Where the problem lies

A posthumous conversation with Dambudzo Marechera
In 1978, Dambudzo Marechera heckled Robert Mugabe when he addressed his nationalist compatriots at the Africa Centre in London. He had already seen troubles ahead. His award-winning novel, The House of Hunger, had just been published. In this imaginary conversation, Tinashe Mushakavanhu finds out what kind of society Marechera would have envisioned before and after the 2008 elections?  
Q. Where does the problem lie in Zimbabwe? Who is to blame for the crisis in Zimbabwe today?
A. We in Zimbabwe know who the enemy is. The enemy is just not white, he is also black. The police force, the army in Zimbabwe are three-quarters black. They have always been. And for me…I believe that to see the Zimbabwe struggle as merely a black versus white struggle is stupid and naïve. And hence, in most of my work, there’s always a mistrust of politicians, no matter who they are.
Q. What is the actual state of affairs in Zimbabwe?
A. The rich are getting more powerful and richer and the poor are getting poorer. Any writer worth his name cannot write about that, the publishers are afraid of Government attitude towards anything they publish which may not be considered patriotic.
Q. What is your opinion on the present leadership?
A. This is a weird world of mechanical speeches; lullabying the povo with mobile horizon promises. They are quick to mend legislation; so the world is what they make it for us who are passive, we who they shamelessly claim to have liberated from the white man. With that as their pretext, they weigh their grievous lot on us day in day out. All we hear are empty slogans.
In the past three decades, the ballot has failed to effect political change.  
Q. Is it better for Zimbabweans, like Kenyans, to resort to violence?
A. I am against everything, against war and those against war, against whatever diminishes the individual’s blind impulse.
Q. What is your comment on the historical domination of Zanu (PF) in post-independence Zimbabwe?
A. I am afraid of one-party states, especially where you have more slogans than content in terms of policy and its implementation. I have never lived under a one-party state, except under pre-independence Zimbabwe, Ian Smith’s Rhodesia, which was virtually a one-party state. And what I read about one-party states makes me, frankly, terrified.
Q. Twenty-eight years later, do you think independence is a reality for the majority, or just an illusion?
A. I think some things have been improved. But basically our revolution has only changed life for the new black middle class, those who got university degrees overseas during the struggle. For them, independence is a reality; it has changed their income, their housing conditions and so on and so on. But for the working classes and the peasants, it’s still the same hard work, low pay, rough conditions of living. In other words, I don’t think independence so far has really made any significant change as far as the working class are concerned.
Q. The economic madness in Zimbabwe has driven many people out of the country, though in your own case what drove you out of the country was the political madness of the time. Tell me, when you came back after years of exile in Britain, what kind of country did you expect after independence?
A. The only idea I had of what to expect was what I had been reading in the British press about the struggle here and about what was going on in Uganda, about the military coups in Nigeria and so on and so on. In other words, the idea that our own independence would be another disaster had been instilled in me very much. The first time I heard the Prime Ministers motorcade, and there were suddenly all these sirens going, “whee, whee, whee”, I thought, “shit, another civil war has started.” And I rushed to my hotel room and just locked the door, listening hard, waiting for the gunfire. Some people here call the motorcade ‘Bob and his Wailers, after Bob Marley.
All responses by Dambudzo Marechera were extracted from Dambudzo Marechera: A Source Book of his Life & Times