“White Man Crawling”: Time, Race and Power in John Eppel’s Depiction of Middle-aged and Elderly Whites during the Zimbabwean “Crisis”

Abstract

This article applies Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope, in conjunction with a rights-reading approach, to John Eppel’s fiction, with particular reference to Eppel’s depiction of middle-aged and elderly whites during the Zimbabwean “crisis”. Taken at one level to mean the organisation of value-laden space-time in a literary text, and also at another level, the spatio-temporal relationship between a text and its socio-historical context, the chronotope emerges as a useful concept in analysing polarised racial relationships that characterised Zimbabwe during its “crisis” period. While the Chimurenga chronotope is a cyclical representation of time whose racialising strategy depersonalises whites as constant foes and strangers rendered in a permanent war narrative, Eppel responds in his fiction, particularly through the chronotopes of ageing and reversal, by delineating an array of white subjectivities characterised by physical infirmity and loss of socio-political power, to challenge the homogenisation and vilification of whites. 

Opsomming

Hierdie artikel is 'n toepassing van Bakhtin se konsep van die chronotoop, tesame met 'n regte-lees-benadering tot  John Eppel se fiksie, met spesifieke verwysing na Eppel se uitbeelding van middeljarige en bejaarde witmense tydens die Zimbabwiese “krisis”. Die chronotoop wat op een vlak die organisering van waardebelaaide ruimte-tyd in 'n literêre teks kan beteken, en op 'n ander vlak, ook die tydruimtelike verwantskap tussen 'n teks en die sosiohistoriese konteks daarvan, kom na vore as 'n nuttige konsep in die ontleding van gepolariseerde rasseverhoudinge wat kenmerkend van Zimbabwe wys tydens die “krisis”-tydperk. Hoewel die Chimurenga-chronotoop 'n sikliese voorstelling van tyd is, waarvan die rassifiseringstrategie wittes ontpersoonlik as konstante vyande en vreemdelinge wat in 'n permanente oorlogvertelling weergegee word, reageer Eppel in sy fiksie, veral deur die chronotope van veroudering en vernietiging, deur 'n verskeidenheid wit subjektiwiteite wat gekenmerk word deur fisieke afgeleefdheid en verlies van sosiopolitieke mag, uit te beeld om die homogenisering en beswaddering van witmense te betwis.