Dear reader,
I began this project with many different options of a
research topic, some much more complicated than others. The one that really
stuck out to me was the children’s perspective on war, because the narrator in
my book seemed so completely un-phased by the traumatic events she
experienced. However, as time
progressed, I realized that I would not be able to create a decent argument in
time for school to end. Instead, I researched the Rhodesian war, and as I did
so it became evident to me that there had been no hope for the settlers from
the start. You cannot just force your way into a population of natives that
large with such a devotion to their land, and expect them to bow down to you
without a fight. This did end up happening during the Rhodesian Bush Wars, and
it was extremely frustrating for me to read about the acts that the British
settlers had carried out in order to exert their power over the Rhodesians.
They had disrupted the lives of a people who had never given them a reason to
do so. What was the most upsetting was that from the moment the whites made
their moves in Rhodesia, the land could never be the same. There was no way it
would ever go back to the how it was after the meddling of the British. My
“Golden Thread” is hands because of that very reason. Because the natives had
crafted their own lives with their own hands and it had turned into something
beautiful, something that worked for them. But the settlers took that way of
life and tore it apart; the settler’s hands were destructive. So the natives
were forced to abandon what they had once known, and become aggressive, they
had to pull their land back, while the other side was tugging just as hard.
Even though the British lost in the end, the Natives were still left with a
completely overturned life.
Sincerely,
Siobhan West
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