Description:Handsworth from the Inside
"Demonstration at Downing St., London regarding Rhodesia." This image was taken at a demonstration against the Prime Minister, Bishop Abel Muzorewa, of the then Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, predecessor and long standing opposition of the still current President Mugabe of Zimbabwe, preceded by Ian Smith of Rhodesia under British Colonial occupation.
At the time of the image, Mugabe was the Pan-Africanist choice; opposing the constitution for the new independent Rhodesia (soon to be Zimbabwe Rhodesia), drafted by Muzorewa and his supporters, that made room in the new senate and house of Parliament for white seats, approved by a whites-only referendum, all in a co-operational manner with the former colonial administration.
Being against the involvement of the Colonial occupiers in the handover of rule, Mugabe’s party, ZANU (Zimbabwe African National Union) and another supporting party, Zimbabwe African People’s Union, undertook guerrilla warfare and continued to denounce the new constitution, the consequent arrangement and the election of Muzorewa to position as Prime Minister, and Gumede as President, 1979.
This dissent led to re-elections in 1980, and the majority election of Mugabe’s ZANU to power.
This protest was against Muzorewa’s co-operation with the perceived occupational forces of Imperial Britain.
When Burke took this image, he said he did so not only to capture her participation in the demonstration, but to ask questions like; who was this woman?; what did she do before she left her house to come for this demonstration?; was she a mother?; what motivated her, as an individual, to take time out of her day to day life to come and make this protest…?