Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-11T07:18:28.918Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rethinking Chimurenga and Gukurahundi in Zimbabwe: A Critique of Partisan National History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2013

Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

This article examines how the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) sought to inscribe a nationalist monologic history in Zimbabwe in order prop up its claim to be the progenitor and guardian of the postcolonial nation. Since its formation in 1963, it has worked tirelessly to claim to be the only authentic force with a sacred historic mission to deliver the colonized people from settler colonial rule. To achieve this objective, ZANU-PF has deployed the ideology of chimurenga in combination with the strategy of gukurahundi as well as a politics of memorialization to install a particular nationalist historical monologue of the nation. After attaining power in 1980, it proceeded to claim ownership of the birth of the nation. While the ideology of chimurenga situates the birth of the nation within a series of nationalist revolutions dating back to the primary resistance of the 1890s, the strategy of gukurahundi entails violent and physical elimination of enemies and opponents. But this hegemonic drive has always encountered an array of problems, including lack of internal unity in ZANU-PF itself, counternarratives deriving from political formations like the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU); labor movements; and critical voices from the Matebeleland region, which fell victim to gukurahundi strategy in the 1980s. With the formation of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in 1999, which soon deployed democracy and human rights discourse to critique the ideology of chimurenga and the strategy of gukurahundi, ZANU-PF hegemony became extremely shaky and it eventually agreed to share power with the MDC in February 2009.

Résumé:

Résumé:

Cet article examine la manière dont le Front Patriotique d'Union Nationale Africaine du Zimbabwe (ZANU-PF) a cherché à inscrire au Zimbabwe une histoire monologique nationaliste en vue de mettre en avant sa revendication d'être le fondateur et protecteur de la nation postcoloniale. Depuis sa formation en 1963, le parti s'est efforcé sans relâche de se faire voir comme la seule force légitime dont la mission historique sacrée était de délivrer les populations colonisées de l'oppression coloniale. Pour achever cet objectif, le ZANU-PF a promu une idéologie appelée Chimurenga à l'aide de la stratégie Gukurahundi ainsi qu'une politique de commémoration pour établir un monologue historique nationaliste spécifique définissant la nation. Après avoir accédé au pouvoir en 1980, le parti commença à proclamer être le créateur de la nation. Tandis que l'idéologie Chimurenga situait la naissance de la nation à la suite d'une série de révolutions nationalistes datant de la première résistance des années 1890, la stratégie Gukurahundi impliquait l'élimination violente et physique des ennemis et opposants. Cependant, cette impulsion hégémo-nique a rencontré depuis toujours une série de problèmes, y compris un manque de cohésion interne au sein du ZANU-PF lui-même, et des discours antagonistes provenant de formations politiques comme l'Union du Peuple Africain du Zimbabwe (ZAPU), les mouvements travaillistes et des voix critiques victimes de la stratégie Gukurahundi dans les années 80, provenant de la région du Matabeleland. Avec la formation du Mouvement pour le Changement Démocratique (MDC) en 1999, qui prononça aussitôt des discours critiques de l'idéologie Chimurenga et de la stratégie Gukurahundi au niveau démocratique et des droits de l'homme, l'hégémonie du ZANU-PF devint extrêmement fragile et le parti accepta de partager le pouvoir avec les formations du MDC en février 2009.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 55 , Issue 3 , December 2012 , pp. 1 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alexander, Jocelyn, McGregor, JoAnn, and Ranger, Terence. 2000. Violence and Memory: One Hundred Years in the “Dark Forest.” of Matabeleland. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Beach, David N. 1971. “The Rising in South-Western Mashonaland, 1896–97.” Ph.D. diss., University of London.Google Scholar
Beach, David N. 1979. ”‘Chimurenga’: The Shona Rising of 1896–7.” Journal of African History 20 (3): 401–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beach, David N. 1980. “Review Article: Revolt in Southern Rhodesia.” International Journal of African Historical Studies 13 (1): 107–12.Google Scholar
Beach, David N. 1986. War and Politics in Zimbabwe, 1840–1900. Gweru: Mambo Press.Google Scholar
Beach, David N. 1998. “An Innocent Woman, Unjustly Accused? Charwe, Medium of Nehanda Mhondoro Spirit, and the 1896–97 Central Shona Rising in Zimbabwe.” History in Africa 25: 27–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennett, Tony. 1995. The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Blair, David. 2000. Degrees in Violence: Robert Mugabe and the Struggle for Power in Zimbabwe. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Brickhill, Jeremy. 1995. “Making Peace with the Past: War Victims and Work of the Mafela Trust.” In Soldiers in Zimbabwe's Liberation, edited by Bhebe, Ngwabi and Ranger, Terence, 161–89. London: James Currey.Google Scholar
Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) and Legal Resources Foundation (LRF). 1997. Breaking the Silence, Building True Peace: Report on the Disturbances in Matabeleland and the Midlands Regions, 1980–1989. Harare: CCJP and LRF.Google Scholar
Chan, Stephan. 2003. Robert Mugabe: A Life of Power and Violence. London: I.B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Chikowero, Moses. 2008. “Struggles over Culture: Zimbabwean Music and Power, 1930s–2007.” Ph.D. diss., University of Dalhousie.Google Scholar
Chitando, Ezra. 2002. “‘Down with the Devil, Forward with Christ!’ A Study of the Interface between Religious and Political Discourses in Zimbabwe.” African Sociological Review 6 (1): 1–16.Google Scholar
Chitando, Ezra. 200. “In the Beginning was Land: The Appropriation of Religious Themes in Political Discourse in Zimbabwe.” Africa 75 (2): 220–39.Google Scholar
Chung, Fay. 2006. Re-Living the Second Chimurenga: Memories from Zimbabwe's Liberation Struggle. Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute.Google Scholar
Cobbing, Julian. 1976. “The Ndebele under the Khumalos, 1820–1896.” PhD diss., University of Lancaster.Google Scholar
Cobbing, Julian. 1977. “The Absent Priesthood: Another Look at the Rhodesia Risings of 1896–1897. Journal of African History 18: 61–84 Google Scholar
Debord, Guy. 2002. The Society of the Spectacle. Canberra: Treason Press.Google Scholar
Dirlik, Arif. 2002. “Rethinking Colonialism: Globalization, Postcolonialism, and the Nation.” Interventions 4 (3): 428–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorman, Sarah R. 2001. “Inclusion and Exclusion: NGOs and Politics in Zimbabwe.” D.Phil, thesis, University of Oxford.Google Scholar
Fontein, Joost. 2009. “The Politics of the Dead: Living Heritage, Bones and Commemorations in Zimbabwe.” www.theasa.org.Google Scholar
Hudson, Miles. 1981. Triumph or Tragedy? Rhodesia to Zimbabwe. London: Hamish Hamilton.Google Scholar
Kriger, Norma. 1995b. “The Politics of Creating National Heroes: The Search for Political Legitimacy and National Identit.” In Soldiers in Zimbabwe's Liberation War, edited by Bhebe, Ngwabi and Ranger, Terence, 137–56. London: James Currey.Google Scholar
Kriger, Norma. 2003. Guerrilla Veterans in Post-War Zimbabxve: Symbolic and Violent Politics, 1980–1987. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kriger, Norma. 2005a. “ZANU (PF) Strategies in General Elections, 1980–2000: Discourse and Coercion.” African Affairs 104 (414): 1–34.Google Scholar
Kriger, Norma. 2006. “From Patriotic Memories to ‘Patriotic History’ in Zimbabwe, 1990–2005.” Third World Quarterly 27 (6): 1151–69.Google Scholar
Laakso, Liisa, and Olukoshi, Adebayo O.. 1996. “The Crisis of the Post-Colonial Nation-State Project in Africa.” In Challenges to the Nation-State in Africa, edited by Olukoshi, Adebayo O. and Laakso, Liisa, 7–39. Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute.Google Scholar
Mandaza, Ibbo, and Sachikonye, Lloyd, eds. 1991. The One-Party State and Democracy: The Zimbabwe Debate. Harare: SAPES Books.Google Scholar
Masaka, Dennis. 2012. “Paradoxes in the ‘Sanctions Discourse’ in Zimbabwe: A Critical Reflection.” African Study Monographs 33 (1): 49–71.Google Scholar
Mazarire, Gerald C. 2011. “Discipline and Punishment in ZANLA, 1964–1979.” Journal of Southern African Studies 37 (3): 571–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MDC. 2000. “MDC Election Manifesto.” Harare: Information and Publicity Department.Google Scholar
MDC. 2007. “A New Zimbabwe, A New Beginning.” Harare: Information and Publicity Department.Google Scholar
Melber, Henning. 2009. “Southern African Liberation Movements as Governments and the Limits to Liberation.” Review of African Political Economy 121: 453–61.Google Scholar
Melber, Henning. 2008. “Post-Independence Authoritarianism.” Development and Cooperation 35 (1): 378–81.Google Scholar
Mhanda, Wilfred. 2011. Dzino: Memories of a Freedom Fighter. Harare: Weaver Press.Google Scholar
Moore, David. 1995a. “The Zimbabwe People's Army: Strategic Innovation or More of the Same.” In Soldiers in Zimbabwe's Liberation War, edited by Bhebe, Ngwabi and Ranger, Terence, 73–103. London: James Currey.Google Scholar
Moore, David. 1995b. “Democracy, Violence, and Identity in the Zimbabwean War of National Liberation: Reflections from the Realm of Dissent.” Canadian Journal of African Studies 29 (3): 387–90.Google Scholar
Moore, David. 2005a. “Investing the Past, Creating Hegemony: Deconstructing Ngwabi Bhebe's Simon Vengayi Muzenda. The Struggle for and liberation of Zimbabwe.” Paper presented at the South African Historical Society Biennial Conference. “Southern Africa and the World: The Local, the Regional and the Global in Historical Perspective.” University of Cape Town, June 26–29.Google Scholar
Moore, David. 2008. “Coercion, Consent, Context.” In The Hidden Dimensions of Operation Murambatsvina, edited by Vambe, Maurice Taonezvi, 24–38. Harare: Weaver Press.Google Scholar
Msindo, Enocent. 2007. “Ethnicity and Nationalism in Urban Colonial Zimbabwe: Bulawayo, 1950 to 1963.” Journal of African History 48: 273–94.Google Scholar
Mthwakazi People. 2011. “Open Letter from the People of Mthwakazi to Head of State and Government of the Republic of Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe.”Google Scholar
Muchemwa, Kizito Z. 2010. “Galas, Biras, State Funerals and the Necropolitan Imagination in Re-Construction of the Zimbabwean Nation, 1980–2008.” Social Dynamics 36 (3): 504–14.Google Scholar
Mudenge, Stanislaus. 1988. A Political History of Munhumutapa c. 1400–1902. Harare: Zimbabwe Publishing House.Google Scholar
Mugabe, Robert G. 1978. “ZANU Carries the Burden of History.” Zimbabwe News, May–June, 45–56.Google Scholar
Mugabe, Robert G. 2001. “Inside the Third Chimurenga.” Harare: Ministry of Information and Publicity.Google Scholar
Muzondidya, James. 2007. “Jambanja: Ideological Ambiguities in the Politics of Land and Resource Ownership in Zimbabwe.” Journal of Southern African Studies 33 (2): 321–25.Google Scholar
Muzondidya, James. 2010. “The Zimbabwean Crisis and the Unresolved Conundrum of Race in the Post-Colonial Period.” Journal of Development Studies 26 (1): 5–38.Google Scholar
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J. 2006. “Puppets or Patriots: A Study of Nationalist Rivalry Over the Spoils of Dying Settler Colonialism in Zimbabwe, 1977–1980.” In Nationalisms Across the Globe: An Overview of Nationalisms in State-Endowed and Stateless Nations. Volume II: Third World, edited by Burzta, W. J., Kamusella, T., and Wojciechowski, S., 345–97. Poznan: School of Humanities and Journalism.Google Scholar
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J. 2007. “Fatherhood and Nationhood: Joshua Nkomo and Re-imagination of the Zimbabwe Nation in the 21st Century.” In Manning the Nation: Father Figures in the Zimbabwean Literature and Society, edited by Muchemwa, Kizito and Muponde, Robert, 73–87. Harare: Weaver Press.Google Scholar
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J. 2008. “Nation-Building in Zimbabwe and Challenges of Ndebele Particularism.” African Journal on Conflict Resolution 8 (3): 27–55.Google Scholar
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J.. 2009a. Do “Zimbabwean.” Exist? Trajectories of Nationalism, National Identity Formation and Crisis in a Postcolonial State. Oxford: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J. 2009. “Making Sense of Mugabeism in Local and Global Politics: ‘So Blair, Keep Your England and Let Me Keep My Zimbabwe’.” Third World Quarterly 30 (6): 1139–58.Google Scholar
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J. 2009c. “Africa for Africans or Africa for ‘Natives’ Only? ‘New Nationalism’ and Nativism in Zimbabwe and South Africa.” Africa Spectrum 1: 61–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J. 2009. The Ndebele Nation: Reflections on Hegemony, Memory and Historiography. Amsterdam: Rozenberg Publishers.Google Scholar
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J.. 2011. “Beyond the Drama of War: Trajectories of Nationalism in Zimbabwe, the 1890s to 2010.” In Redemptive or Grotesque Nationalism? Rethinking Contemporary Politics in Zimbabwe, edited by Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J. and Muzondidya, James, 37–79. Oxford: Peter Lang Google Scholar
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J., and Muzondidya, James. 2011. “Introduction: Redemptive or Grotesque Nationalism in the Postcolony.” In Redemptive or Grotesque Nationalism? Rethinking Contemporary Politics in Zimbabwe, edited by Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J. and Muzondidya, James, 1–31. Oxford: Peter Lang.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J., and Willems, Wendy. 2009. “Making Sense of Cultural Nationalism and the Politics of Commemoration under the Third Chimurenga in Zimbabwe.” Journal of Southern African Studies 35 (4): 945–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J., and Willems, Wendy. 2010. “Reinvoking the Past in the Present: Changing Identities and Appropriations of Joshua Nkomo in Post-Colonial Zimbabwe.” African Identities 8 (3): 191–208.Google Scholar
Raftopoulos, Brian. 1999. “Problematising Nationalism in Zimbabwe: A Historiographical Review.” Zambezia 26 (2): 83–115. Google Scholar
Raftopoulos, Brian. 2007. “Nation, Race and History in Zimbabwe.” In Making Nations, Creating Strangers: States and Citizenship in Africa, edited by Dorman, Sarah, Hammen, Daniel, and Nugent, Paul, 145–89. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Raftopoulos, Brian. 2010. “The Global Political Agreement as a ‘Passive Revolution’: Notes on Contemporary Politics in Zimbabwe.” The Round Table 99 (411): 705–18.Google Scholar
Raftopoulos, Brian, and Phimister, Ian, eds. 1997. Keep on Knocking: A History of the Labour Movement in Zimbabwe 1900–1997. Harare: Weaver Press.Google Scholar
Raftopoulos, Brian, and Sachikonye, Lloyd, eds. 2001. Striking Back: The Labour Movement and the Post-Colonial State in Zimbabwe, 1980–2000. Harare: Weaver Press.Google Scholar
Ranger, Terence. 1967. Revolt in Southern Rhodesia, 1896–7: A Study in African Resistance. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Ranger, Terence. 1969. “Connexions Between ‘Primary Resistance’ Movements and Modern Mass Nationalism in East and Central Africa.” Journal of African History 9 (3 & 4): 437–53.Google Scholar
Ranger, Terence. 1977. “The People in African Resistance.” Journal of Southern African Studies 4 (1): 125–46.Google Scholar
Ranger, Terence. 1985. Peasant Consciousness and Guerrilla War in Zimbabwe. London: James Currey.Google Scholar
Ranger, Terence. 1999. Voices from the Rocks: Nature, Culture and History in the Matopos Hills of Zimbabwe. Harare: Baobab.Google Scholar
Ranger, Terence. 2002. “The Zimbabwe Elections: A Personal Experience.” Transformation 19 (3): 54–76.Google Scholar
Ranger, Terence. 2004. “Nationalist Historiography, Patriotic History and History of the Nation: The Struggle over the Past in Zimbabwe.” Journal of Southern African Studies 30 (2): 215–34.Google Scholar
Ranger, Terence. 2005a. “The Uses and Abuses of History in Zimbabwe.” In Skinning the Skunk: Facing Zimbabwean Futures, edited by Palmberg, Mai and Primorac, Ranka, 1–15. Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute.Google Scholar
Ranger, Terence. 2005b. “Rule by Historiography: The Struggle Over the Past and Its Possible Implications.” In Versions of Zimbabwe: New Approaches to Literature and Culture, edited by Muponde, Robert and Primorac, Ranka, 217–43, Harare: Weaver Press.Google Scholar
Robins, Steven. 1996. “Heroes, Heretics and Historians of the Zimbabwe Revolution: A Review Article of Norma Krieger's Peasant Voices.” Zambezia 23 (1): 71–93.Google Scholar
Sadomba, Zvakanyorwa W. 2011. War Veterans in Zimbabwe's Revolution: Challenging Neo-Colonialism and Settler and International Capital. Harare: Weaver Press.Google Scholar
Scarnecchia, Timothy. 2008. The Roots of Urban Democracy and the Political Violence in Zimbabwe: Harare and Highfield, 1940–1964. Rochester, N.Y.: University of Rochester Press.Google Scholar
Shaw, William H. 1986. “Towards the One-Party State in Zimbabwe: A Study in African Political Thought.” Journal of Modern African Studies 24 (3): 373–94.Google Scholar
Sithole, Masipula, and Makumbe, John. 1997. “Elections in Zimbabwe: The ZANU (PF) Hegemony and Its Incipient Decline.” African Journal of Political Science 2 (1): 122–39.Google Scholar
Solidarity Peace Trust. 2008. “Weekly Accounts of the Run-Up to 2008 Parliamentary and Presidential Elections.” www.solidaritypeacetrust.org.Google Scholar
Southern Africa Report 15 (3). 2000 (June), www.southernafricanreport.com.Google Scholar
SWRadio Africa. 2011. February 15.Google Scholar
Tendi, Blessings-Miles. 2010. Making History in Mugabe's Zimbabwe: Politics, Intellectuals and the Media. Oxford: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Vambe, Maurice T. 2008. “Introduction: Rethinking Citizen and Subject in Zimbabwe.” In The Hidden Dimensions of Operation Murambatsvina in Zimbabwe, edited by Vambe, Maurice, 1–13. Harare: Weaver Press.Google Scholar
Werbner, Richard. 1998. “Beyond Oblivion: Confronting Memory Crisi.” In Memory and the Postcolony: African Anthropology and the Critique of Power, edited by Werbner, Richard, 1–34. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
ZANU-PF Department of Information and Publicity. 2004. “Traitors Do Much Damage to National Goals.” Harare: ZANU-PF Department of Information and Publicity.Google Scholar
ZAPU. 2010. “ZAPU Manifesto.” Bulawayo: Information and Publicity Department.Google Scholar
The Zimbabwean. 2010. August 24.Google Scholar
ZIPA. 1977. “Chimurenga—A People's War.” Zimbabwe News (March/April).Google Scholar
Zvobgo, Eddison. 1984. “The ZANU Idea.” In The Struggle for Independence: Documents on the Recent Developments of Zimbabwe (1975–1980), Edited by Baumhögger, Goswin, Engel, Ulf, and Diederichsen, Telse. Vol. 4. Hamburg: Institute for African Studues.Google Scholar
Zvobgo, Eddison. 1995. “Agenda for Democracy, Peace and Sustainable Development in the SADC Region.” Paper presented at Parliamentarians at the CPA/IPU Joint Dinner, Harare, November 14.Google Scholar