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Zimbabwe Safari in Genealogy and History
Dr. Orville Boyd Jenkins
A review of the book by Owen Sheers
The Dust Diaries:  Seeking the African Legacy of Arthur Cripps (Boston:  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004, 310p.)

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This is one of those serendipitous purchases I happened to find in a used book store in Bedfordview, South Africa, in 2007.  Sheers writes the biography of his uncle Arthur Cripps, who was an early colonial missionary to the Shona people of Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.  He recounts the struggles the missionary had with the colonial authorities as they stole land and abused the local people.

Cripps worked as an advocate for the people, lived with them out in a rural area of the land, and treated them as equals, while the colonials treated them as children and people with no rights.  He interceded for them with the colonial government.

Sheers brings the situation up to date by including perspectives from the current situation in Zimbabwe from his trips there for research.  He writes in a travelogue format, so we move along with him in what he is experiencing, linked to what he is discovering about the Rhodesian past and the Zimbabwean present.

Sheers was working on the research for his book in Zimbabwe during the Mugabe land invasions.  He recounts details of the events and news of that horrendous period, whose results are now still being played out in greater and greater misery.

He recounts an inadvertent frightening meeting with "Hitler" Hunzi (Hunzi's own designation), who orchestrated the invasion, intimidation and murder of blacks and whites, erased active opposition and acted as a general hatchet man for the Zimbabwean dictator.

This volume is readable on three levels:
as a personal diary of the genealogical search,
as a biography of missionary Cripps in the colonial history of Rhodesia-Zimbabwe and
as a perspective on the present destruction of a nation, its people and its prosperous economy by a ruthless selfish dictator and his reign of terror.

More about this book on other sites:
See publisher's notes and interview with the author
Read review of this book on AllAfrica

See related reviews and articles on this site:
[review] South African Spirituality
[review] A View of Africa
[review] Worldview, Ethnicity and Social Dynamics in African Politics

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OBJ

First reading notes written 13 January 2008
Expanded review posted on Amazon 14 February 2009
This version posted on Orville Jenkins Thoughts and Resources 16 February 2009
Last edited 8 May 2009

Orville Boyd Jenkins, EdD, PhD
Copyright © 2009 Orville Boyd Jenkins
Permission granted for free download and transmission for personal or educational use.  Other rights reserved.

Email:  orville@jenkins.nu
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