The Patriot
By Patriot Reporter
THE PATRIOT has torched a fire-storm with its last week’s lead story about race relations in Zimbabwe.  Facebook is ablaze with people making their contributions. But the most disappointing contributions are Ms Gappah’s. After defending the black identity so strongly at the Book Cafe last week, on Facebook, she sounds so powerless, literally apologising to the white man if her remarks offended them.
In our lead story this week, we carry her remarks during an incident where she opts to hide in silence rather than offend her white friend. Only to tell us how angry she felt several days later on her page on Facebook.  Why didn’t she tell her white friend how she felt in her face? What was she afraid of? Was it the historical fear that the black person has for the white man? Fear that is born out of 400 years of slavery, 200 years of colonialism and the remainder neo-colonialism? Is it a result of that consolidated fear? Fear that has been passed on from generation to generation since the day the black man came face to face with the white man? Is that the fear that stopped you telling the white lady if the black man’s choice of Robert Mugabe was so bad how about your choice of Ian Smith?
Petina, why did you opt to say that to yourself in your mind?  Answer the questions honestly. David Coltart has joined the debate.
He begins with a word of advice to Petina. “You know you have arrived when The Patriot writes about you! Wear it as a badge of honour.â€Â This is the dangerous assumption that whites make regarding blacks we talked about in our story last week.  What is the common destination with Ms Gappah that Coltart is implying? The assumption he makes is that Petina has finally arrived where the whites are congregated, but that is precisely the point that she denied at the Book Cafe last week.
The problem in our relations with the white man is the powerlessness or fear that we have to stand up and defend our position in their presence, the way it happened with Petina in the book shop, as if the white man has bewitched us. Let us clarify a misconception. It is a myth to believe a poor villager in Murewa can discriminate against a white lawyer like David Coltart or a white businessman like Roy Bennett.
Pseudo human rights activists like David Coltart call it ‘reverse racism’. The poor woman in Murewa has no capacity to discriminate against David Coltart. To be able to discriminate, one requires economic capacity. It can be said with conclusiveness that in Africa, the generality of the black man has no capacity to discriminate against the white man because the white man has historically always had better access to resources than the black man. And yet there are blacks who believe there is reverse racism. There is nothing like that.
It’s a myth!
However, Honourable Senator Coltart needs to be reminded that badges and stars and medals of honour that he advises Ms Gappah to move around wearing belong to the military. In the arts where Gappah belongs, they are called awards. But of course we do not begrudge him for his temptation to use military language. After all, isn’t he a decorated member of the notorious Rhodesian Selous Scouts?