July 09, 2005

From The Barrel of a Gun | From the Lens of the Photographer | My Father, Zimbabwe, My Roots, My Purpose?

Amazon.com: Books: From the Barrel of a Gun: The United States and the War Against Zimbabwe, 1965-1980

I come from a strange and wonderful background that when many people first hear some of the stories they simply look away and assume I'm one of those types who likes to make up extravagant stories about themselves, family members, close relatives, best friends, or people I "swear I know and consider them a good friend if not from the past and as such quite distant." You get to the point where you realize "why do I even bother saying anything? Its not really all that important they know that kind of stuff. So why do you even care? Let people find out for themselves, let them ask the questions if they so desire. But until then, just keep it to yourself."

This is something I don't think I can keep to myself though... And I'm not sure why. Maybe this post will help me figure it out or maybe it will make the "wonder" worse.

This is a picture of my father stapled to his credentials certifying "that Mr. I. Peterson is the Press Photographer of the Rhodesia Government and should be accorded normal press privileges please." If you look closely you'll notice that the date stamped in two seperate places is the 24th of October, 1964.

Any of you familiar with the state of affairs in Southern Africa at that point in history, and in particular to that of Rhodesia where the first half of my family was born and raised, will realize that being "the Press Photographer of the Rhodesia Government" in October of 1964 meant something quite different than the same credentials would have meant in say London, or Sydney, or Los Angeles. All exciting places and during this same time frame they each had their levels of excitement to post to the newspaper headlines without a doubt.

But not these kind of headlines...

These headlines, the ones in whom it was my fathers job to keep an ongoing photographic record of anything and everything that was taking place from the inside of the Government looking out. These headlines, if printed at all, were much different, much more awful, and irreversably evil and wrong and horrific criminal acts... And things were just getting started... this was just the very early beginning as its something I can't believe we can truly say to this day has ever come to any real end.

In this place, in this part of the world, at this time in history things were taking place that would lead to a revolution of change that would darken the eyes of too many to count if it wasn't for the prayers for each of them that they were now in a better place than they were here. Here was a place that was leaving visible physical scars in a people, a countryside, a nation, and our world that have still never quite healed, some still bleeding worse than before and in ways nobody in this country could or would even want to try to understand.

I am just about to head out the door to pick up a copy from my local Barnes & Noble of the linked book title above.

From the Amazon.com description:

Book Description

In November 1965, Ian Smith's white minority government in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) made a unilateral declaration of independence, breaking with Great Britain. With a European population of a few hundred thousand dominating an African majority of several million, Rhodesia's racial structure echoed the apartheid of neighboring South Africa. Smith's declaration sparked an escalating guerrilla war that claimed thousands of lives.

Across the Atlantic, President Lyndon B. Johnson nervously watched events in Rhodesia, fearing that racial conflict abroad could inflame racial discord at home. Although Washington officially voiced concerns over human rights violations, an attitude of tolerance generally marked U.S. relations with the Rhodesian government: sanctions were imposed but not strictly enforced, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of American mercenaries joined white Rhodesia's side in battle with little to fear from U.S. laws. Despite such tacit U.S. support, Smith's regime fell in 1980, and the independent state of Zimbabwe was born.

The first comprehensive account of American involvement in the war against Zimbabwe, this compelling work also explores how our relationship with Rhodesia helped define interracial dynamics in the United States, and vice versa.

I'm sure you can fill in the blanks to the types of things that were taking place during this long, drawn out, and awful space in Rhodesian time. And to make matters worse 25 years after this war ended theres still no real progress to focus on, no real victory to claim, no real understanding as to why life can't simply be in a state of peace, and comfort, and happiness... just like Mr. Robert Mugabe said they would. 25 years and its seems things may just be getting started all over again... and for what purpose this time? The same damn things...

I guess you can say my family was lucky. Although I doubt the world in which my father lived in at that time was something he felt all that lucky about living in. I can only imagine the relief he must have felt when, in 1965 and just before hell began to break at the seams of the Rhodesian soil, five visa's for which he had applied for in hope but without expectation arrived from the United States giving my family a chance at a brand new life in which its current value was less than a handful of that broken and crushed and heart breaking soil that he was responsible for documenting roll after roll, canister after canister, gun after gun, and life upon life of those whose fortune wasnt quite the same as my familys just so happened to be on that very special day in my family's history.

Speaking quite literally it was an overnight excursion that took place from the time these five chances arrived to leave the country he truly loved and take his beautiful wife and three wonderful, beautiful, and amazing daughters on board a ship to a country he knew nothing about other than it was a place where he could raise his family without fear of coming home to find nothing that any true and respectful man on this planet could or would ever even want to even imagine. It may not be the home that he loved but it was a country he now treasured for giving him a new chance to live, and breathe, and love without fear that all of this, all of them, without warning and without cause, could just disappear overnight.

And he would then be the one responsible for photo-documenting what had just taken place.

Thank God for the United States of America and for the Men and Women who have devoted their lives to ensuring that we don't have to live in a world like that. We don't have to have those kinds of fears. We can wake up in the morning, go to work, and on the commute home assume quite accurately that our familys are safe at home and looking forward to our return. We may not live in a perfect place where the politicians honesty is as true as their bleached white smile. But by God and can't imagine one other place I would rather want to live than in a country who's has founded its principals on happiness, safety, love, companionship, family, and the freedom to worship the God we believe (or don't believe) in without worry, or fear, or wonder what it is we might have to lose first so we can gain something else last.

Thank you to each and every one of you who have given me and my family this wonderful country to live in. God bless you for all that you give, all that you have lost, all that you have sacrificed and continue to sacrifice so that a place like this can exist.

Thank you God for the United States of America and for each and every country like Britain, and Canada, and Australia, and the many hundreds of others who have stood behind us in a time of need and fought with us side by side to protect what other have lost their lives to build.

Now its our turn to stand by the side of our brothers and sisters in London. I wish these things never had to happen but I thank God I live in a place that is willing to do whatever needs to be done to help do for them what they have already, and without question, done for us.

Thank you Great Britain and the United Kingdom (and all the others who stood by when we needed you.) Our hearts and prayers are with you as yours were with us.

Lets hope this is the last time we have ever have to see this, to feel this, to lose this, to cry over all of this. Lets hope this time round something in the hearts of those who hate can somehow change. I guess all that can truly and simply be said is lets just hope. Prayer is a constant.