Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0422/04225.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 31KB | 477 lines

$Unique_ID{COW04225}
$Pretitle{371}
$Title{Zimbabwe
Chapter 2B.   Ethnicity and Race}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Irving Kaplan}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{shona
africans
whites
percent
europeans
ndebele
political
zimbabwe
social
speakers}
$Date{1982}
$Log{}
Country:     Zimbabwe
Book:        Zimbabwe, A Country Study
Author:      Irving Kaplan
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1982

Chapter 2B.   Ethnicity and Race

     Independence reordered relations between Africans and Europeans in
Zimbabwe and provided a new context for the interaction of the two major
African peoples: the Shona and the Ndebele. It was also likely to make a
difference in the significance of groupings within the preponderant Shona
population.

     Until 1980 Europeans were politically and economically dominant. They
controlled the allocation of resources and benefits and had anchored their
status and privileges in the political and legal systems. Except for a few
individuals, Europeans were socially isolated from Africans, who related to
them mainly as representatives of government authority or as employers and to
a lesser extent as missionaries or teachers. In other contexts, such as the
marketplace or the clinic or hospital, relations between blacks and whites
were ephemeral and impersonal. In all of these situations Africans' deference
to Europeans was required. Independence ended European political dominance.

     In 1982 the remaining whites were still at the high end of the income
scale, and many were still in a position to control economic enterprises of
some significance. But they were operating in a society that regarded the
Europeans' place in the economy not as an end in itself but as a convenient
and perhaps temporary means to other ends. The end of European political
dominance, especially after a bitter war, did not bring with it an easy shift
to a more egalitarian mode of social relations between Europeans and Africans.
With some exceptions Europeans remained isolated, and many sought to maintain
an educational and health care system that reinforced the isolation. Some
whites seemed to assume that they were entitled to the same kind of deference
to which they had become accustomed. Some Africans by contrast felt free to
express feelings ranging from indifference to hostility. Adaptation to a new
order and forbearance in the first two years of independence were not easily
achieved.

     In the long run the most important issue has been-and will continue to
be-the extent to which ethnicity serves as a basis for division between
Zimbabwe's two most important African peoples. The distinction between Shona
and Ndebele has been said to account for political alignments in modern
nationalist movements and to limit easy social relations between people of
each category. In fact the situation has seldom been so clear-cut. Ndebele
defeat and domination of sections of the Shona not long before colonial rule
was imposed left its residue of bitterness among the Shona and perhaps a sense
of superiority among some Ndebele. But many Shona never experienced either
conflict with the Ndebele or dominance by them, and the Shona did not at the
time see themselves as one people, i.e., the experience of some sections was
not regarded as the experience of all Shona. Moreover many of the modern
leaders stemming from both groups have considered the ethnic difference
irrelevant, although their followers often have not. In social matters
different regional distribution and differences of language rather than
antipathy have accounted for most social separateness.

     In 1982 the sheer size of the Shona-more than 5 million people-and the
fact that any acquired sense of unity was relatively recent suggested that
sectionalism within the Shona might be more significant for social and
political cohesion in Zimbabwe than the Ndebele-Shona division. Differences of
dialect, culture, and region that could be used to signal ethnic boundaries
already existed and sometimes came into play in political and social
relations. But in so large and varied a people, other cleavages, e.g., those
of social class and religion or between urban and rural dwellers, might
override ethnicity (see The Changing Social Order; Religious Life, this ch.).

Ethnic and Racial Groupings

     Of the two major African ethnolinguistic categories, Shona speakers, by
far the larger, occupied most of the eastern two-thirds of the country and
substantial sections of the western one-third (see fig. 13). According to the
1969 census, they constituted more than two-thirds (66.9 percent) of the
total population and nearly 71 percent of all Africans. Given the departure of
many whites and some nonindigenous Africans (7.5 percent of the population in
1969), it was likely that in 1982 Shona speakers made up 70 percent or more
(about 5.3 million people) of the total Zimbabwean population and perhaps 75
percent of all Africans. Ndebele speakers constituted 14.8 percent of the
total in 1969 and 15.8 percent of the African population. Their proportion of
the total may have risen to as much as 16 percent (about 1.2 million people)
by 1982. None of the half-dozen or so other indigenous groups-all living along
Zimbabwe's borders and more heavily represented in neighboring countries-came
to as much as 2 percent of all Africans in 1969, and they constituted an even
smaller part of the total population. Together they accounted for a little
less than 5 percent of all Africans then and probably accounted for roughly
the same proportion in the early 1980s. Speakers of foreign languages not
indigenous to Zimbabwe constituted 7.8 percent of all Africans in 1969 and 7.5
percent of the total. Nyanja speakers originating in Malawi were the largest
single group (more than 250,000) and were 5.2 percent of all Africans. Of the
roughly 375,000 foreign Africans enumerated in 1969, an estimated 229,000
were wage workers. Later data on the total number of nonindigenous Africans
were not available, but wage workers were estimated at 198,000 in 1976 and a
little more than 183,000 in 1979, figures that suggest a commensurate decrease
in the total.

     Most of the estimated 170,000 Europeans in Zimbabwe in mid-1982 were
still concentrated in the urban areas, but the published data on the
occupations of postindependence emigrants suggest that the great bulk of those
who have left were urban dwellers and therefore that the white population may
be somewhat more rural than it had been for some time. The Coloured
population, 15,153 persons in 1969 (0.3 percent of the total), was estimated
at 25,900 in 1980 and may have risen to 26,000 by mid-1981 (about 0.35 percent
of the total at that time). Asians, numbering 8,965 in 1969 (0.17 percent of
the total), were estimated at 10,900 in 1980 and were reproducing at a lower
rate, perhaps 11,100 (about 0.14 percent of Zimbabweans) in mid-1981.

     All Africans in Zimbabwe speak languages of the widespread Bantu branch
of the Niger-Congo language family. Except for a few tongues, e.g., Tonga
spoken by people whose affinities lie north of the Zambezi River, all are
considered part of the southeastern Bantu cluster. In that cluster the Shona
dialects (collectively, Chishona) stand alone. The other languages, each with
several dialects, together constitute a subcategory, and all have their
affinities with languages to the south. Among them are Nguni, a form of
which-Sindebele-is spoken by the Ndebele. Others are Tsonga, Venda, and Sotho.
Of the languages associated with the two largest groups, only Shona had been
provided with a satisfactory orthography and had a written literature in the
form of novels, nonfiction, and poetry.

     English remains the official language of Zimbabwe, although African
primary-school classes are taught one of the two major indigenous languages
(incidentally a burden for children of minor groups, such as the Venda and
Tonga). Shona and Ndebele may also be used in the Senate of the parliament.
Fanakalo, a pidgin com