The workers’ enforced dependence on their white employers persisted after independence, and explains why, in contemporary Zimbabwean discourse, they are represented as ‘undeserving’ and ‘unpatriotic’. In the dualistic paradigm of native verses settler which dominated Zimbabwe from the start of Land Reform, farm-workers were in a precarious position; dependent on the loathed remnants of colonialism, they were targets by association, but lacked the same international sympathy or safety-net of wealth that their employers have. The uniquely vulnerable position of the farm-worker population, lacking ancestral homes or any alternative stake in the country other than as commercial farm workers leaves them with few options. The majority have either remained as squatters on the abandoned farms, or joined informal settlements where conditions are desperate. The FCTZ reported deaths from starvation in many provinces and an inability to manage HIV. Many now work for the new settlers, for little or no wages and in conditions widely claimed to be considerably worse than in the past.
Posted on: Thu, 19 Sep 2013 13:38:03 +0000