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/ARTS WEEKLY/FILM: Long Ago is Today in Zimbabwe Political Tales

Gabriel Packard

NEW YORK, Apr 1 2003 (IPS) - According to a Zimbabwean proverb, Long ago did not live long ago.

The saying means, of course, that the past is not very far away or that the past is with us in the present, and for Zimbabwe this proverb is as true now as it ever was.

Two documentary films being shown back-to-back at the 10th annual New York African Film Festival this month examine a key moment in the country’s recent past, one that might affect Zimbabwe’s people more now than when it occurred – the 2002 election in which Robert Mugabe was re-elected as president but condemned by the international community for using unfair tactics.

The election has been widely reported on, but what sets these films apart is the range of perspectives they offer. ‘My Land, My Life’ and ‘Zimbabwe 2002’ both assemble a collage of viewpoints from a range of Zimbabweans, perspectives that are rarely heard outside the country.

The films show black as well as white commercial farm owners, an educated middle-class Zimbabwean family, the leader of the opposition party and a napalm-scarred veteran of Zimbabwe’s struggle for independence from Britain in the 1960s.

They focus on the 2002 election, which led to Zimbabwe being suspended from the Commonwealth – a move recently extended – because of malpractices by Mugabe’s people and also contributed to the civil unrest now boiling over in the country. The films also examine the president’s controversial land reform program, which is now being blamed for a severe food shortage in Zimbabwe.

Director Rehad Desai centres ‘My Land, My Life’ around a white-owned farm that in January 2002 was occupied by war veterans. For three months leading up to the September 2002 election, and for a short time afterward, he looks at the fate of the farm and of Zimbabwe from three very different but closely connected viewpoints.

The three corners of the triangle are Onias Kiliwane, a veteran who fought for Zimbabwe’s liberation from colonial Britain in the 1960s and who has occupied Hilton Farm and forced the owners to stop farming; white farm-owner Mick Rose and his wife Fred, who are unable to farm; and Big Boy Musa, a Hilton Farm tobacco grader who is prevented from working by Kiliwane.

"I decided to try to keep the story as simple as possible," said Desai. ”(I) chose characters that had a degree of complexity, or in the case of Big Boy (had) ambiguity and difficulty of where he sits in terms of the conflict."

Desai, a black South African who was exiled in England and later Zimbabwe, works with a light touch, making many of his points implicitly by placing different viewpoints next to each other. For example, Kiliwane, the veteran, talks about the colonial mentality instilled in many black Zimbabweans that makes them respect and obey white farm owners. In the next scene is Big Boy, who says, "the farmer is like a father – if you are sick, he takes you to the hospital”.

The contrasts within the film is accentuated by the contrasts between the two movies, which are shown together. The overall effect is a more three-dimensional picture of Zimbabwean society. The device is most striking in a comparison of Fred and Mike Rose, the white farm-owners in ‘My Land My Life’, with a black farm worker and a black farm owner in ‘Zimbabwe 2002’.

The white farm-owners in the former film stress that they belong on the farm: "My grandfather bought this land," says Fred. "This is our home – we have no other place to be. And now we are not welcome in our own country."

But in ‘Zimbabwe 2002’ an out of work black tobacco farm worker recalls, "When I was in farm school we used to go to visit farms, and the white owners would say, ‘in 1875 my family bought this farm’ – but who the f**k did they buy it from?"

The contrast in opinions speaks for itself and is much more powerful than a voice-over telling the viewer how to interpret the comments.

Another contrast reveals more of the complexity of Zimbabwean society. In one scene, Fred Rose says that although subsistence farming is useful in some places, it is bad for Zimbabwe because it will not feed the people or produce enough crops to export.

As a white farm-owner she has a vested interest in protecting her own farms, and her opinion might be seen as biased. But when a black farm-owner gives the same opinion in ‘Zimbabwe 2002’, it substantiates Fred’s claim. Or, read a different way, it signals that the real division here might not be between white and black, but rather between those with land and those without.

This is certainly the benefit of watching these films together – the contrasting viewpoints are largely left to speak for themselves.

The Film Festival will offer some interpretation, though. ‘Zimbabwe 2002’ director Ferai Sevenzo, a native Zimbabwean, will introduce his film.

The 10th New York African Film Festival runs from Apr. 5-19.