Drinking for Development: Transformation of the Beer Hall System in Late Colonial Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

Abstract

ABSTRACT A common feature of colonial towns in Africa was the ‘beer hall’, serving traditional sorghum beer under municipal monopoly to the African labour force. This system was designed with a dual purpose – to fund rudimentary welfare and housing services for workers whilst consolidating control of drinking and sociality. But it was oppressive, and therefore lacked legitimacy; beer halls became targets of anti-colonial struggle and faced stiff competition from illicit brewers and drinking dens. Little is known about how colonial authorities considered and addressed these problems. This article shows how authorities in late colonial Bulawayo – in the spirit of post-war developmentalism – attempted to make their municipal liquor enterprise more legitimate, by building a multitude of landscaped community beer gardens serving good quality sorghum beer, and hailing the African welfare, education, recreation and home ownership schemes built from the considerable profits. Notwithstanding this attempt to associate municipal drinking with respectable sociality and socio-cultural development, the Council received (and strenuously rebutted) sustained criticism from Africans and Europeans alike for its heavy promotion of alcohol, which undermined its moral authority as the arbiter of post-war development.