Zambesia (1979), VII (i).ESSAY REVIEWSITHOLE, THE POLITICIAN AS AUTHORNDABANINGI SITHOLE'S BOOKS have attracted interest more as a result of thepolitical circumstances in which they were published and their author's rolein Rhodesian politics than from their intrinsic merits. His African Nationa-lism,' which was published in 1959, although not particularly subtle orpenetrating, was welcomed within and outside Africa as an expression byan African of what African nationalism meant to Africans at a time whenAfrican nationalist leaders were rapidly taking over the governments oftheir countries from colonial rulers. Sithole's reputation as the author ofAfrican Nationalism launched his career as an African nationalist leaderin Southern Rhodesia, when in 1960 his fame as an author helped himrapidly to attain eminence within the N.D.P. Since then his prominenceas a politican has, by contrast, stimulated interest in the books that he hasWritten. Sithole soon established himself as one of the most importantAfrican leaders in Rhodesia. After holding senior office in N.D.P. andits successor, ZAPU, Sithole broke with the ZAPU leader, Joshua Nkomo,in 1963 to become President of the rival ZANU. The Rhodesian Govern-ment then improved his status as a nationalist leader by detaining and im-prisoning him for over ten years between 1964 and 1974. After he wasreleased Sithole quickly gained the reputation in 1975 of being the mostmilitant of the nationalist leaders in Rhodesia, projecting himself as thecommander of the by now successful ZANU guerillas in the north-east of thecountry. When most of these guerillas refused to acknowledge his leadership,he lost much of his political significance, until he became one of the twonationalist leaders to sign the internal agreement with Ian Smith in March1978, which planned African majority government by the end of the year.Sithole, who has since the mid-1960s written a remarkable amount fora man at first confined to prison and then involved in politics, has gainedsome kind of reputation as the intellectual among African leaders. How-ever, the quality of his writing does not match its quantity, and he is lessintelligent and less intellectual than some others in the Rhodesian Africannationalist movement, nolably Robert Mugabe and Willie Musarurwa, al-though they have not produced books. One of Sithole's recent books, Rootsof a Revolution* might not have seemed worth publishing, if African Na-tionalism had not been successful throughout the world in two editions andin several languages and if Sithole had not been a celebrated politician.Roots of a Revolution is Sithole's latest experiment in quasi-documentaryfiction, in which Sithole has explored the predicaments of Africans coping' N. Sithole, African Nationalism (Cape Town, Oxford Univ. Press, 1959).2 N. Sithole, Roots of a Revolution (London, Oxford Univ. Press, 1977). 142pp.,£3,50.9394 ESSAY REVIEWwith the impact of European society. His first book, and the only one writtenin Sindebele, AmaNdebele KaMzilikase Ł was published in 1956.3 It wasa kind of historical novel about the failure of the Ndebele in the war of1893 and the rising of 1896 to fight the Europeans with sufficient vigour. jSithole's next work of fiction was The Polygamist,* which was published in1972 and, like the revised version of African Nationalism,* Obed Mutezo6 'and Roots of a Revolution, was written while he was imprisoned. The fcentral figure of The Polygamist is Dube, the headman of a village who hasseven wives. Sithole is not an imaginative novelist, but aims to give anaccurate account in fictional form of tribal customs and beliefs and toshow how Africans previously isolated from European culture may react 'when European influences enter their lives. Dube's son leaves the villagefor a long time and, while he is way, goes to school and becomes a teacher.On returning home the son is treated as a stranger and feels alienated irom Łhis village. He resents the fact that his family still live in the old style andfears that his fiancee, whom he met away from the village, who is also ateacher, may reject him because his family is primitive. The son successfullypersuades his father to buy European clothes for his wives, but Dube argues Ifor the naturalness of polygamy against his son, who has become a Christian <during his absence from the village. Unlike AmaNdebele KaMzilikase, The 'Polygamist has no implicit message about how to confront the Europeans. /Sithole is concerned with the related, but separate theme of now Anicansshould select and fuse what is of value from traditional African life andfrom the alien European culture. To Sithole who has a strong emotional <attachment to his tribal origins and, at the same time, a clear commitmentto Christianity, the problems of how to move between the African and theEuropean worlds is personally important, and he explores it sensitively inin some of his other writings, in particular, Obed Mutezo, as well as in ThePolygamist. This novel, however, while it has a certain charm, lacks depthor subtlety. It is almost as if Sithole is trying self-consciously to strip himself 'of European sophistication, which he distrusts, to write about African simp- Łlicity, which he admires. ^The third of Sithole's works of fiction, Roots of a Revolution, which [was written in 1973, although not published till 1977, is basically a political '.tract, although presented in a fictional form. In effect, it presents the case fthat violent African resistance is necessary in Rhodesia to remove un- .Łrepentant European oppression. The book has no real plot and the various ,episodes, which illustrate different aspects of the confrontation betweenthe races, are only loosely linked together by a common general theme and .some common characters. What is least satisfactory is the manufacture ofevents which might have happened, but which in fact did not. For example, '.Chapter 7 descnoes how a rany of African militants in Hightield cu.mmai.ed 'in violence between them and the Government's security forces, with the ,'otougnton, ly/o).2' f^°Y' African Nationalism (London, Oxford Univ. Press, 2nd edit 1968)- 197% Mutezo: The Mudzimu Christian Nationalist (Nairobi/ Oxford. Sithole, AmaNdebele KaMzilikase (London, Longmans. Green 19561 I" i,ft«?* Polygamist (New York, Third Press, 1972,- London, Hodder 'Univ. Press, 1970).J. DAY 95result that 10 White policemen were killed and 1 039 Africans were in-jured. The exactness of the figures gives the temporary illusion that Sitholeis reporting an actual historical event. Stranger still is the account of anAfrican youth prosecuted in Rhodesia in the early 1970s for writing a loveletter to a White girl in contravention of the Immorality and Indecency Act,which in fact was repealed in 1961. Fiction here seems to slide into fantasyor falsehood. Such fables would mislead a reader ignorant of Rhodesianhistory and might for any reader wno recognized the historical anomaliesundermine the credibility of Sithole's implicit argument. Why does Sitholenot quote authentic historical cases or create fictional episodes that are notclearly at variance with known facts? Possibly he believed that he wouldbe less vulnerable to prosecution under the security laws if he expressedhis criticism of White supremacy through the mouths of fictional charactersin fictional situations, rather than openly acknowledging his own opinionsabout real events. However, this had not prevented him publishing ObedMutezo in 1970, which contained detailed descriptions of alleged maltreat-ment of ZANU members by the police in 1964.Obed Mutezo is one of three books in which Sithole has explored thesignificance of African nationalism through the particular experiences ofone individual man, a literary method that Sithole has handled more success-fully than quasi-documentary fiction. He first experimented with this formof political biography in the second edition of African Nationalism, wherehe added information about his own career as a nationalist to the accountof his life before becoming a nationalist, which had been in the originaledition. In Obed Mutezo Sithole examines the commitment to African na-tionalism of a local branch official of ZANU, describing his involvementin politics against the background of his private life, in particular his beliefin the power of his ancestral spirits and his faith in Christianity. By givingthis detailed portrait of a particular average African nationalist supporterSithole provides a new dimension in understanding the African nationalistmovement which studies of its aims, ideology and leadership omit.The third, most recent, political biography that Sithole has produced isFrelimo Militant,'7 which was published in 1977. The subject of this book isJulius Ingwane, an African from Mozambique whom Sithole met in Maputoin 1975. Like Mutezo, Ingwane is an ordinary African whom Sithole te-yeres as a nationalist, but to whom he is also attracted as a person andwith whose personal life he is fascinated for its own sake. In the bookIngwane tells Sithole of his hatred for the Portuguese and his part as asupporter of Frelimo in their overthrow. Like Mutezo, he suffered tortureat the hands of the police because of his political sympathies. AlthoughFrelimo Militant is like Obed Mutezo in looking at a national political move-ment through the feelings and experences of a single man, the more recentbook is less successful because of its tedious mode of expression. It iswritten as a verbatim account of a kind of protracted Socratic dialoguebetween Sithole and Ingwane. Since Sithole includes all his questions toIngwane as well as Ingwane's answers and reproduces many of the triviali-ties of casual conversation, such as the often repeated, 'I see', the pace of the?N. Sithole, Frelimo Militant: The Story of Ingwane from Mozambique, anOrdinary, yet Extraordinary, Man, Awakened . . . (Nairobi, Transafrica, 1977), 187pp.,o\Js,96 ESSAY REVIEWbook drags and the tone in places is almost of ritual incantation. The follow-ing passage (p. 2) gives the flavour:'Where did you learn Zuzulu?' I asked.'Me?'Yes, Comrade, you''In Johannesburg,' he said.'Do you come from there?''No, I worked there.''I see. When?''Long time ago.''Do you live in Lourenco Marques?''Yes.'"Are you a Shangana?''No. I am Mutswa.''Are you married?''Yes.''Where is your wife?''Here.''In this house?''No, in Lourenco Marques.'Although Frelimo Militant has many such laborious passages, Sithole'sother works are also marred by an inability or unwillingness to excludeinessentials. In Obed Mutezo, for example, he gives a long verbatim account(pp. 199-210) of a cross-examination by the defence lawyer in a politicalcourt case where a summary of the questioning would have sufficed. Similarly,in Roots of a Revolution Sithole chooses to spell out this ritual exchangebetween a nationalist speaker and his audience (p. 100):'In everything in this our God-given country, we are given onlya third of the normal values of things. Citizenship?' he asked.'Third-rate!' they roared.'Housing?''Third-rate!''Wages and salaries?''Third-rate!''Jobs?''Third-rate!''Education?''Third-rate!''Land?' d-'Third-rate!' />-,'Water supply?' -Ł'Third-rate!''All services?''Third-rate!'The same obsession with comprehensiveness leads Sithole also in Roots ofa Revolution (pp. 95-6) to list the twenty-nine occupations of the Africansat a nationalist rally. In the biographies Sithole seems to feel an over-scrupulous obligation to document trivial details of his subjects' lives. InFrelimo Militant, for example, Sithole is concerned to elicit from Ingwanethe days of the week on which he and his brother at one period arrived intheir mother's village (p.78), and the precise physical characteristics IngwaneJ. DAY 97required in his wife (not 'too much buttock', p.63). Similarly, in ObedMutezo he records (pp. 61-2) Mutezo's excessive desire for meat when hewas a boy. Sithole has the instincts of an archivist, carefully storing in-formation, rather than the skill of an historian, choosing only those factsthat contribute to the explanation of the events he is specifically concernedwith. The result of Sithole's appetite for trivial detail is sometimes an air ofnaivity or banality which is far removed from the intellectual sophisticationthat some people associate with him.Sithole's books have, in fact, been characterized more by moral passionthan intellectual toughness. Some of his published writings interestinglydocument the development in his political attitudes as this moral passionreacted to changing circumstances. When he wrote African NationalismSithole was not an active politician, although he was emotionally committedto African self-government. Consequently he had little to say about thepractical problems of African nationalists in concrete situations. The secondedition of African Nationalism he prepared in detention as a seasonednationalist leader. In this he included new material on his own politicalexperiences and on the methods available to nationalists. He did not explicitlyadvocate violent overthrow of the White Rhodesian regime, which wouldhave invited prosecution, but he came close to endorsing the use of violencewhen peaceful methods had failed.In 1969, the year after the publication of the revised edition of AfricanNationalism, Sithole was convicted of smuggling a letter from prison whichurged his supporters to have Ian Smith assassinated. Sithole maintainedduring the trial that the letter was a forgery and claimed also that he knewnothing about the organization by Herbert Chitepo, his colleague in ZANU,of a guerilla army in Zambia. However, in the introduction to a collectionof letters, Sithole later related how he smuggled out of Sikombela detentioncamp some time in 1965 or 1966 a letter delegating power to Chitepo 'toprosecute the revolutionary armed struggle'.8 In December 1972 he wroteelatedly to Chitepo congratulating him on the bridgehead that the guerillashad established in the north-east and in November 1974, as Commander-in-Chief of the ZANU guerillas, sent an inspirational message from Que QuePrison to the Zimbabwe National Liberation Army.8 Roots of a Revolution,written in 1973, portrayed and virtually praised fiercely militant Blackspreparing to fight brutal, arrogant Whites, who were determined to holdon to their power. After Sithole was released from prison in December 1974to negotiate a settlement with Smith, he hoped to use ZANU's militarysuccess as a bargaining counter. In a letter to his brother in February 1975he wrote: "We are not in a hurry for a settlement. It is Ian Smith who is ina hurry for it ... . They are dying for a cease-fire order, but we are not.'10The Government rightly regarded him as more bellicose than Nkomo orBishop Muzorewa, and re-arrested him in March 1975." Eventually Sithole» N. Sithole, Letters from Salisbury Prison (Nairobi, Transafrica, 1976), 5.»Ibid., 129-30, 149-52.io Ibid., 156.» See Sithole's defence against the charges brought against him in, N. Sithole,In Defence of a Birthright (Sweden, ZANU Office, 1975). This is reprinted in a book-let containing other pieces by Sithole and some by other ZANU writers: N. Sithole,In Defence of a Birthright (Toronto, Norman Bethune Institute, 1975).96 ESSAY REVIEWfound that the ZANU guerillas did not accept him as their leader, althoughhe continued to support their fight. .When in 1978 Sithole signed the internal settlement and became amember of the Transitional Government Executive Council, it may haveappeared that he had made a volte face, abandoning his earlier militancyIn his pamphlet, In Defence of the Rhodesian Constitutional Agreement,Žhe shows that what changed dramatically at the end of 1977 was not hisown attitude, but the policy of Ian Smith, who for the first time was preparedto concede one man. one vote. Sithole states that, 'the internal Africannationalist leaders felt that the acceptance of majority rule in itself con-stituted sufficient reason to begin negotiations ... . The principle was notnegotiable; everything else was.' However, if the guerilla war continues,Sithole's cogent argument is an irrelevancy.University of Leicester f. DAYi* N. Sithole, In Defence of the Rhodesian Constitutional Agreement: A PowerPromts* (Salisbury, Grahiun Publishing, 1978), 71 pp., Jl,60.