Author: Chung, Fay
Publisher: Nordic Africa Inst.
Fay Chung grew up in a Chinese family in Rhodesia in the 1950s and 1960s. She studied education and literature, and became a lecturer at the University of Zambia in the early 1970s. In Zambia, she joined the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), and took part in the radicalisation of the nationalist rising, which led to Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980.
The memoirs of Fay Chung give an inside view of the divisions within ZANU during the late 1970s. She witnessed the change of leadership from Sithole to Mugabe, experienced the tensions between politicians and military leaders, as well as the rise and fall of the vashandi movement, which tried to change the direction of ZANU in a more socialist direction. Within ZANU, Fay Chung was prominent in preparing educational reform, and after Independence worked for the Zimbabwean Ministry of Education and Culture – eventually as Minister. Her memoirs describe the efforts to extend access to education and to bring `education-with-production’ principles into school curricula.
Fay Chung also reflects on the ongoing crisis in Zimbabwe. While regretting the violence, she is critical of the new democratic opposition, and supports Robert Mugabe’s ‘Third Chimurenga’ as a return to the objectives of land reform and economic justice, which she sees as the ‘heartblood’ of the liberation struggle. This is an account, which will be certain to provoke many readers, and which will stimulate discussions both within Zimbabwe and abroad.
This edition includes an introduction by Preben Kaarsholm, which situates Fay Chung’s narrative in the context of ongoing debates about Zimbabwe.
Fay Chung in the 1980s worked in various capacities in the Zimbabwean Ministry of Education. She was Chief of the Education Cluster at UNICEF 1993-98, and the first director of the UNESCO International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa 1998-2003.
Contents:
Growing up in Colonial Rhodesia
An Undergraduate in the `60s
Teaching in the Turmoil of the Townships
In Exile in Britain
Learning from the Zambia of the 1970s
Joining the Liberation Struggle in Zambia
Josiah Tongogara: Commander of ZANLA
Post-Détente Intensification of the War: Nyadzonia and Chimoio
The Formation of the Zimbabwe People’s Army (ZIPA), 1976
The Geneva Conference: Old Enemies and New Friends
Post-Détente and the Defeat of the ZANU left Wing
I End Up in a Military Camp
Traditional Religion in the Liberation Struggle
The Formation of the ZANU Department of Education
The Internal Settlement and Intensified Armed Struggle
The Lancaster House Agreement
Prelude to Independence
The Fruits of Independence
A Vision of Zimbabwe Tomorrow
