Most of us embraced the great outdoors and played some sports.

Zimbabwean culture today has much of the legacy of the Rhodesia of yesteryear about it. There may not be much of a liberal individualism about it -- at least not yet -- but there is a certain strain of libertarianism that pertains both to the frontier mentality of the white settlers as well as to the irreverent humour and culture of toleration of the black populace. (And those -- black or white -- who have lived in Zimbabwe for a while will show both strains of culture, no matter what their skin colour.)

Zimbabwean authoritarianism and Zimbabwean libertarianism live along together, oil and water, mixing freely. The members of society and society as a whole are neither one thing nor the other, and to see only one aspect is to oversimplify to the point of totally misunderstanding.

I am a mixture of both the Zimbabwean cultural strains -- for I believe in the discipline that comes from recognition of authority (especially female authority)and its libertarian aspects (the right to dissent whenever the group's feelings do not coincide with my morality. Those who see me in only one aspect make a grave error, because I can very easily turn to show the other aspect -- and, usually have done so.