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Remaking history: Citizenship, power, and the recasting of heroes
and villains
Dale
Doré, Sokwanele
October 02, 2013
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This paper is
part of the Zimbabwe Land
Series
Summary
Joseph Hanlon,
Jeanette Manjengwa and Teresa Stewart’s book, Zimbabwe Takes
Back the Land, gives fresh impetus to Scoones’
narrative on land. Their blurb on the back cover recognises
the deprecations of the Mugabe government, but assures readers that
“ordinary” Zimbabwean settlers took charge of their
destinies, are improving their lives, and are becoming increasingly
productive. Like
Scoones, it is fundamentally a plea to the international community
to support new farmers on contested land. The main thrust of their
argument is that Zimbabweans justifiably and successfully took back
their land from white Rhodesian colonialist farmers. In this paper
I challenge their remaking of history that casts war veterans as
heroes and white farmers as villains. I focus primarily on identity,
citizenship, and belonging: what it means to be Zimbabwean. Contrary
to this reworking of the nationalist narrative, I argue that the
land invasions were primarily used as a means to crush the opposition
and as a tool of patronage ahead of crucial elections. But more
than this, land seizures follow a well-practiced pattern of widespread
and systematic violence against civilians – from Gukurahundi
and Murambatsvina, to premeditated political violence. Robert Mugabe’s
single-minded purpose has been to maintain his imperious powers
against the sovereign will of the people at any cost. The wounds
of history run too deep to be sanitised by apologias for his authoritarian
and bloody rule.
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