Thursday, October 12, 1978
3
Wealth divides Rhodesian races
SALIBURY, Rhodesia (AP)—Philip Mwanza stared impassively at the newspaper's banner headline: "Race Discrimination to Go."
"It doesn't help me, doesn't affect me at all—I don't have enough money," said Mwanza. "But I suppose it's a good thing. I don't mind."
Like Mwanza, at rhodesia's 6.7 million blacks look at Rhodesia's plan to replace skin color with the waist as the basis for entry to the 290,000-white minority's institutions—schools, hospitals, suburbs—and see no differences for themselves.
THE COUNTRY'S new biracial government, formed by Prime Minister Ian Smith as a move toward a black-majority rule. The government has called for race barriers. The transitional government opposes the black nationalist guerrillaists with black nationalist guerrillas' fighters for years to drive out Smith's regime.
The government's black officials sounded euphoric, white ones a shade defensive, in explaining that race discrimination was out. The government's education and language barriers still remain.
Although there has never been job discrimination by law, these barriers mean few blacks will soon reach the white way of life.
Mwanza, a $2,052-a-year office messenger, is comparatively well-off, earning more than double the average black wage.
LIKE THOUSANDS of working class blacks in cities, he keeps a foot in two campus. He rents a $19-50-a-month room in a tiny house in a black township near the capital. Twice a month he commutes to the Goromonzi Tribal Reservation, 25 miles east, where his wife and four children live on a lot allotted by the local headman.
The nationalist guerrilla war, which has closed the classrooms to some 250,000 children, a fifth of the expected enrollment, has not reached Goromonzi.
So Mwanza's older children, ages 12 to 6.
attend a school run by a local black state-
land council, Mwanza, in his mid-30s pay
them.
The government's plan could take several months to become law and would be irrelevant should the communist-supported movement offer it that offers Mwanza is a vision, not a reality.
For those further down the economic scale, the pasant farmers who scratch a living from the earth, the prospect of sharing a classroom or hospital with whites, and the house next door, is in an remote as acquiring a penthouse apartment in Manhattan.
It would cost him $72, plus extras, to get just the eldest daughter, Forgiveness, into one of the white schools—to be known as "high fee-paying schools"—under the new system. And officials say there are plans to make the high fees even higher.
Does Mwanza want his children in school with whites? Only his oldest, he says, not the others. "They don't speak enough English to help them near home or help on the land."
The average white couple has fewer than three children, and whites are emigrating at a faster rate.
BLACKS, TOO, have more children to educate. The black population, has one of the world's highest growth rates. Urban families average five children. Among the 4 million who live in the crowded tribal trust lands, eight children is normal.
"Absolutely super news," said typist Piat Brogan, 36, "so long as everybody respects it and people realize there are still class differences."
RHODESIAN WHITES reacted with relief that only a "reasonable" number of "reasonable" blacks would be allowed in—and with skepticism that the new law is just a piece of paper that a black government could tear up.
Housewife Shirley Coyne feared a change in schools. "Discrimination should have been done away with long ago," she said, "but a little discretion should be used in education so older children aren't lumped into younger ones, who'll be held back."
The plan has most appeal to the reasonably well-off black minority who can afford the $2,200 deposit for a $2,000 house and pay the $180/month mortgage payments.
Despite falling real estate value, it still costs some $50,000 to buy into a plush suburb. Box-like homes in black townships cost around $1,100 to buy and $3 a month to rent.
STANLEY HATENDI, 38, a black economist who earns more than the average white salary of $2.40 yearly has children at four public schools, and may head for a white suburb.
"The transitional government's decision is a good move. Africans have urged it for more years."
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think there are anterior motives, but it achieves the desired goal. It doesn't achieve it. It's too much.
It would probably cost vegetable seller Felias Moya, 25, a year's earnings for surgery at a white hospital, where higher costs are required of the final bill for drugs and private doctors.
Moyo is pleased with the end of race
writers nonetheless. "At last wages have
risen," Moyo wrote.
THIS APARENT acceptance of two systems in a single country, two ways of life, one akin to Middle America, another to the rest of America, is not shared by hard-line nationalists.
Methodist minister Max Chigwida, who recently quit one of the black parties in the transition government, said: "Those who are tired of the terms of structures are not very impressed."
That is the heart of the matter. In 90 years here, whites built and kept to themselves the best schools, hospitals and homes. While their dominance was reinforced by law, it contained too by differences in wealth and class that it would take years to overcome.
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U.S. Senate Candidate Debate
Democratic Candidate
Dr. Bill ROY
Republican Candidate
Nancy Landon KASSEBAUM
Thursday, Oct. 12, 1978 8:00 p.m. Free Admission Woodruff Auditorium, Kansas Union
Panel
Panel Deanell Tacha—Associate Dean, School of Law Allan Cigler—Professor, Political Science Dept. Mike Harper—Student Body President
Presented by
FORUMS