The Simultaneity of Past and Present in Ian Douglas Smith's The Great Betrayal: The Memoirs of Ian Douglas Smith (1997)

ABSTRACT

This article proposes a reading of white Zimbabwean narratives that takes cognisance of how the Rhodesian past and the Zimbabwean present inhabit shared time and place. This reading suggests that white Zimbabwean narratives are characterised by simultaneity. In these texts it can be seen that the (Rhodesian) past and the (Zimbabwean) present appear incommensurate but nevertheless coeval. Using Ian Smith's The Great Betrayal: The Memoirs of Ian Douglas Smith (hereafter referred to as The Great Betrayal), I argue that in Zimbabwe, like in other former colonies, the colonial past exists alongside the post-colonial present despite persistent calls by the new post-colonial governments for former colonisers to forget. In Smith's The Great Betrayal, the past inhabits the present in three forms: as an endurance of the founding principles of British Empire; as an indictment of the Zimbabwean present; and as a strategic emplacement of white Rhodesians within a new Zimbabwe.

KEYWORDS:

• Simultaneity
• white Zimbabwean
• autobiography
• Rhodesia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Cuthbeth Tagwirei is a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of English, University of Johannesburg. His research interests include the ‘behaviours’ of literary and cultural systems, questions of canonicity and white African writing. He has published in journals such as Journal of Literary Studies, Critical Arts: A Journal of South-North Cultural Media, Children’s Literature in Education, Latin American Report and The Journal of Commonwealth Literature.

Notes

1. Mugabe, Prime Minister Elect, Address to the Nation, Zimbabwe Department of Information, 4 March 1980.

2. For a detailed discussion of how the concept of nationhood is contested in black Zimbabwean narratives one can read Javangwe (2013).

3. Uusihakala uses the term ‘ex-Rhodesians’ to designate whites who have left Zimbabwe for other countries in acknowledgement of the reality that with Zimbabwe's independence in 1980 Rhodesia as a political entity is dead. When they leave Zimbabwe, Rhodesia as a way of life also becomes history but they continue to collectively reminisce about it as ‘homeland.’

4. Javangwe argues that Smith's use of ‘colonialist’ with regard to ZANU PF is meant ‘to invoke ideological nuances of the meaning of colonialism’ (34). Such a strategy entrenches settler claims to nativity and challenges ZANU PF's legitimacy.