About book When A Crocodile Eats The Sun: A Memoir Of Africa (2007)
Peter Goodwin writes a detailed memoir of his life in Zimbabwe, his father's history as a Jew in disguise, and the turmoil of his Zimbabwean heritage as a white member of a minority group. The story is comprehensive in that it touches on all the aspects, although not in tedious details, defining Africa as it is today and how it came about. He includes a lot of details of various aspects of the madness happening in Zimbabwe which he derived from various articles he wrote for different media outlets. But then he includes his family's personal history to remain true to the memoir-format of the book. He also draws a comparison to the holocaust events of what is happening to whites in Zimbabwe. I was constantly aware that the events were treated as journalistic exercises. However, it is a sad report on how quickly a country turned from a food basket to a dust bowl when things went wrong."When I am back in New York, Africa immediately seems fantastical - a wildly plumaged bird, as exotic as it is nlikely.""Most of us struggle in life to maintain the illusion of control, but in Africa that illusion is almost impossible to maintain. I always have the sense there that there is no equilibrium, that everything perpetually teeters on the brink of some dramatic change, that society constantly stands poised in some spasm, some tsunami in which you can do nothing but hope to bob up to the surface and not be sucked out into a dark and hungry sea. The origin of my permanent sense of unease, my general foreboding, is probably the fact that I have lived through just such change, such as sudden and violent upending of value systems."Different readers obviously focus on different aspect of the story. There are many reviews on Goodreads, providing other insights into the story. I don't want to add yet another comment on the actual content of the book, but would rather prefer to look at the underlying message in the book about human rights and how selectively it is applied to different situations in the world. Africa is a place where calculated acts of cultural and racial genocide, combined with xenophobia, take on totally different colors than the officially defined. Let's summarize the actual, official definition of human rights first and then look at the story from different perspectives:HUMAN RIGHTSIn the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Preamble, the following statements are made: (Source: United Nations Department of Public Information, NY) Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world, Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and ppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in cooperation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of thetgreatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,...READ MORE..Who really has the teeth to address this issue? Not the UN, where Russia and China sanction any actions against their 'friends'. The two countries whose human rights records stink up the universe, have the veto right on it.FROM A COMMUNIST PERSPECTIVEComparing the events in Zimbabe, actually everywhere in Africa, where landowners of different colors have been expropriated in different ways(mostly violent murders), to the events in all countries where Communism took over - the absolutely shocking horror and atrocities used in executing the decision, the evidence of similar patrons is spread all over the place. In the case of Zimbabwe, and South Africa as well, although more subtle, the modus operandi is more Maoistic than Stalanistic with all the cruelties included of Mao's believes and conduct. But Wole Soyinka, the Nobel prize-winning Nigerian writer, (P.266) "compares the Zimbabwean land-reform program with Stalin's land collectivization in Soviet Russia, designed to get rid of the kulaks, the pre-revolutionary commercial farmers whom he saw as a political threat." A much more accurate comparison, in my opinion, can be drawn with Máo's land reform in which landgrabbers were instructed to kill and take whatever they wanted. It is very well illustrated in the book ' Wild Swans - three daughters of China' by Jung Chang. I can add, for shock value, the photos of the genocidal slaughtering, because that is what it is, of the white farmers and their families in both countries, but the reader can find thousands of it on the internet. There are hundreds of organizations trying to create awareness and attract attention to these senseless, barbaric murders. But the world is officially turning a blind eye. Unofficially little more is done. For instance, white refugees are not handled the same way as other refugee under international law. As soon as a white person apply for refugee status, an uproar is stage and the sympathy is shifted to the offended black regime who claim to be victims of prejudice as well as colonization and hidden racist agendas. They are quick to add that they cannot be held responsible for some citizens who want to take revenge. And so some people back down. But countries such as China are not interested in what happens inside the walls of the house being plundered for their hungry economy. They simply subsidize Zimbabwe's government expenses and keep Mugabe in power for their own ends. And this way many eyes from countries that need Africa's wealth turn many blind eyes. After all, who wants to be accused of being fascist thugs?FROM A WORLD PERSPECTIVEWith just about the entire world dependent on Africa's wealth of resources, the outcome of Africa's history is determined by corporations and political big wigs with their hands in the cookie jars. In order of importance, Human Rights are so irrelevant, it is considered to be like a small asthmatic fish dying on dry land, no matter how noble the intentions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have been. There are much bigger fish to catch in this vast ocean of African wealth which demands much more attention and promises much more profits.FROM AN AFRICAN PERSPECTIVEWhat started out as a noble idea of liberating Africa from thousands of years of oppression, ended up in a cesspool of a carefully selected cleptrocratic, nepotistic group of despots raping the continent's wealth and keeping themselves in power with barbaric clamp-downs on the inhabitants. For every white person being murdered, another five Africans are killed by their own governments for opposing these mafiosos in power. I found the Goodwin book a true version of events - accurate, insightful, and well executed. Being a memoir, it discusses a family's situation in which their basic human rights have been severely compromised. The hardships they had to face, emotionally as well as physically, are heart-wrenching. Godwin also touches on colonialism as a contributing factor to the current violence on whites: P. 153: "It is sometimes said that the worst thing to happen to Africa was the arrival of the white man. And the second worst was his departure. Colonialism lasted just long enough to destroy much of Africa's indigenous cultures and traditions, but not long enough to leave behind a durable replacement."P. 155:"When the first Europeans arrive in Africa, they bring their territorial imperative with them. And once the dust settles from the "Scramble for Africa", the continent finds itself sliced up into bizarre and arbitrary shapes. Kilimanjaro, for instance, is given by Queen Victoria as a birthday present to her cousin, the Kaiser, because she has two snow-capped African peaks, and he has none. Many of these new states lump together ancient antagonists, cut across cultural and economic hinterlands. Europeans take Africa by the scruff of its neck and shake the bejesus into it, knocking it clear of its cultural fulcrum by doing good things and bad on so many frons: religion, trade, infrastructure, health. Societies that are built on the mathematical fundamentals of women giving birth to twelve in order to bring two or three to maturity suddenly find themselves with five, seven, nine children and all the attendant cultural chaos. Europeans entice them to want stuff - soap, clothes, bicycles, radios, stoves; turn then into impoverished consumers; co-opt their chiefs, tax them and compel them to leave home, to labour for wages."Human rights and equality for all was one of the major ideals of Nelson Mandela. But his love for people became the main reason why he was shunted onto a sideline by the members of his party who craved a ride on the gravy train and pushed everything and anyone out of the way that apposed their greed. Modern Africa was never a haven for human rights, although it was suppose to be. If it was, there would not have been so many millions of Africans fleeing their own countries to particularly Europe and America as well as South Africa! So much so, that it is currently creating huge challenges for the host countries. The black-on-black violence is much worse in scope and numbers as well compared to the white genocide.So if you are interested in basic Human Rights and what it really should mean, you can read this book. If you want to read more about the African story, this is one true version of the events. And after you have read it, you will have to decided where you stand on the Human Rights issue, how selectively you are in your own application of it. Should it only apply to groups you have sanctioned? But, just as a human-interest story, This book is a beautiful book written in eloquent prose. I am not so impressed with the choice of title though. It might allow an exotic touch to the story, it is an eye-catcher, but for me, does not apply really to the situation. The reason being that these atrocities are happening on a daily basis and have been doing so for centuries. It is not a once-off occurrence. Five stars for the guts it took to write this detailed version of an African love story gone wrong. In my opinion, it is the basic human right of everyone to tell his/her story. It is the only way a complete version of history can be recorded. It is another way of demonstrating greed in all its different disguises. This book made a valuable contribution. The most important message, to me personally, in this book, lies in the proof it provides that throughout human history, cruelty has not been limited to one creed or color. There simply are no saints in the saga of human existence.I wanted to read this book for months now. It was lying here waiting. I was expecting it to be a good counter-balance for "African Laughter: Four Visits to Zimbabwe by Doris Lessing. It was. What Lessing failed to acknowledge (was it deliberate omission perhaps of the horrendous atrocities?) in her book as a result of the revolt, fueled by communism (which she promoted in Zimbabwe in her earlier involvement in the country's politics), Godwin has added in clinical detail. It was needed.
I read Godwin’s earlier memoir 10 years ago so naturally wanted to read this one, though I wondered what a man younger than I by a decade or more could have to write two memoirs about. The answer is “plenty”. This one is focuses on the period between 1996 and 2004 when Robert Mugabe is encouraging the “wovits” (supposedly vets of the civil war but mostly thugs and opportunists) to confiscate land from white settlers. Mugabe seems to want to get rid of whites in Zimbabwe and to make what was a country genuinely successful at developing a multi-racial society into an all black country; ruining the country's economy in the process. Production is down, the economy is shrinking, inflation is off the wall. Not only whites but middle class blacks are immigrating in droves.Godwin, a journalist, has lived in the UK and the US for years but loves his country and has made a specialty of getting jobs reporting from there. His parents remained there as did his sister, a TV journalist. What's compelling about this memoir, though, is the author's skill at simultaneously reporting on the beauty and promise and on the horrible political present of a part of the world most of us know little about and think of only as a place of abject poverty and ugliness. Godwin's love of Zimbabwe and its people, black and white, is infectious. But he's very talented also at weaving Zimbabwe's story in with that his own family. His older sister, killed by terrorists whose grave is vandalized. His physician mother who’s given and given again to the people of Zimbabwe. His younger sister whose journalism gets her banned to North London where she broadcasts back to Zimbabwe. Godwin learns during the time frame of the book that his tight-lipped British father is actually a Polish Jew and holocaust survivor trapped in Britain in 1939 where he went on a course to learn English. His mother and sister ended their lives in Treblinka. His father was never allowed to learn Poland. Godwin’s telling of his father's story would seem totally irrelevant to present day Africa, as would Goodwin’s own experience of volunteering his time in the wake of 9/11 (his own neighborhood), but that's the beauty of a good memoirist who can make anything that happens to him "relevant”. In the end he feel compelled to compare his own need to leave Africa with his father’s to leave Poland: “Like Poland was to him, Africa is for me: a place in which I can never truly belong, a dangerous place that will, if I allow it to, reach into my life and hurt my family. A white in Africa is like a Jew anywhere—on sufferance, watching wearily, waiting for the next great tidal swell of hostility.”I can’t recommend this book enough.
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Initially, I thought this book was going to be another white colonial (hence patronizing) view of Africa, a la Kapucinski or Theroux, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover it was much more—and much better—than I ever expected. There is a nice triumvirate of storytelling here that when the disparate strands are linked together as they are in this book, pack a punch that none of the three lines alone could have done. Peter Godwin IS white, but he was born and raised in Zimbabwe (nee Rhodesia) and his tacking between the worlds of black and white creates a palpaple tension in that you aren't sure if the narrator can be trusted. Two of the storylines—the death of Godwin's father and the disintegration of Zimbabwe—have a nice parallel, but it's Godwin's discovery that his father is not English by birth but actually a Polish Jew who disowned his birthright after World War II, that gives this memoir its propulsive narrative glue. I haven't cried from reading a book in a long while. This one broke the dry-eye streak and the tears felt earned and genuine.
—Eric
I remember taking a clipping about Rhodesia's unilateral declaration of independence to school for current events (when I was very young :-)) and have been somewhat aware of the ongoing difficulties in Rhodesia and later Zimbabwe since then. I knew several physicians who had left the country for Canada in the early 80s for 'better' opportunities and heard the stories of how they were not optimistic that they would be able to live safely and prosper - so I was really happy to have an opportunity
—Joan
Godwin's "When a Crocodile Eats the Sun" is not only compelling and well-written, but more timely than ever. A memoir of his adult life after having left Zimbabwe, the place of his birth (he is a journalist for National Geographic and a slew of other top-notch publications), Godwin painfully portrays the experience of white Africans in Zimbabwe, and his own family's history in their journey to Africa. It gives an insider's view of Mugabe's reign of terror, and the utter chaos that has enveloped the country.Perhaps the most compelling part of the story is that of his parents, elderly in the late 90s and early 2000s. Anyone who has cared for an aging loved one, and who feels the guilt of the child or grandchild who is no longer at home to care for them, is struck by this emotional theme in the story. Add to this feeling the fact that his aging parents are in a conflict torn country with few resources, wild inflation, and rampant crime and intimidation, and you get a sense of the emotional and moral dilemma Godwin goes through. His parents are rooted in their home country and won't leave, but their children cannot viably stay; indeed, one of Godwin's siblings is a casualty of random violence during the Civil War. Godwin and his remaining sister act as international voices on the crisis, she on the radio, he in print. This is a heartbreaking and riveting book, which can be paired daily with the newspaper to show how so little has changed in Zimbabwe (the book ends in 2004), and how Mugabe's reign of terror last until this day.
—Kristen
