No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
From Pioneer Historiography to Patriotic History: Constructing Usable Pasts in Zimbabwe (1890–2018)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2022
Abstract
Different political projects and ideological positions are founded upon distinct accounts of the past, each with their own emphases, silences, and omissions. The case of Zimbabwe illustrates this connection between power and history. Whereas the myths of colonial historiography provided legitimization frameworks for settler colonialism, “patriotic history” became a key element of the legitimation strategy implemented by the post-independence regime. Pinto analyses how history and historiography were incorporated into narratives of power legitimization in both pre- and post-independence Zimbabwe and how, in the late 90s, history and historiography became critical sites of political polarization and contestation.
Résumé
Différents projets politiques et positions idéologiques sont fondés sur des récits distincts du passé, chacun avec ses propres accents, silences et omissions. Le cas du Zimbabwe illustre ce lien entre le pouvoir et l’histoire. Alors que les mythes de l’historiographie coloniale fournissaient des cadres de légitimation au colonialisme de peuplement, « l’histoire patriotique » est devenue un élément clé de la stratégie de légitimation mise en œuvre par le régime post-indépendance. Pinto analyse comment l’histoire et l’historiographie ont été incorporées dans les récits de légitimation du pouvoir dans le Zimbabwe avant et après l’indépendance et comment, à la fin des années 90, l’histoire et l’historiographie sont devenues des sites critiques de polarisation et de contestation politiques.
Resumo
Diferentes projetos políticos e posições ideológicas radicam em visões distintas do passado, cada uma com as suas homenagens, silêncios e omissões. O caso do Zimbabué ilustra esta relação entre poder e história. Se a historiografia pioneira se orientou para legitimar o colonialismo demográfico, a história patriótica fez parte da estratégia de legitimação do poder do regime pós-independência. Este trabalho de investigação analisa como a história e a historiografia foram apropriadas pelas narrativas de legitimação do poder, no período pré e pós-independência. Esta continuidade permite compreender como, nos anos 90, a história e a historiografia se tornaram lugares de polarização e contestação política.
- Type
- Article
- Information
- Copyright
- © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the African Studies Association
References
Alexander, Jocelyn, McGregor, JoAnn, and Ranger, Terence. 2000. Violence and Memory: One Hundred Years in the “Dark Forests” of Matabeleland. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Barnes, Teresa, Nyakudya, Munyaradzi, and Phiri, Christopher. 2016. “Vacuum in the Classroom? Recent Trends in High School History Teaching and Textbooks in Zimbabwe.” In (Re)Constructing Memory: Textbooks, Identity, Nation, and State, edited by Williams, James H and Bokhorst-Heng, Wendy D, 323–41. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.10.1007/978-94-6300-509-8_14CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beach, David. 1980. The Shona and Zimbabwe 900–1850: An Outline of Shona History. Gweru: Mambo Press.Google Scholar
Beetham, David. 1991. The Legitimation of Power (2nd edition). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1007/978-1-349-21599-7CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bhebe, Sindiso. 2015. “Overview of the Oral History Programme at the National Archives of Zimbabwe: Implications for Nation Building and Social Cohesion.” Oral History Journal of South Africa 3 (1): 43–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bratton, Michael. 2014. Power Politics in Zimbabwe. Boulder: Lynne Rienner.10.1515/9781685850692CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brownell, Josiah. 2011. Collapse of Rhodesia: Population Demographics and the Politics of Race. London: I.B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Bull-Christiansen, Lene. 2004. “Tales of the Nation: Feminist Nationalism or Patriotic History? Defining National History and Identity in Zimbabwe.” Research Report nº 132. Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.Google Scholar
Caronan, Faye. 2015. Legitimizing Empire: Filipino American and U.S. Puerto Rican Cultural Critique. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.10.5406/illinois/9780252039256.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Charumbira, Ruramisai. 2015. Imagining a Nation: History and Memory in Making Zimbabwe. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.Google Scholar
Chiumbu, Sarah. 2004. “Redefining the National Agenda Media and Identity: Challenges of Building a New Zimbabwe.” In Media, Public Discourse, and Political Contestation in Zimbabwe, Current African Issues, edited by Melber, Henning, 29–35. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.Google Scholar
Clark, Anna. 2010. “Politicians Use History.” In Australian Journal of Politics and History 56 (1): 120–31.10.1111/j.1467-8497.2010.01545.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cobbing, Julian. 1976. Ndebele Under the Khumalos: 1820–1896. PhD diss. Lancaster University.Google Scholar
Diamond, Larry. 2015. “Facing Up to the Democratic Recession.” In Democracy in Decline? edited by Diamond, Larry and Plattner, Marc F., 98–119. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.10.1353/book.40891CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorman, Sara R. 2016. Understanding Zimbabwe: From Liberation to Authoritarianism. London: Hurst & Company.Google Scholar
Eze, Michael O. 2010. The Politics of History in Contemporary Africa. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1057/9780230110045CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisher, Josephine L. 2010. Pioneers, Settlers, Aliens, Exiles: The Decolonization of White Identity in Zimbabwe. Canberra: The Australian National University Press.Google Scholar
Hammar, Amanda, Raftopoulos, Brian, and Jensen, Stig, eds. 2003. Zimbabwe`s Unfinished Business: Rethinking Land, State and Nation in the Context of Crisis. Harare: Weaver Press.Google Scholar
Herbst, Jeffrey. 1990. State Politics in Zimbabwe. Berkeley: University of California Press.10.1525/9780520337947CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hughes, David. 2010. Whiteness in Zimbabwe: Race, Landscape, and the Problem of Belonging. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jewsiewicki, Bogumil, and Mudimbe, Valentim Y.. 1993. “Africans’ Memories and Contemporary History of Africa.” History and Theory 32 (4): 1–11.10.2307/2505629CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kagoro, Brian. 2002. “Can apples be reaped from a thorn tree? A case analysis of the Zimbabwean Crisis and NEPAD’s Peer Review Mechanism.” Paper presented to the Southern Africa Research Poverty Network and Center for Civil Society workshop Engaging NEPAD: government and civil society speak to one another, University of Natal, Durban.Google Scholar
Kennedy, Dane. 2013. The Last Blank Spaces: Exploring Africa and Australia. London: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keppel-Jones, Arthur. 1960. “The Occupation of Mashonaland.” Report of the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Historical Association 39 (1): 74–82.10.7202/300427arCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keppel-Jones, Arthur. 1983. Rhodes and Rhodesia: The White Conquest of Zimbabwe 1884–1902. Montreal: McGill, Queen`s University Press.10.1515/9780773561038CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kriger, Norma. 2005.“ZANU(PF) Strategies in general elections, 1980–2000: Discourse and Coercion.” African Affairs 104 (414): 1–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
L’Ange, Gerald. 2005. The White Africans: From Colonization to Liberation. Jeppestown: Jonathan Ball Publishers.Google Scholar
LeBas, Adrienne. 2006. “Polarization as Craft: Party Formation and State Violence in Zimbabwe.” Comparative Politics 38 (4): 419–38.10.2307/20434010CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mamdani, Mahmood. 2001. “Beyond Settler and Native as Political Identities: Overcoming the Political Legacy of Colonialism.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 43 (4): 651–64.Google Scholar
Mamvura, Zvinashe. 2019. “‘Let us make Zimbabwe in my own name’: Place naming and Mugabeism in Zimbabwe.” South African Journal of African Languages 40 (1): 32–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mandaza, Ibbo, ed. 1986. Zimbabwe: The Political Economy of Transition. Dakar: CODESRIA.Google Scholar
Mangena, Tendai. 2018. “Rhodes, Mugabe and the Politics of Commemorative Toponyms in Zimbabwe.” Geopolitics 25 (4): 1015–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mangiza, Owen, and Mazambani, Ishmael. 2021. “Zimbabwe: The Ethnicisation of Zanu and the Downfall of Ndabaningi Sithole (1963–2000).” Conflict Studies Quarterly 35: 37–50.10.24193/csq.35.3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maposa, Marshall T., and Wassermann, Johan. 2014. “Historical Literacy in a Context of Patriotic History: An Analysis of Zimbabwean History Textbooks.” Africa Education Review 11 (2): 254–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mbembe, Achille. 2002. “African Modes of Self-Writing.” Public Culture 14 (1): 239–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Melber, Henning. 2002. “From Liberation Movements to Governments: On Political Culture in Southern Africa.” African Sociological Review 6 (1): 161–72.10.4314/asr.v6i1.23208CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Melber, Henning. 2009. “Southern African Liberation Movements and the Limits to Liberation.” Review of African Political Economy 36 (121): 451–59.10.1080/03056240903211190CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mlambo, Alois S. 2010. “‘This is our land’: The Racialization of Land in the Context of the Current Zimbabwe Crisis.” Journal of Developing Studies 26 (1): 36–69.Google Scholar
Moore, David. 1991. “The Ideological Formation of Zimbabwe`s Ruling Class.” Journal of Southern African Studies 17 (3): 472–95.10.1080/03057079108708288CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moyo, Nathan. 2014. “Nationalist Historiography, Nation-state making and Secondary School History: Curriculum Policy in Zimbabwe 1980–2010.” Nordidactica – Journal of Humanities and Social Science Education 2: 1–21.Google Scholar
Moyo, Sam. 2004. “The Land and Agrarian Question in Zimbabwe in Agrarian Constraint and Poverty Reduction: Macroeconomic Lessons for Africa.” Paper presented at the Conference “The Agrarian Constraint and Poverty Reduction: Macroeconomic Lessons for Africa’, Addis Ababa, December 17–18.Google Scholar
Moyo, Sam, and Yeros, Paris. 2007. “The Zimbabwe Question and the Two Lefts.” Historical Materialism 15: 171–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moyo, Sam, and Yeros, Paris. 2013. “The Zimbabwe Model: Radicalization, Reform and Resistance.” In Land and Agrarian Reform in Zimbabwe: Beyond White-Settler Capitalism, edited by Moyo, Sam and Chambati, Walter, 331–57. Dakar: CODESRIA.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mpofu, Shepherd. 2015. “Toxification of National Holidays and National Identity in Zimbabwe’s Post-2000 Nationalism.” Journal of African Cultural Studies 28 (1): 1–16.Google Scholar
Mpofu, Shepherd. 2017. “Making Heroes, (un)Making the Nation?: ZANU-PF’s Imaginations of the Heroes’ Acre, Heroes and Construction of Identity in Zimbabwe from 2000 to 2015.” African Identities 15 (1): 62–78.10.1080/14725843.2016.1175920CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mugabe, Robert. 1989. “The Unity Accord: Its Promise for the Future.” In Turmoil and Tenacity: Zimbabwe, 189–-1990, edited by Banana, Canaan, 336–60. Harare: The College Press.Google Scholar
Mugabe, Robert. 2001. Inside the Third Chimurenga. Harare: Ministry of Information and Publicity.Google Scholar
Mujere, Joseph, Sagiya, Munyaradzi Elton, and Fontein, Joost. 2017. “‘Those who are not known, should be known by the country’: Patriotic History and the Politics of Recognition in Southern Zimbabwe.” Journal of Eastern African Studies 11 (1): 86–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Myers, Frank. 2000. “Harold Macmillan’s ‘Winds of Change’ Speech: A Case Study in the Rhetoric of Policy Change.” Rhetoric and Public Affairs 3 (4): 555–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ncube, Cornelius. 2010. Contesting Hegemony: Civil Society and the Struggle for Social Change in Zimbabwe, 2000–2008. PhD diss. University of Birmingham.Google Scholar
Ncube, Gibson. 2018. “Of Dirt, Disinfection and Purgation: Discursive Construction of State Violence in Selected Contemporary Zimbabwean Literature.” Tydskrif vir Letterkunde 55 (1): 41–53.10.17159/2309-9070/tvl.v.55i1.1548CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo. 2009. “Africa for Africans or Africa for ‘Natives’ Natives Only? ‘New Nationalism’ and Nativism in Zimbabwe and South Africa.” Africa Spectrum 44 (1): 61–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo. 2013. “Zimbabwe and the Crisis of Chimurenga Nationalism.” In Coloniality of Power in Postcolonial Africa: Myths of Decolonization, edited by Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J.. Dakar: CODESRIA.Google Scholar
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo. 2015. Mugabeism? History, Politics and Power in Zimbabwe. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo, 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): 945–65.10.1080/03057070903314226CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nyakudya, Munyaradzi. 2011. “Interactive Teaching Methods in National and Strategic Studies in Teacher Training Colleges: Defeating the Myopia of Patriotic History and Political Expediency.” Zimbabwe Journal of Educational Research 23 (1): 26–43.Google Scholar
Phimister, Ian. 1976. “The Reconstruction of the Southern Rhodesian Gold Mining Industry, 1903–10.” The Economic History Review 29 (3): 465–81.Google Scholar
Phimister, Ian. 2012. “Narratives of Progress: Zimbabwean Historiography and the End of History.” Journal of Contemporary African Studies 30 (1): 1–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pimenta, Fernando Tavares. 2008. Angola, os Brancos e a Independência. Porto: Edições Afrontamento.Google Scholar
Raftopoulos, Brian. 2007. “Nation, Race and History in Zimbabwean Politics.” In Making Nations, Creating Strangers: States and Citizenship in Africa, edited by Nugent, Paul, Hammett, Daniel, and Dorman, Sara, 101–20. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Raftopoulos, Brian, and Compagnon, Daniel. 2003. “Indigenization, the State Bourgeoisie and Neo-authoritarian Politics.” In Twenty Years of Independence in Zimbabwe: From Liberation to Authoritarianism, edited by Darnolf, Staffan and Laakso, Liisa, 15–33. London: Palgrave MacMillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raftopoulos, Brian, and Phimister, Ian. 2004. “Zimbabwe Now: The Political Economy of Crisis and Coercion.” Historical Materialism 12 (4): 355–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ranger, Terence. 1967. Revolt in Southern Rhodesia: A Study in African Resistance. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Ranger, Terence. 2003. “Introduction to Volume Two. In The Historical Dimensions of Democracy and Human Rights in Zimbabwe, Volume Two: “Nationalism, Democracy and Human Rights,” edited by Ranger, Terence, 1–37. Harare: University of Zimbabwe Publications.Google Scholar
Ranger, Terence. 2004. “Nationalist Historiography, Patriotic History and the History of the Nation: The Struggle Over the Past in Zimbabwe.” Journal of Southern African Studies 30 (2): 215–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ranger, Terence. 2009. “The Politics of Memorialisation in Zimbabwe.” In Nations and their Histories: Constructions and Representations, edited by Carvalho, Susana and Gemenne, François, 62–76. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1057/9780230245273_5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sadomba, Wilbert Z. 2011. War Veterans in Zimbabwe’s Land Occupations: Challenging Neo-colonial and Settler International Capital. Harare: Weaver Press.Google Scholar
Sibanda, Lovemore. 2019. Who is who in Zimbabwe’s armed revolution? Representation of the ZAPU/ZIPRA and the ZANU/ZANLA in high school history textbooks narratives of the liberation war. PhD diss. University of North Texas.Google Scholar
Trust, Solidarity Peace. 2003. National Youth Training: “Shaping Youths in a Truly Zimbabwean Manner.” Port Shepstone: Solidarity Peace Trust.Google Scholar
Swart, Mia. 2008. “Name changes as symbolic reparation after transition: the examples of Germany and South Africa.” German Law Journal 9 (2): 105–21.10.1017/S2071832200006337CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tendi, Blessing-Miles. 2008. “Patriotic History and Public Intellectuals Critical of Power.” Journal of Southern African Studies 34 (2): 379–96.10.1080/03057070802038041CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tendi, Blessing-Miles. 2010. Making History in Mugabe`s Zimbabwe: Politics, Intellectuals and the Media. Oxford: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Tredgold, Robert. 1956. “On the unveiling of the memorial at the Mangwe pass, July 18th, 1954.” Rhodesiana 1: 1–6.Google Scholar
Veracini, Lorenzo. 2007. “Settler Colonialism and Decolonization.” Borderlands 6 (2):1–11.Google Scholar
Veracini, Lorenzo. 2013. “‘Settler Colonialism’: Career of a Concept.” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 41 (2): 313–33.10.1080/03086534.2013.768099CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Von Soest, Christian, and Grauvogel, Julia. 2015.
How Do Non-Democratic Regimes Claim Legitimacy? Comparative Insights from Post-Soviet Countries
. German Institute of Global and Area Studies - Research Programme: Legitimacy and Efficiency of Political Systems (working paper nº 277/2015). Hamburg: GIGA.Google Scholar
Willems, Wendy. 2013. “‘Zimbabwe will never be a colony again’: changing celebratory styles and meanings of independence.” Anthropology Southern Africa 36 (1–2): 22–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yeros, Paris. 2002. The political economy of civilisation: Peasant-workers in Zimbabwe and the neo-colonial world. PhD diss. London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London.Google Scholar