Why this book: In a reading group I participate in at my place of work, my boss suggested this as a change  from the types of books we had been reading.  He noted that it is one of his favorite most recent reads. So naturally we selected it to read. It was a good choice.

Summary in 4 sentences:  This is Peter Godwin’s personal memoir,  from approximately the mid nineties to about 2005, but there are numerous regressions going back as far back as prior to World War II. We see the rule of law deteriorate in Zimbabwe, with the rise of criminal gangs which intimidate and steal with impunity – in fact with support from the government.  The author  returns  to his home in Zimbabwe often to visit  his family and friends, and recounts his impressions of how they coped with the deliberate destruction of civilized values and culture in their homeland by the corrupt Mugabe government. And this book is also very much about Peter Godwin’s evolving relationship with his own father.

My impressions: Peter Godwin is an internationally recognized journalist, and his writing reflects his extensive journalistic experience and reputation  – in other words, this book is very well written.  When a Crocodile Eats the Sun is his very personal account of about 10 years of his life during which he returned regularly to Zimbabwe during its political, economic, and cultural decline under the Mugabe dictatorship.  He describes in very personal terms how the deterioration of Zimbabwe impacted his family, friends and his perspective on his own experiences growing up in what had once been Rhodesia.

It is also a cautionary tale about how a thriving country, once one of the most prosperous economies in Africa, can rather quickly be destroyed by a gang of thugs led by a dictator.    He described how Zimbabwe in the early 2000s had the most rapidly declining economy in the world, and yet the leadership didn’t seem to care – continuing to pursue their destructive policies.   This book is a dystopian vision of what a country can devolve into, if/when might-makes-right, good people have little recourse when they are intimidated, harassed, and murdered with impunity, and their property is essentially stolen by thugs operating with the authority of the government.

There appeared to be no government protected human rights in Zimbabwe.   The whim of Mugabe was law, and he pandered to the gangs who supported him, empowering them to loot, steal, and murder.  What was amazing to me was that so many whites and educated blacks who were being victimized by these people, clung to hope and stayed.  The ideals of justice, the rule of law, and human rights that had been (imperfectly)  imported from their British colonizers no longer carried any weight. Whatever values could be associated with the culture of the colonizers was automatically rejected, the good with the bad, the baby with the bathwater.  This was especially true if these ideals compromised, threatened or in any way limited the abilities of Mugabe and his cronies to enrich themselves.

The book covered a lot of territory. Godwin jumped from his childhood, to his young adult hood to his own evolution as a man, to his experiences as an adult, but he repeatedly returned to Zimbabwe – not only as a journalist, but also as a son helping to take care of his aging parents.    His parents had immigrated  to Zimbabwe from Britain after World War II, had worked hard and made a good life for themselves, and considered themselves natives.  They chose to stay and ride out the hardships, in the land in which they had lived their entire adult lives. Peter Godwin, the author, had left Zimbabwe after fighting in the civil war in the 1980s, and became a well-respected international journalist, eventually settling with his young family in NYC.  He visited Zimbabwe often to report on the dissolution of the country and to take care of his parents, as the nation and the rule of law crumbled around them under Mugabe’s dictatorship.

One of the most compelling parts of the book story is when he recounts his parents’ story – a story he had not known growing up.   Not until he was an adult, well into his 30s, did he find out who his father really was, how he had come to Rhodesia, and why he had been so secretive about his past.  Much of the book is about Peter Godwin’s evolving relationship with his father.  Peter Godwin’s personal journey of discovering his own personal identity is a sub theme of the book – not only who he is as a descendent of the white colonizers of Rhodesia, but also exploring his on-going relationship to Zimbabwe, as well as reforging a relationship to his parents as his parents reveal secrets of their past to him.

As his father ages and becomes increasingly debilitated as he approaches his own death, Peter Godwin naturally gives him a lot of attention in the book.  A weakness of the book to me is that his mother struck me as equally impressive and fascinating, but Godwin doesn’t give her, or his relationship to her nearly as much attention.  I would like to know more about her.

Fascinating book.  In our discussion of it in our reading group, all of us were amazed that  we were so ignorant of the horrors of life in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, and how such a thugocracy could exist within the orbit of Western Civilization with us knowing so little about it.  And how we all noted how quickly a highly civilized culture could fall apart and drift into near anarchy.  Fascinating – and disturbing.