Watching this 2009 documentary “Mugabe and the White African” reminded me of my days in England, when as a guest I listened uncomfortably to the English talking about Africa, when I learned about paternal laws and when I was an honorary “us” but on the streets I was one of “them.” The question in this documentary is do white farmers have the right to African land. The question should be why does Mike Campbell want to stay in the Republic of Zimbabwe.

Mike Campbell bought land in 1974. He and his wife Angela, their son-in-law Ben Freeth,challenged the land redistribution program that began in 2000 and generally gave land to favorites of Robert Mugabe.

The 86-year-old Mugabe is a British-educated man, born in Zimbabwe when it was still called Rhodesia. He is the current President of Zimbabwe, its second.

Rhodesia is a name that recalls the British South Africa Company that acquired the land in the 19th century. The company was owned by Cecil John Rhodes. The Republic of Rhodesia declared independence from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965. From 1965 to 1979, it existed as an unrecognized state. The history is more complicated than that. Mugabe was seen as a hiro, given awards by Queen Elizabeth, honorary degrees by universities like the University of Edinburh and the University of Massachusetts, that would later be revoked.

Campbell knows that Mugabe is a complete dictator. The documentary was shot after white farmers had been terrorized for 10 years.  The 74-year-old grandfather bought the land when he was in his late thirties. One wonders why he remains in Africa at all.  There were probably few other places, places where white men are the majority, where he could have bought 3,000 acres of land and opened a lodge. Campbell took a loan and repaid it 20 years later, but wasn’t it all a gamble and a risky one at that?

Mike Campbell, his wife and their son-in-law would be kidnapped and beaten in June 2008. In February 2009, they would be forced from their farms would later be burned to the ground.

Yes, Campbell bought the land in 1974 when Zimbabwe was still the unrecognized state of Rhodesia. White made up 1 percent of the population and owned 70 percent of the land. Mugabe came into power in the 1980s. When the leader of a country calls his critics “born again colonialists” and claims the problems he faces are the legacy of imperialism, minorities should take heed. All these things together should be warning enough for any white man.

What’s troubling about all Campbell’s talk about racism and human rights, and his Freeth’s assertion that this is a “community” because “we’ve got  500 people that live on this farm: workers, wives, children and it’s home for us all” is the disparity in the homes. Would Freeth or Campbell want to stay if they had to live and work as their workers do? I think not.

Yet the documentary doesn’t give us the people we want to hear from, the historians who could tell us who originally owned the land and how many people had to be killed, black people, for it to come into the hands of the British South African Company.  Why was the farm named Mount Carmel? And for American audiences, just how do black audiences feel, or better yet Native American viewers?

“If good men do nothing, evil will prevail” is the tag line for the movie,  but is Mike Campbell really a good man? In contrast to “Neshoba: The Price of Freedom” this movie, “Mugabe and the White African” pales.

This documentary won the Best Documentary at the British Independent Film Awards, the Grand Jury Prize at the Silver Docs Documentary Festival and the Special Jury Prize at the Hampton’s International Film Festival.