BOOK REVIEWSBanned. The Story of the African Daily News, Southern Rhodesia, 1964By E. Wason. London, Hamish Hamilton, 1976, 161 pp., £4,50.I was surprised to be asked to review this book because I figure in it quitefrequently, and must therefore declare an interest.Eugene Wason was a colleague and a friend of mine. When I took overthe editorship of The Sunday Mail in 1962 he became my assistant editor.And a very good assistant editor he was, too. So he should have been. He hadheld important editorships of newspapers in England and Scotland before hecame to Rhodesia. He was of a calibre Rhodesia seldom gets in journalistswho leave Britain for this country. He proved that when, perforce, he had toreturn to Britain. Thomson Newspapers again made him an editor Š finallyin Belfast where he once more had to walk the tightrope of producing anewspaper in a community torn apart by group conflict and dissension. Hedid it so successfully that he gained a prestigious newspaper award.Banned. The Siory of the African Daily News, as one would expect, is anemotional account of the banning of that newspaper by the Rhodesian FrontGovernment in 1964. One might comment at this point that the banning didnot stop the march of events to the situation we have in Rhodesia today, butthat the lesson has not been learnt.Wason gives his account of what happened during the eight months thathe was managing editor of the African Daily News in Salisbury with strongfeeling, but reasonably factually for all that. Knowing his enthusiasm as ajournalist, his skills in producing an attractive, readable newspaper andputting his finger (or should 1 say pen?) on what it was his readers wanted,1 have a fairly clear idea of the gusto with which he went about convertingthe African Daily News from a drab, characterless little journal to a livelydaily that, in no time at all, Africans scrambled to buy.He made mistakes. He admits that. As he puts it: 'I learned much onthe Daily News ... I learned that in a country where there is civil strife itdoes not do to be too provocative' (p. 158). He was, up to a point (but onlyup to a point) a victim of his own unbridled enthusiasm.Wason was right to put his account of what happened into print. It is acontribution to the history of Rhodesia in a turbulent period that has not yetended Š an episode which required to be written.I do not question the accuracy of his telling of the story of the AfricanDaily News. Indeed, he quotes extensively from Hansard. But his memory Šon which he obviously relies for much else in the book Š lets him down anumber of times when he writes of other issues and of people.For instance John Parker (who was my news editor on The Sunday Mailwhen he rail foul of the authorities) was not deported. After a strenuous andunpleasant battle to get him released from gaol and cleared of the chargeagainst him, we sent him and his family back to Britain. He might have beendeported had he stayed on here; but the fact is, we sent him home beforeanything like that could happen,Wason also makes silly little mistakes, which he should not have made.To mention just two. He says that 1 succeeded Malcolm Smith as editor ofThe Rhodesia Herald. I did not. Swadel succeeded Smith and I succeeded217218BOOK REVIEWSSwadel. And he refers to Pat Bashford's 'Rhodesia Central Party' Š whichwas, of course, the Centre Party.Finally, a clarification of that famous (or infamous) Victoria Fallsconference that sealed the fate of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland,Sir Roy Welensky and Sir Albert Robinson (the High Commissioner inLondon) urged Winston Field not to agree to attend any such conferencewithout a guarantee that Southern Rhodesia, like Northern Rhodesia andNyasaland, would come away from the conference an independent country.He had a strong hand, he was told. The conference could not be held withoutthe participation of the Government of Southern Rhodesia. Their consterna-tion was great when, to their surprise, Winston Field agreed to attend withoutthis guarantee being given. He was, as he told me himself, persuaded byButler. He was, of course, outmanoeuvred.Eugene Wason's book revived for me many memories of people andevents, some of them pleasant and some of them not. I enjoyed reading it.University of RhodesiaR. G. MEIERMucheke: Race, Status and Politics in a Rhodesian Community By A. K. H.Weinrich. Paris, United Nations Educational, Scientific and CulturalOrganization, 1976, 278 pp., no price indicated.The publication of this book might have been a minor event. There is asyet only a handful of community studies set in African towns or cities.Mucheke is the first work of this genre to come out of Rhodesia. It is thefourth major book to be published by Dr Weinrich (often better known asSr Mary Aquina), and the first since she left the country precipitately in1975, although the manuscript was completed before her departure. DrWeinrich who now teaches Sociology at the University of Dar es Salaam,was a controversial figure among White Rhodesians and occasionally amongher colleagues as well. Readers, other than those maintaining some of thebiases she mentions, are, however, not likely to find much that is controver-sial in this book, even if it is true that the author allows her personal judge-ment to intrude more than once.As it is the appearance of the work has passed unheralded in thiscountry. It has been issued by UNESCO as one of a series of three studies,the others being Racism and Apartheid in Southern Africa, Part II: Rhodesiaby R. Austin and Southern Rhodesia: The Effects of a Conquest Society onEducation, Culture and Information by M. O'Callaghan. The advertisingand distribution of books published under the auspices of UNESCO hasnever been good anywhere, let alone in the illegal and unrecognized stateof Rhodesia. In addition they are rarely cheap, even in paperback form. Ivery much doubt that anybody actually concerned with the administrationof Mucheke has seen this book or is likely to. Neither am I sure that thefuture policy makers of Zimbabwe would draw any particular lessons fromit.Dr Weinrich's work is focused on the African township of the provin-cial centre of Fort Victoria and does not deal directly v/ith the non-Africanpopulation of the rest of the town other than employers of a sample ofdomestic servants in the White (and Indian and Coloured) parts of town.Yet the lives of Mucheke's residents are directly and intimately affected by