Going Home - Doris May Lessing [48]
It is little appreciated what is involved in one of these mass movements. Land has to be provided to accommodate the Natives, and as prerequisite to the movement, the land has to be developed with roads, water supplies, village sites, dipping facilities and medical services…the preparations for movements have, at the dispatching end, entailed patient explanations to the Natives, and arrangements of minute precision regarding the timing and loadings with goods and families, of the Government and private motor vehicles engaged on the problem of transport. In some areas where approaches to Native kraals are limited it has been necessary to set up collecting areas or transit camps from which the Natives are collected by Organized Transport. Similar provision has to be made at the destination, so that all the Natives moved were subject to as little inconvenience as was possible in the circumstances. Most movements have been done during the period August to October, that is after crops have been reaped and before the onset of the rains, and in all respects maximum attention has been given to the human aspect. Thus it is that, although some opposition was experienced in some districts when movements were first organized, Natives moved from Crown lands and other areas have been in fact co-operating extremely well with the administration. It was often noticeable that the women were the first to put their shoulders to the wheel in assisting with the preparation of the household and domestic baggage. The remarks of the Native Commissioner, Gokwe, typify the attitude of the administrative official and the Native:
‘The never-ending movement of Natives to this district continues at high pressure. Administrative and field officers are fully extended to cope with the necessary developments of virgin areas to accommodate the annual movements. The tempo for settlement is such that we have neither staff nor finances to launch protective work which is so vital…the movement of some 1,500 people with 3,000 head of cattle was carried out without a hitch and was completed within approximately four weeks.’
[I would give a good deal to know what those three dots represent in the report of the Native Commissioner at Gokwe-Author.]
There has been the call for the utmost tact and consideration from the Native Commissioners concerned to ensure that these Natives settle down without rancour or bitterness towards the administration, who alone in their eyes are responsible for the upheaval. [Italics mine—Author.]
No major incidents have occurred; and the smooth running of these mass movements, unnoticed by the general public, redounds to the credit of the administrative officials.
This note of self-congratulation, almost self-commiseration, is typical of Government publications during this era. I suspect that at the bottom of their hearts the officials are sorry for themselves because the Africans are not grateful for being moved off their land with such tact and consideration.
Another interesting piece from the same Report: ‘October 1954 saw the completion of the first year of Federation, and the Native population for the most part have accepted the metamorphosis with complete indifference. There have been the usual vociferous few who have made the occasion one of maligning the motives of the Europeans, but this was only to have been expected from malcontents who in the aggregate live, not by an honest day’s work, but on what they can squeeze from a simple and credulous Native population who generally see, too late, hard-earned money passing into the pockets of thieves and rogues who filch it from them on the pretext of “taking legal advice or other suitable steps to safeguard the interests of the Natives”. Never once has a society or organization of this type published a statement detailing the manner in which donated funds have been spent, and experience has been that they shun any publicity on this aspect