Connection between “We Need New Names” and The Destroyer (Essay Sample)

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Connection between “We Need New Names” and The Destroyer
“We Need New Names” novel by Bulawayo’s, deals with the ruined state of Zimbabwe. The book identifies a group of six homeless children who are friends amid the reign of Presidents Robert Mugabe. As portrayed, these minors aged 11 and below are the most vulnerable victims of the Mugabe’s democracy- turned-dictatorship. The happenings articulated in the text are similar to those highlighted by Jon Lee Anderson in The Destroyer. Indeed, there is a strong connection between NoViolet Bulawayo novel and Jon’s portrait of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. The events depicted in chapter eight are one of the examples that one can relate to Anderson’s article.
The black power chapter is about how armed gangs of Mugabe supporters attacked white properties and the moderate group. The question of land as illustrated by Anderson was poorly handled by the government contrary to the agreement between the British and President Mugabe during Independence. To assist in understanding the subject Jon first narrates how in eighteen- nineties the British colonial rule took land from Africans and confined them to designated communal land. Most of the land was given to white settlers who after independence owned it while most Africans were still landless. In the agreement, Mugabe government agreed not to take the white-owned farmlands, and in return, the British government would assist financially to settle the landless Africans in a “willing buyer, willing seller scheme.”
According to Andersons, the government obeyed the agreement in the first decade only where it purchased six million and five hundred thousand acres and settled about fifty thousand families. This fraction was about a third of the entire land owned by white settlers, but interestingly these African farmers never thrived since the follow-ups were poor. By 1990s, Mugabe secured an amendment to constitution, which further allowed Mugabe regime to seizure land at will and set buying price. Wrangles between the whites and government emerged over farms with no resolutions and massive corruption ensued which led to political opponents of government losing farms while relatives and allies are allocated vast tracts of land.
As highlighted in “The Destroyer,” Mugabe went ahead and staged a constitution referendum, which would have allowed the president to confiscate land without any consultation. Fortunately, the bill was defeated as moderates led by Tsvangirai campaigned against it. However, groups of individuals termed as war veterans invaded tracks of land woned by whites all over the country, which was supported by President Mugabe openly.
How the invasion of the farms took place is now clearly narrated in the novel by Bulawayo. According to the text, Darling with her friends had gone to steal guavas near a homestead of a white farmer. While up in the tree, the children saw a bunch of individuals approaching the house of the farmer shouting things like, kill the Boer, the farmer, the khiwa! Strike fear in the heart of the white man! White man, you have no place here, go back, go home! Africa for Africans, Africa for Africans! Kill the Boer, the farmer, the khiwa! (Bulawayo 113). Darling, the narrator in the novel, asserts that the swarm of people pounded the door using their machetes making the owner and his wife to come out of the house.
The main character highlights how they witnessed the gang intimidated whites, smashed their properties and took them away from their home. Notably, even though the white man tries to protest that they are African since they were born in Zimbabwe, the individuals detest that and call them colonist. This notion about white farmers is depicted by Anderson who reveals that the textbooks used by public schools in Zimbabwe linked wealth, race and land issues together. The writer quotes one of the books, which states that the whites took over the land. They farmed the best parts themselves an...