War and Migration in the White African Tropics: Lauren St John’s Rainbow’s End
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.15.2.2016.3540Keywords:
White African, war, memory, Zimbabwe, Rhodesia, TropicsAbstract
This paper explores voyage and migration in tropical Africa through Lauren St John’s Rainbow’s End, a memoir contributing to debates of white African identity that now include more contemporary renditions of identity in female self-reflective accounts differing markedly from masculine perspectives. In her coming-of-age memoir, St John chronicles her experiences of a privileged 1970s white Rhodesian society at war, and her gradual awareness of racial inequalities that transformed her into a white Zimbabwean. For her parents, voyage and migration take different paths. Her father migrated (with his family) to fight for a white Rhodesia, driven by masculine concerns. In contrast, St John’s mother was an avid traveller who journeyed from the mundane world of tropical farm life to exotic locations in Europe and beyond, escaping both her deteriorating marriage and the dull world of the club, small town gossip and a narrow minded semi-colonial rural environment. St John’s account of white settler identity and racial difference gives us insights into a day in the African tropics, and furthermore speaks to those in other settler countries such as Australia who are debating colonial history and identity, and who are often uncomfortable with aspects of their own settler past.References
Arnold, P.C. (2011). A unique migration: South African doctors fleeing to Australia. Edgecliff, Australia: CreateSpace.
Bleeg, E. (2007). The country they lost. The Iowa Review, 37(3), 168-173.
Cocks, C. (1997). Fireforce: One man's war in the Rhodesian Light Infantry. Roodepoort, South Africa: Covos-Day.
Caute, D. (1983). Under the skin: The death of white Rhodesia. Evanstown, IL: Northwestern University Press.
De Mul, S. (2009). Doris Lessing, feminism and the representation of Zimbabwe. European Journal of Women's Studies 16(1), 33-51.
Denoon, D. (1983). Settler capitalism: The dynamics of dependent development in the southern hemisphere. Oxford, United Kingdom: Clarendon Press.
Fuller, A. (2002) Don't lets go to the dogs tonight: An African childhood. London, United Kingdom: Picador.
Gehrmann, R (2013). A white African experience of identity, survival and Holocaust memory. Australian Journal of Jewish Studies 27, 193-206.
Godwin, P. (1997). Mukiwa: A white boy in Africa. London, United Kingdom: Picador.
Godwin, P. & Hancock, I. (1995). Rhodesians never die; The impact of war and political change on white Rhodesia, c. 1970 – 1980. Harare, Zimbabwe: Baobab Books.
Louw, E. & Mersham, G. (2001). Packing for Perth: The growth of a southern African diaspora. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 10(2), 303-333.
Lucas, D., Jamali, M. & Edgar, B. (2011). Zimbabwe's exodus to Australia, In African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific Conference 2011 (pp. 1-22). Adelaide, Australia: Flinders University. The African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific, Retrieved from: http://afsaap.org.au/assets/Lucas_Jamali_Edgar.pdf
Moore-King, B. (1998). White man, Black war. Harare, Zimbabwe: Baobab Books.
Perlez, J. (1989, January 13). Harare journal; Sergeant’s war story: The shame of the whites. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/13/world/harare-journal-sergeant-s-war-story-the-shame-of-the-whites.html
Pilossof, R. (2009). The unbearable whiteness of being: Land, race and belonging in the memoirs of white Zimbabweans. South African Historical Journal, 61(3), 621-638.
Simoes da Silva, T. (2011). Longing, belonging, and self-making in white Zimbabwean life writing: Peter Godwin’s When a Crocodile Eats the Sun. LiNQ, 38. Retrieved from: http://www.linqjournal.com/past-issues/volume-38-generations/longing-belonging-and-self-making-in-white-zimbabwean-life-writing-peter-godwins-when-a-crocodile-eats-the-sun/
St John, L. (2007). Rainbow’s end: A memoir of childhood, war and an African farm. London, United Kingdom: Penguin.
White, L. (2015). Unpopular sovereignty: Rhodesian independence and African decolonisation. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Williams, P. (2008). Soldier blue. Claremont, United Kingdom: David Phillip.
Williams, P. (2013). Writing a memoir of self-erasure: A practice-led exploration of constructing and deconstructing the coloniser-who-refuses. Text, 17(1). Retrieved from: http://www.textjournal.com.au/april13/williams.htm
Wylie, D. (2002). Dead leaves: Two years in the Rhodesian war. Pietermaritzburg, South Africa: University of Natal.
Wylie, D. (2007). The schizophrenias of truth telling in contemporary Zimbabwe. English Studies in Africa, 50(2), 151-169.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Authors who submit articles to this journal agree to the following terms:
1. Authors are responsible for ensuring that any material that has influenced the research or writing has been properly cited and credited both in the text and in the Reference List (Bibliography). Contributors are responsible for gaining copyright clearance on figures, photographs or lengthy quotes used in their manuscript that have been published elsewhere.
2. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) License that allows others to share and adapt the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
3. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository, or publish it in a book), with proper acknowledgement of the work's initial publication in this journal.
4. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (see The Effect of Open Access or The Open Access Citation Advantage). Where authors include such a work in an institutional repository or on their website (i.e., a copy of a work which has been published in eTropic, or a pre-print or post-print version of that work), we request that they include a statement that acknowledges the eTropic publication including the name of the journal, the volume number and a web-link to the journal item.
5. Authors should be aware that the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) License permits readers to share (copy and redistribute the work in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the work) for any purpose, even commercially, provided they also give appropriate credit to the work, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. They may do these things in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests you or your publisher endorses their use.