From Rhodes To Zimbabwe

At first glance, the resume could belong to any number of Harvard students: suburban Boston high school, varsity athlete, final club--the typical list of good-guy activities.

And in many ways, the first impression would be correct. Stanlake Mudavanhu Samkange seems to be an ideal Harvard ambassador, leaving Cambridge today after having tapped many of the University's resources and enjoyed them all. Asked if there is anything off hand," though he "probably could think of something."

But Samkange is not the typical Harvard student, and when he sets off today, he appears headed for a career probably very different from his fellow graduates of Newton South High School and Leverett House. Samkange was born in Rhodesia and plans--has always planned, it seems--to return to the land now called Zimbabwe.

His family moved to America in 1964, and Samkange has grown up here. Yet he says. "I consider myself Zimbabwean. I'm very comfortable here, and if for some reason I couldn't stay in Zimbabwe, I would feel comfortable living here. But in terms of the needs for my services, the things I could provide, there is more demand there." He smiles--something he does often, easily and naturally--and adds, "There are a lot of similarly qualified people here."

Maybe, His educational credentials are not routine. A History major elected to Phi Beta Kappa his junior year, Samkange earlier this year won a Zimbabwean Rhodes Scholarship. He will study at Oxford' Oriel College for at least the next two years (for an M. Phil. in Southern African history) and probably for three (for a D.Phil. in the same subject.) After Oxford, he is already signed up at Stanford Law School.

Though Samkange has lived in America for most of his life, he is very familiar with the life back in Africa. He has spent virtually every summer since high school in Africa, including six months during the end of his senior year at Newton South. He spent last summer researching and writing his senior thesis on the Rhodesian Labor Party from 1920 to 1948. His father (who was born in Rhodesia and is now an importer and international business consultant) and mother (who was born in Jackson, Miss.) moved back to the capital city of Salisbury in 1977. He remembers well the long civil war that turned Lan Smith's Rhodesia into Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe. The country side, Samkange says, was too dangerous even to pass through, and even Salisbury was not quiet. He adds, "It really is true that people learned to live with the violence." He remains cautiously optimistic about the nation's political future. "We're very lucky to get Mugabe--he seems like the right man for the job."

His interest in political affairs at home did not translate into any form of activism for any cause at Harvard. Of Black groups on campus, he says, with painstaking care. "I feel close to them while I don't agree with everything they say; they serve a useful purpose." Questioned more specifically about these groups, he declines to answer for publication.

Of his membership in the Fox Club, one of the final clubs--groups not traditionally known for their hospitality to Blacks and other minorities--he says, "To a certain extent, their [the club's] reputation is true, though it varies from club to club." He adds, "The biggest thing you get out of things like that is that you get to meet interesting people. If you're joining a club because you're impressed with connections or something, that's the wrong way," he sighs and then adds. "There is that anomaly, though, to have organizations like that in the 20th century."

In addition to his experience at the Fox Club, Samkange treasures his three years of fencing for the Harvard varsity. "One of the good things about Oxford," he says, "is you can still fence on the undergraduate team when you're a graduate." In addition to fencing, Samkange looks forward to a good deal of traveling over the course of his fellowship. After graduation, he will visit his mother's relatives in Jackson, and then go to Europe until Oxford begins in October. One disappointment, though, is that he and the other Rhodes Scholars will not be able to sail overseas on the Queen Elizabeth II, as is traditional, because the ship is being used in the Falkland Islands war. "I was very upset about that," he says, "It's very unfortunate."

But Samkange will make it to Oxford somehow and then to Stanford and then, it seems likely, to Zimbabwe. But to do what exactly? Politics? Samkange smiles broadly at the suggestion, one he has obviously heard before. "That's certainly a possibility," he says, certainly a politic answer. Then he shrugs, "Everyone sort of expects it A lot of things can happen, but I wouldn't rule it out." And then he smiles again.