Art is the telling of truth and is the only available method for
the telling of certain truths. Zimbabwe achieved its
independence in 1980 after seventeen years of a civil war, a war
in which -- and estimates vary from 30, 000 to 70, 000 -- men,
women and children left the country to live in often appalling
conditions in Mozambique and Zambia, hoping to return as
guerrillas to fight against a white regime of 250,000 people
with all the advantages of a conventional army and airforce and
one which mustered all its men into the war. Both sides believed
they had right on their side, both used propaganda to espouse
their cause, and both sides had to engender a hatred of the
opposing side because you cannot kill another human being unless
he or she is perceived as your "enemy." There was no one in
Zimbabwe whose lives were not disrupted and changed by the war,
no one who did not suffer its psychological consequences and no
one who did not lose either friends or family. The war and all
the terrible suffering that it