The Sunday Mail
Africa Unity Square in Harare was once the embodiment of Rhodesia.
There is quite a story behind its construction and the planning of its environs.
Back in 1890, Colonel Pennefather and his Pioneer Column reached the Kopje and on surveying the land spreading out before them, the leader of the invading force declared: “All is well. Magnificent country. Natives pleased to see us. Everything satisfactory.”
Pleased with his exploits, and after advancing a little further, he hoisted the British Union Jack at the site of what is now Africa Unity Square.
Col Pennefather called the place Fort Salisbury, naming it after the Third Marques of Salisbury who was then Britain’s prime minister.
After that, a police camp and other official structures sprung up around Fort Salisbury.
As the settlement grew, the services of a town planner became necessary.
United States army captain Tom Ross, who for some reason arrived late to the party and could not be part of the invading Pioneer Column, was asked to help plan the settlement that Col Pennefather now called Salisbury.
There is a strong cultural-historical component to town/settlement planning, with aesthetic values informed by socialisation towards certain concepts of beauty.
Capt Ross was an American. He wanted a rectangular pattern similar to what he was accustomed to across the Atlantic.
This was also significant in that it was in direct contrast to the circles and concentric patterns that appealed to African aesthetic and religio-cultural sensibilities.
Capt Ross also wanted the streets numbered rather than named.
However, a British fellow called Dr Rand prevailed upon him with the importance of naming “some of our thoroughfares after blazers of the African trail”.
That is how Harare ended up with names like Fife Avenue (after the Duke of Fife), and with the earliest suburb being named Avondale in 1903 after a place of a similar moniker somewhere in Ireland.
In 1897, Salisbury was declared a municipality, and thereafter a full city in 1935.
As the municipality was growing, the land around Cecil Square appreciated in price.
Thomas Meikle erected Meikles Hotel on the south side of the square to cater for the accommodation needs of colonial businessmen.
On the west side of the square arose the building that would became the home of the colonial government’s propaganda arm – the Rhodesia Herald.
The Square itself was deliberately designed so that the footpaths that crisscross it gave you the Union Jack.
And around this Union Jack, to join Meikles Hotel and the Rhodesia Herald, was the Anglican Cathedral.
The Church of England can never be divorced from imperial conquest in these parts: the gun followed the Bible.
And after the Bible and the gun had done their bit to subjugate the natives who were “pleased to see” Col Pennefather, in came the law.
Which is why we had Parliament Building erected where it is, around Cecil Square along with the Church, the newspaper and Meikles Hotel, which represented settler capitalism.
Colonialism is a business. That explains the importance of the Landaus and Meikles to Rhodesia.
That was not all. Up came the building we now call Club Chambers, home of the Harare Club.
Like many of the other structures around the Union Jack called Cecil Square, Club Chambers started off as a series of huts.
This was the place where senior colonial administrators and top police officers met and talked shop, drank some whiskey or whatever, and patted each other on the back for doing such a fine job of getting the natives over a barrel.
Businesspeople were generally not welcome at the Club (something about money not buying class), though after sometime they too were permitted – usually after serving in some capacity for the colonial administration, often at local government level.
Jews started penetrating the closed circle after the 1950s when Harry Margolis made the breakthrough, while selected blacks joined after the 1970s.
What we had were the major symbols of empire — the Church, Parliament, business, media and the Club — congregated around the Union Jack of Cecil Square and worshipped Empire.
At Independence, the media arm got the metamorphosis it needed. Today, Herald House is home to publications that reflect the reborn nation that we are in the form of papers like The Sunday Mail, The Herald and Kwayedza.
The Church has been fighting to “indigenise”, think Bishop Kunonga and Reverend Tim Neil.
Club Chambers sort of opens its doors more broadly these days. Even the war veterans hold Press conferences there.
Parliament is majority nationalist. Yes, there are some fellows in there of questionable IQ, but on the whole the legislature can largely be relied upon to think Zimbabwean.
As for Meikles, well it remains Meikles.
Yes, Meikles. That’s quite another story! In fact, it is the story.
Back in 1895 when the settlers realised there was no Second Rand on this side of the Limpopo, full attentions were turned to grabbing land and cattle in earnest.
A chap called Dr Leander Starr Jameson wanted war, and he recalled those pioneers and others to re-enlist and tackle the Ndebele.
These fine gentlemen were to be paid with cattle looted from the Ndebele.
Among those who enlisted was a close Cecil John Rhodes associate called Neville Johns.
A columnist going by the name Nathaniel Manheru has helpfully told us that before Neville Johns died, he put together an account of those heady days of war, murder and thievery in a little book called “Rhodesian Genesis”.
It is in that little book that we are told how a certain John Meikle — brother of Thomas and Stewart — chaired the Loot Committee responsible for grabbing Ndebele cattle and using them to pay settler mercenaries.
Another account by Jack Carruthers, again recounted by that rabble rouser Nathaniel Manheru, says in all the Loot Committee plundered 362 000 head of cattle.
That’s Meikles for you.
That’s where last Tuesday Madam Joice Mujuru chose to launch a party called Zimbabwe People First.
The “people” stood outside as Madam Mujuru made a grotesquely coquettish pitch to diplomats in that hotel of 362 000 declared Ndebele cattle.
We hope her choice was out of ignorance. We fear it was out of monetary bondage.
