After Zimbabwe's independence in 1980, Binga – the only district in the country where Tonga speakers comprised the overwhelming majority of the population – continued as the focus of Tonga identity politics and demands for cultural recognition. This defensive assertion was no more separatist in intent than the previous movements that had delivered the region to African nationalism; its leaders emphasized their difference with the aim of enhancing their inclusion in the new Zimbabwean nation, and reversing a long history of marginalization, discrimination and colonial developmental neglect. At all times, Zimbabwean Tonga politicians have claimed their rights within the Zimbabwean state – the brief flirtation with ‘belonging to Zambia’ before independence was short-lived and did not become grounds for mobilization in the post-colonial period, even as local discourse continued to take for granted the view that the border was wrongly placed.

Although, as we saw in the last chapter, Zimbabwean Tonga demands for recognition developed initially in the context of administrative traditionalism and the broader Zimbabwean cultural nationalism of the 1960s, they became louder after independence. In the post-colonial context, ‘minority’ language groups were legally defined for the first time, provoking a storm of criticism. Local leaders in Binga made strategic links with other linguistic minorities to campaign for changes to the law, and to reject the new label ‘minority’ itself. But they also elaborated specific concerns about the place of the Tonga in the Zimbabwean nation, and ideas about Tonga heritage focused on past relations with the river and the injustices of the displacement from the Kariba dam. This chapter sheds light on the reasons why the idea of being a ‘river people’ became more rather than less important over time, even as a new political generation came to the fore who had no first-hand experience of life along the river or of resettlement, and examines how the history of the displacement has remained a foundational historical event defining modern Tonga public identity in Zimbabwe.

This movement for cultural recognition is interesting for the light it sheds on the ‘politics of recognition’, which has attracted growing commentary as it has undergone a resurgence throughout the African continent in the 1990s. This resurgence is generally attributed to neo-liberal reforms and democratization, the retreat of the state and the growing importance of globalized NGO networks, which have provided international validation for discourses of indigeneity, culture and rights.