It said racial polarization was shown at a writers’ gathering in Harare last month addressed by white and black best-selling authors. It said the tiny white minority of about 30,000 does not want to mix with blacks or respect the majority population of 12 million people. The Patriot newspaper said since independence in 1980 Zimbabweans have been giving each other “plastic smiles” that tried to conceal the deeply-rooted brutality of past white rule. Ministerial colleagues sometimes seemed to forget he was in the same room when they made “shocking” remarks about whites, even at Cabinet meetings, he said on his Facebook page.ĭebate on lingering prejudices in Zimbabwe has raged since allegations of racism in soccer have reemerged in Europe.Ī weekly newspaper run by loyalists of President Robert Mugabe charged Friday that racism by whites has endured three decades since the end of colonial-era rule. Zimbabwe’s only white government minister has said racial slurs against whites at the highest political level continue to show “a gross level of intolerance” in the southern African nation.Įducation Minister David Coltart said if he made similar insults about blacks he would “rightly be branded as a sympathizer of the Nazis and the Klu Klux Klan.”

Zimbabwe president speech about racism