Timothy Stapleton. African Police and Soldiers in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1923-80. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2011. xii + 313 pp. $90.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-58046-380-5.

Reviewed by Patrick M. Kirkwood (Central Michigan University)
Published on H-Empire (May, 2012)
Commissioned by Charles V. Reed (Elizabeth City State University)

Beyond "Collaboration"and "Negotiation": The Lived Experience of African Police and Soldiers in Colonial Zimbabwe

African Police and Soldiers in Colonial Zimbabwe successfully builds on Timothy Stapleton’s previous work on the Rhodesian Native Regiment to explore the controversial and fraught issue of African participation in the colonial state during times of peace and war. The reality of such service, often characterized as “collaboration” by nationalist politicians and their supporters, has for too long been overlooked by historians. Seeking to move beyond this divisive and outdated paradigm, which is not only reductionist but also based on an overly structural approach, Stapleton instead prioritizes “the life experience of African police and soldiers within the colonial society of Southern Rhodesia” to great effect (p. 2).

Noting that this historiographical transformation has largely already occurred within the literature of a number of related fields, such as those focused on French West Africa and British East Africa, Stapleton effectively frames his own work as an attempt to apply such lessons to a particularly contested Zimbabwean context.[1] In reality, however, his accomplishment is significantly greater than this modest assertion suggests. His portrayal of African servicemen restores that watchword of modern historiography and reviewers, “agency,” not only to a traditionally overlooked and undervalued group, but also to individuals. Thereby he liberates the group as a whole from the constraint of being cast as either treacherous mercenary “collaborators” or practical “negotiators” employing survival and advancement strategies.

This sympathetic and nuanced treatment is representative as well as indicative of a growing emphasis within the wider imperial literature on individuals in liminal colonial settings. The break with past collective approaches is perhaps most apparent in his first chapter on recruitment and motivations for enlistment. While acknowledging economic gain as a primary driver, “this basic motivation ... could be interpreted in several ways,” ranging from viewing police and soldiers as “opportunistic mercenaries,” to a more thoughtful understanding of such service as simply “another wage” in the growing colonial cash economy (p. 16). Other major but less tangible incentives raised are similarly compelling, such as a desire for prestige, adventure, and a publicly affirmed manhood: not to be a “sissy,” as one of Stapleton’s most prolific contributors, Chaza, noted in his 1936 enlistment interview (p. 20). Crucially, however, the chapter also captures the distinctive reasons of many Africans for signing up, including pressure from extended families to provide and an intense personal desire for revenge--whether against the Japanese in Burma or “insurgents” in their own district (pp. 32-33).

There are, however, some limitations to the thematic approach adopted in the piece as a whole. There is a good deal of repetition between individual chapters on the transformative impact of developments between around 1930 and the mid-1960s: greatly improved educational attainment, better pay and conditions, and increased alienation from the broader African population feature prominently. In particular, the influence of rising standards of Western education among recruits, and the resultant changes in social and institutional status; the nature of camp life; and racial segregation (among other touchstone issues) seem to be a constant thread running throughout the conclusions of each section. This might lead one to wonder why such a clearly important element, although given its own dedicated chapter, was not accorded a more high-profile position in the construction of the study as a whole. That said, to follow such an argument to its logical conclusion would be tantamount to berating the author of what is a highly accomplished and informative piece for not producing a substantially different work, and must therefore be disregarded.

Stapleton’s painstaking research provides a number of important historiographical insights beyond those challenging simplistic discourses around “collaboration” and “resistance.” The most important of these innovations are each based on context, respectively territorial, temporal, and societal. These are: first, the necessity of viewing Zimbabwean developments (especially post-Unilateral Declaration of Independence) in a wider colonial or African context; second, the reinterpretation of the authorities’ decision to invite women to become police officers in the mid-1960s; and third, the emphasis placed on a central tension running throughout the entire period between a shortage of white manpower, the creation of the necessity of African security force employment, and the misplacement of European fears of their African protectors.

The need for a territorial framework beyond that of the formal British Empire and the particular colony is evident throughout the work. This can be seen early in the temporary British South Africa police policy of deliberating the recruitment of African men from outside of the territory in the aftermath of the Ndebele and Shona rebellions of 1896-97. Relevant action outside of the territorial confines of Zimbabwe, such as the service of African soldiers in East Africa during the First World War and East Asia during the Second World War, makes an equally convincing case for a later period. However, as the process of decolonization took hold after 1945, the need for a transnational framework becomes more pressing. Specifically, as the wind of change swept Africa in the 1960s, developments outside of Southern Rhodesia did not go unnoticed by soldiers and policemen within the territory. Tobias Mutangadura, a former army adult education instructor, in a 2008 interview, recalled the reaction of soldiers of the Royal African Rifles to the news of Nigerian independence in 1960, and the singing of nationalist songs celebrating Ghanaian independence. Similarly, official military records demonstrate the profound impact developments in the neighboring Portuguese territories of Mozambique and Angola had on elite white Rhodesian decision making, right up to the withdrawal of that colonial power in 1975, following the “Carnation Revolution” in Lisbon.

Stapleton’s reinterpretation of the employment of black female police officers from the 1960s onward differs from the little work that has been completed on the subject thus far. Specifically, he cites two bachelor or arts honors theses from the University of Zimbabwe and then seeks to challenge the assumption, which he claims is also present in a wider literature, that such moves were driven by “practical” concerns regarding the handling of female suspects and witnesses. Instead, he contends that the decision to open police employment to African women was “a political move meant to counter the involvement of African women in nationalist protest,” a contention that he is able to back with compelling, if not wholly conclusive, evidence (pp. 147-148). This may seem a small point, but it reveals much about the mind-set of those white Rhodesians in control of the services and the limits of African agency in colonial service during the 1960s and 1970s.

A clear understanding of a central paradox at the heart of Southern Rhodesian national life, from the granting of “self-governing” status by the imperial government in 1923 to the advent of independence with majority rule in 1980, is successfully communicated throughout the text. Namely, the employment of African security force personnel throughout that period, while necessary to maintain order, was a source of great unease on the part of the European population. Evidence of this underlying tension is all but ubiquitous, ranging from the introductory narratives on the many and varied distinctions drawn between policemen of different races--sometimes as stark as riding horses versus grooming horses, through contradictory beliefs in the distinct and “tribal” characteristics of African soldiers, to commentary on European reactions to African service in the Rhodesian Bush War.

When considering the sources used in this piece, it is necessary to first examine the methodology employed. Works such as this, once again, prove the value of oral history approaches in a colonial and postcolonial setting. This is particularly true in later instances of decolonization, such as Zimbabwe and the neighboring formerly Portuguese territories. The use of face-to-face interviews with former police and soldiers allows insights into the lives and outlooks of those who served the colonial state, which would simply not be possible without employing such methods. Further, any natural fears over the interrogation of the role of police and soldiers within the colonial state are largely unfounded. Use of oral evidence is augmented by extensive archival research in both Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom--including at the now defunct British Empire and Commonwealth Museum in Bristol. These dedicated efforts mean that far from treating former police and soldiers as “wronged angels,” an easy if somewhat obvious potential pitfall of the methodology, such laden topics as domestic abuse, instances of rape, corruption, and other mistreatment of civilians are fully explored within the text.

In short, this is a highly significant and engaging monograph with many insights to offer to scholars and students alike on the particular history of Southern Rhodesia/modern Zimbabwe and Southern Africa as a whole. That said, to this reviewer’s mind, it could be put to particularly fruitful use in a teaching setting either in an undergraduate course designed for upperclassmen or as a text for discussion in an early graduate class. The comparatively concise chapters lend themselves to use as a supplementary reading. As such the piece could provide a representative--if strikingly late--case study of the wider processes at work in the rapidly decolonizing African context of the mid-to-late twentieth century. It would serve a valuable complicating role, providing much material to question and ultimately overturn the more limited models often taught, of necessity--due to lack of time, in world and African history surveys.

While acknowledging that--with notable exceptions, such as Aaron Jacha and Josiah Chinamano--servicemen and their families tended to serve as a stabilizing social block, effectively supporting the colonial state and economy. African Police and Soldiers successfully contends that these were not simply the collaborationist “mercenaries” of nationalist lore (p. 238). Nor were they “wronged angels” or simply self-interested actors negotiating improved conditions under a repressive racial system. Instead, the individuals examined were just that: individuals, operating within a wider colonial society, attempting to take control of their lives in ways stretching well beyond the purely material, able to influence--though not to shape--the circumstances in which they found themselves. This insight, basic though it might be, is one of the most valuable lessons to take away from Stapleton’s most recent work.

Note

[1]. For example, see Myron Echenberg, Colonial Conscipts: The Tirailleurs Senegalais in French West Africa, 1857-1960 (Portsmouth: Heinemann, 1991); Gregory Mann, Native Sons: West African Veterans and France in the Twentieth Century (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006); and Timothy H. Parsons, The African Rank-and-File: Social Implications of Colonial Military Service in the King’s African Rifles, 1902-1964 (Portsmouth: Heinemann, 1999).

If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at: https://networks.h-net.org/h-empire.

Citation: Patrick M. Kirkwood. Review of Stapleton, Timothy, African Police and Soldiers in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1923-80. H-Empire, H-Net Reviews. May, 2012.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=36114

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.