Back in Zimbabwe many years ago, I argued with one youth who couldn’t understand the source of my bitter disappointment with the Mugabe regime, whose reign he and his peers revered, especially for their ‘revolutionary’ and anti-imperialist rhetoric, It later dawned on me that in his short life, the young man knew of no other government body other than the current and hence, the way they managed the country could not be any better, given the debilitating machinations of the British-inspired sanctions on the beleaguered nation, he would hasten to add. Even my own son living here in the United States displays a loyalty to the Motherland that I could never match; donning his car with stickers of the Zimbabwean flag as well adding ZW in our national colors next to the number plates. I would never go that far in identifying myself with Zimbabwe because somehow the insignia represent the Party more than the country, thanks to repeated sloganeering and regalia worn at political rallies.
As a baby boomer, I witnessed the Zimbabwean revolution from the early struggles of the guerilla war through to majority rule and independence in 1980 that ushered in the initial years of plenty up until the late 90’s when Mugabe lost the plot and abandoned all pretense to democracy. My book encapsulates this era in its entirety as I track my own life story right up to my naturalization as a fully fledged American citizen, this despite President Trump’s reluctance to accept immigrants from ‘shit-hole’ countries.
The timing of the publication of my book coincided with the Trump administration’s assault on political correctness in general, nurtured by an almost racist denunciation of the doctrine of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. I therefore missed the boat that deliberately promoted minority cultures as many institutions abandoned liberal practices that gave space to my kind of writing. It is interesting that President Trump does not miss opportunities to brag about the black vote that helped catapult him to the White House while at the same time his Administration is leaving no stone unturned to wipe out any affirmative action for mostly black and brown Americans.
With the advent of Trump and his brand of politics, I have had some interesting exchanges on the golf course when team members enquire about my origins as betrayed by my foreign accent. The conversations usually progress to a point where I admit that indeed, I fled the bad governance of the country of my birth for the celebrated American dream though I am dumbfounded that the politics espoused by the White House now appear similar to some of the dictatorial tendencies back home. While those of a liberal perspective find such analogy funny but entirely true, those who don’t mind the current political trends in the land of the free, find my retorts uncharitable and inadvertently change the topic or just stop indulging in any more idle talk with me.
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