Final Hay dispatch: Out of Africa

The Hay Festival has ended, but so much of this enormous festival went largely unreported. Here’s the final dispatch from George Binning:

Richard E Grant’s conversation with Peter Godwin about Mugabe’s regime and Godwin’s latest book, The Fear, gave us a nuanced insight into African politics that could not have been written by the Western press.

Godwin, who fought against Mugabe in the civil war, started by describing the dichotomy of being a white African, especially when lecturing to audiences of predominantly black American students who had never been to Africa themselves, but still identified with the continent.

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He argued that Mugabe had followed a consistently retributive agenda, hidden behind the fervour of national liberation and accusations of apartheid apologies. He also argued that Zimbabwe was in a state of “post-racial politics”, that the land grabs of recent years were aimed at persecuting the large population of unionised black farm workers and owners, who had refused to vote for him in the election.