A tribe in trouble -The short sad life of whites in Africa
The Economist
Two compelling documentaries illuminate the dilemmas facing Africa’s dwindling white tribes. One is set in Zimbabwe, the other in Kenya. The Zimbabwean film, “Mugabe and the White African”, is the more straightforward and should be shown as widely as possible to help end one of Africa’s great tragedies: the ruin of one of the continent’s most successful countries and the moral bankruptcy of the governments of the nearby states (bar plucky Botswana) for failing to isolate and oust a vile dictator.
It shows how a brave film company, embedding itself with a beleaguered family of white farmers off and on for a year, can bring to life the horrors that have befallen an entire country. Like the large majority of the 5,000-odd white farmers who stayed on after Robert Mugabe became prime minister in 1980 and later president, Mike Campbell and his son-in-law Ben Freeth acquired their farm and the regulation government certificate showing that no black citizen also sought to buy the same farm, which then became Zimbabwe’s largest producer of mangoes and employed 500 locals. When a man with ministerial connections claimed the property for himself a few years ago, Messrs Campbell and Freeth refused to go, prompting a campaign of intimidation, arson and assault, including the beating up not just of the two farmers but also their wives, all horrifically shown on screen.
