Has The Sun Set On Zimbabwe? A Review of Peter Godwin’s When A Crocodile Eats The Sun

 by Aaron Goldstein  

| View comments |  Print This Post

Robert Mugabe’s status as an African icon is just one of the many frustrations faced by Peter Godwin in his 2006 book When A Crocodile Eats The Sun.

When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa
by Peter Godwin
Published by Little, Brown and Company (April 17, 2007)
Hdbk., 352 pgs.
ISBN-10: 0316158941
ISBN-13: 978-0316158947

Zimbabwe is a country for which I have long held an affinity although I have never set foot in it. The reason for this affinity can be found in one man. His name is Moffat Makuto.

I first met Moffat in 1990 when I still lived in Thunder Bay, Ontario and he became something of a mentor to me. He served as the Executive Director of the Regional Multicultural Youth Council (RMYC), a position he still holds today albeit in a voluntary capacity. I worked for Moffat during the summers of 1991 and 1992. Even after I moved to Ottawa to attend Carleton University, I occasionally did some contractual work for them.  This would generally consist of appearing in front of various provincial legislative committees on their behalf and making presentations on matters concerning job training as well as employment equity (a Canadian term for affirmative action).

Now I know multiculturalism is anathema to most conservatives but Moffat always embodied multiculturalism at its best. To be sure, the RMYC spoke out against racism, discrimination and bigotry but Moffat always ensured we were never consumed by anger. Moffat was not one to put down Western culture. If you put down Western culture why come to live in Canada in the first place? Moffat has strived to have young people become a productive part of society, not to be alienated from it. Moffat has always believed that multiculturalism is about many cultures working together. They have demonstrated this through their activities with Aboriginal youth. Through Moffat’s efforts and the youth he has guided, the RMYC has gained the trust of local Aboriginal leaders who might ordinarily be leery of the agendas and intentions of non-Aboriginal organizations. Moffat has always defined multiculturalism through the development of leadership skills, volunteerism and entrepreneurial initiative.

At one time, the RMYC received much of its funding from government grants. But as time went on those grants were fewer and far between. The RMYC then increasingly relied on its own fundraising efforts, primarily through charity bingos. However, when a casino opened its doors in Thunder Bay a few years ago that source of revenue dried up too. Undeterred, Moffat and RMYC members pooled enough money to purchase a local Chinese restaurant frequented by RMYC members. Today, the restaurant serves as the RMYC’s principal source of income. Consequently, the RMYC is less constrained by government to speak out on issues affecting the young people in the community and has fewer bureaucratic and regulatory restraints on its creativity.

There is little doubt that Moffat’s approach to multiculturalism and race relations stems from his formative years growing up in Zimbabwe or as it was known then, Rhodesia. Although Rhodesia was considered the breadbasket of Africa under the rule of Ian Smith, blacks were excluded from participating in public life.  When Smith unilaterally declared independence from Britain in 1965, he maintained white minority rule against the wishes of the British, who wanted Rhodesia ruled by the black majority. Moffat would partake in the Rhodesian Civil War before emigrating to Canada in the mid-1970’s. Because of the violence, Moffat has not returned to Zimbabwe in nearly fifteen years.

It is hard to believe it but when Robert Mugabe came to power in 1980 and the country was renamed Zimbabwe there was much optimism. The majority now had an opportunity to determine its own destiny.  Mugabe initially fostered racial reconciliation and encouraged white land owners to stay. Shortly after independence, Moffat returned to Zimbabwe to work for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). During this time, Moffat asked to be paid in Zimbabwean dollars which at that time was on par with the British pound. In August 2007, one quid would get you about $511 Zimbabwean dollars. Of course, who knows what the exchange rate will be next month. But with inflation estimated at anywhere between 4,500% and 9,000% (possibly much higher) and the government printing money as if it were newsprint, the days when one wanted to be paid in Zimbabwean dollars are long, long gone.  

Although thousands of Zimbabweans have fled to seek refugee status in South Africa, Botswana, Zambia and Mozambique, the leaders of those countries are reluctant to criticize Mugabe as he still retains his status as a liberator of black Africans from white, European colonialism. Indeed, when the 14-member Southern African Development Community met in Zambia earlier this month, Mugabe was greeted with a standing ovation.

Mugabe’s status as an African icon is one of the many frustrations faced by Peter Godwin in his 2006 book When A Crocodile Eats The Sun. I decided to read it after a very strong recommendation from my mother.  Godwin, a white native of Zimbabwe, is a freelance journalist now living in New York with his wife and two sons. The book traces the last decade of his father George’s life. As his father’s health deteriorates so does Zimbabwe for whites and blacks alike. Unfortunately for Godwin his father does not outlive either Mugabe or his tyranny.

When A Crocodile Eats The Sun might be the most heartbreaking book I have ever read. In 2000, Mugabe began redistributing the land of white farmers. But instead of it going to ordinary peasants or war veterans who fought in the Rhodesian Civil War, it largely went to Mugabe’s cronies in the ZANU-PF (Zimbabwean African National Union-Patriotic Front) and without compensation to the landowners.   Imagine yourself in your home and suddenly a group of people show up at your door and tell you that your home is now theirs and that if you don’t acquiesce you will be severely beaten or killed. Of course, if this were to happen in the United States or Canada one would call the police. However, in Zimbabwe, when this lawlessness is sanctioned by the government, what can one do?   

Godwin’s parents are not farmers. His father, George, is a retired engineer and his mother, Helen, is a doctor still working despite her own maladies. Yet they too are not immune from intrusions on their property. For many years, the Godwins employed a black maid named Mavis until she could work no more due to her own poor health. The Godwins provided her with a generous pension. Or so they thought. One day Mavis returned with two large black men demanding the Godwins pay Mavis a “retrenchment package.” George Godwin then supplied the men with financial statements going back more than a quarter century proving they have not treated Mavis unjustly. The men, however, demand to go to the local police station, to which George agrees much to Helen’s consternation. The constable refers the parties to the Ministry of Labor. The following day, George goes to the Ministry of Labor to wait nearly the entire day before getting to meet with an official. George shows his extensive documentation and the official concurs that he has treated Mavis fairly and gives George her stamp of approval. 

But when Mavis returned with the two men, the stamp of the Ministry of Labor meant nothing to them.   One of the men told George, “We decide, not the ministry. We are the ultimate authority.” It is becoming clear that they are not on the Godwin’s property to be reasoned with but rather to be rewarded. This is a shakedown:

“You have been wasting our time,” says the less big of the two men, though he still looms above my father. “And now we have run out of patience.”

“It is time for you just to pay us,” says the bigger man, his voice rising.

“Yes, pay your maid,” corrects the less big one. “It is too dangerous to make us angry.”

“We know where you live,” says the bigger one, unnecessarily. He starts jabbing Dad in the V of his farmer’s tan. “We will come and get you. Do you understand?”

And finally, Dad does understand. He understands that this is extortion. My father, who has never given a bribe in his life, for whom bribery is anathema, who believes that the bribe giver is just as morally corrupt as the bribe taker, realizes that he now has no option but to pay them. So he goes to the bank and comes back with a dozen bricks of Zimbabwe dollars. But even then, he insists on giving it to Mavis – and getting a receipt. She lowers the car window, scribbles her initials on Dad’s invoice book, and he hands her the money, which she quickly gives to the bigger man. He counts out the bricks, takes half of them, and hands the other half back to her. And suddenly, all jovial at his hoard, he comes over and tries to shake Dad’s hand, as though they have just finished a legitimate business transaction. My father just shakes his head in disgust. “You are nothing but a thief,” Dad says, and the man looks at him like thunder.

Helen then admonishes Mavis for her lack of gratitude. Mavis breaks down and admitted her nieces made her do it. A few months later, Mavis dies after having stopped taking pills Helen prescribed to her for hypertension. 

This was far from the only indignity suffered by the Godwins. During a visit in the spring of 2001, Peter notices his father’s left eye is swollen shut, there are bruises on his face and left arm and his glasses have been destroyed. As it turns out, George was attacked on his property by a gang of eight black men who knock him to the ground and begin stomping on him. The men take his wallet and his car. George suspects his attackers were off-duty soldiers and that this seemed routine to them. While he reported the incident to the police naturally nothing was done.  

In the wake of his father’s beating, Peter finds out that things are not what they seem. As far as he knows, George Godwin was a Brit with a stiff upper lip who sought opportunity in the African colonies after the Second World War. But as it turns out George Godwin is really Kazimierz Jerzy Goldfarb, a Polish Jew, who at the tender age of 15 was sent to England by his father three months before Hitler invaded.  Better known as Kazio, he goes on to fight in the First Polish Armored Division under the command of the British Royal Army and sees combat in France during the Battle of Normandy in 1944. The First Polish Armored Division would also make Allied contributions in Belgium and Holland. But after V-E Day, Stalin sees to it that Poland has a Communist government and that government is recognized by Britain, leaving the Polish government in exile and the First Polish Armored Division in disdain and disrepute.   Kazio could never return to Poland. Still, Kazio’s fate was better than that of his mother and sister who were taken off a Warsaw street and sent to their deaths at Treblinka. Shortly thereafter Kazio Goldfarb becomes George Godwin and then meets Helen Rose while attending Medway Polytechnic in Kent. They are married several years later, despite the objections of Helen’s mother on the count of George being Jewish. Needless to say this puts Kazio’s new life in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe as George Godwin in a whole new light:

For him, Africa is clearly the antidote to Europe’s great burden of history, the blood feuds and the destruction, the prejudices and the pogroms and the Holocaust. It is a place where he can wipe his memory of past hurt and start again. It is the final phase of establishing his new identity. Once he arrives he breaks off all contact with the past.

Yet by the finals years of his life, George Godwin’s past has come back. Africa, too, has greats burdens of history, blood feuds, destructions, prejudices and pogrom, and lest we forget genocide in Rwanda and Sudan. Zimbabwe has been overrun by AIDS, food shortages and economic catastrophe facilitated by government corruption and nepotism, intimidation and violence. Life expectancy has fallen nearly in half to 37 for men and 34 for women. I will be 35-years-old next month. I would be an old man in Zimbabwe.

When A Crocodile Eats The Sun is full of sadness and is sometimes very difficult to read without wanting to lash out in anger. But it also demonstrates the resilience of the people of Zimbabwe. While many have left for greener pastures, many are determined to stay and make something from nothingness. There are occasional moments of merriment and fleeting glimpses of Zimbabwe’s natural beauty. When George Godwin dies in early 2004, Peter urges his mother to leave Zimbabwe. She can join him in New York or live with his sister Georgina, who lives in London broadcasting for Radio Africa. But Helen Godwin is undeterred. After Peter remonstrates the need for her to leave Zimbabwe she replies by advising Peter to read Rudyard Kipling’s poem The Roman Centurion’s Song (Roman Occupation of Britain, A.D. 300).  Here is the last stanza:

Legate, I come to you in tears – My cohort ordered home
I’ve served in Britain forty years. What should I do in Rome?
Here is my heart, my soul, my mind – the only life I know,
I cannot leave it all behind. Command me not to go!

Helen Godwin is not alone. Be they black or white, Zimbabwe is still home for better or for worse. They pray for the day that Robert Mugabe is no longer their President. Of course, Mugabe recently said he wanted to serve as President until he is 100. That would be 2024. However, both presidential and parliamentary elections are scheduled for next year. In the unlikely event Mugabe is defeated at the polls and in the even unlikelier event that Mugabe abides by those results, or even if Mugabe were to suddenly die there is no quick fix for Zimbabwe. Let us assume for a moment that Morgan Tsvangirai, one of the leaders of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), becomes President. Mugabe might be gone but the AIDS, hyperinflation and food shortages won’t be. Who can say that the MDC won’t be subject to the same corruption and cronyism as ZANU-PF? What happens if there is a power struggle between Tsvangirai and rival MDC leader Arthur Mutambara? Will there be more bloodshed? What about reprisals against ZANU-PF members by the MDC? In Africa, one must also consider tribal rivalries. In the mid-1980’s Mugabe’s Fifth Brigade, trained in North Korea, massacred 20,000 members of the Ndebele-speaking tribe. Mugabe is from the majority Shona-speaking tribe. Would an MDC-led government see to it that Mugabe hangs for having the Ndebele murdered as Saddam Hussein did for ordering the 1982 massacre of Shiite villagers in Dujail? Or would there be a South Africa-like “truth and reconciliation commission,” led perhaps by the like of Pius Ncube, a prominent Catholic Archbishop, and Ndebele, who is an outspoken critic of Mugabe? Think of Ncube as Zimbabwe’s version of Desmond Tutu, only without the anti-Semitism. Perhaps such a process would see Mugabe live out his days in South Africa, much like Ian Smith, who at the age of 88 is living in Cape Town.

Despite the AIDS, hyperinflation, food shortages, political violence and diminished life expectancy that reign in the nasty, brutish and short order of Zimbabwe, Moffat Makuto is optimistic about his native country’s future. Moffat believes Zimbabweans to be hard-working and eager to rebuild their country.   While he acknowledges there will inevitably be pockets of violence in a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe, Moffat believes the ethos of hard work will win the day. “At the end of the day people still have to eat, still have to go to school and things still have to happen,” Moffat told me toward the end of our phone conversation. There will be challenges, of course. Given the near worthlessness of the Zimbabwean dollar and the lack of indigenous capital, the people of Zimbabwe know they need foreign investment. Moffat believes that Zimbabweans know they will not get foreign investment if they occupy their time seeking revenge and destruction instead of stability and rebuilding.

Peter Godwin tells us that when solar eclipses happen in Zimbabwe many believe that the celestial crocodile has eaten the sun and is not pleased with what is happening below. However, if Moffat Makuto is correct about Zimbabweans wanting to rebuild their country, perhaps the sun will one day slowly rise again over the mountains of Chimanimani.

When A Crocodile Eats The Sun is available on Amazon.com.

Book Reviews, Foreign Affairs, National Defense

Read more articles by Aaron Goldstein