White Farmer: How Robert Mugabe Forced Me To Leave My Wonderful Life in Zimbabwe Where I Lived As A King to a Congested Flat in London

White Farmer: How Robert Mugabe messed up my life in Zimbabwe where I lived as a King

I was born outside Harare in Banket where my father was a prominent tobacco farmer.

Our family used to employ over 5000 local Zimbabweans to work at our 3000 acre farm. We were one of the most successful farmers in Zimbabwe, earning a lot of foreign currency for my family and also for the country Zimbabwe.

After the farm invasions of 1999, my family lost everything as angry local Mugabe militia came to our farm and burnt our house to ashes and beat up our workers. We were forced to leave the farm in the middle of the night, with nothing else except the clothes we were wearing.

The tobacco empire that my family built over generations, since my great grand father arrived in Zimbabwe from England, was destroyed in minutes. It was very heart breaking.

I had to leave the good life I was used to. I grew up going to a private school that was near our farm where other white children went to school. We lived in our own world. I remember growing up at the farm, and the black boys my age went to a separate school that my father had build for all the farm workers. It was congested, and conducted in one of the dilapidated tobacco warehouses that our family had abandoned.

Growing up in Zimbabwe, I had a chauffeur come to pick me up everyday for school to drop me off at the private school with the other children of white farmers. Because my parents were very busy with farming, I spent a lot of time with two Shona nannies who raised me, Chipo and Tecla. Chipo and Tecla were my Zimbabwe moms, they washed my clothes, bathed me, cooked my meals and ensured that Casper, our chauffeur, was always on standby if i needed to go anywhere.

I miss that life.

Now I have moved to London where I am staying in a cramped flat sharing the flat with another person. I miss my life in Zimbabwe. I miss Chipo and Tecla for everything they did for me. I lived a royal life and hate it here in London. Why did Mugabe take our farm and our livelihood? Why? Now here in London, I have to work at some low level job and save some pounds to send home to take care of my parents who have now moved in with friends in Harare after we lost everything.

I hate Mugabe and his gang for robbing us of our country and the farming business we built in Zimbabwe. My father employed thousands of Zimbabweans, and fed them. I am sure today, all those workers at our farm are dead of hunger. Why are black people never grateful!? What did we do to deserve this? Our ancestors left Europe to come and save Zimbabwe. We introduced civilization to black people in Zimbabwe – clothes, medicine, roads, clean water, sugar, beer…all this before we came to Zimbabwe was not known. All they knew was beating one another with knobkerries and eating berries and roots for supper.

I miss home, I miss Zimbabwe, I miss the life I lived in Zimbabwe. I hope Mugabe knows that we are the best people to build and restore Zimbabwe to where it should be. We built the schools that educated Mugabe, we build the roads that Mugabe drives on today, the railway lines that bring food to Zimbabwe today were built by my fore fathers. The black Zimbabweans never did anything except destroy what we built.

I pray that one day Zimbabwe will be back to where it was and I can live the life I grew up experiencing in Zimbabwe.

Ian K.