Becoming Zimbabwe From Below: Multiple Narratives of Zimbabwean Nationalism

Abstract

There is no doubt that the editors and authors of Becoming Zimbabwe were driven by a commitment to challenge post-colonial versions of Zimbabwean history, particularly those 'narrowly constructed' (Raftopoulos and Mlambo 2009: xxxiii) by the ZANU(PF) regime. The liberation struggle is a significant part of those histories. In the last decade, this historiography has witnessed the emergence of a new and much narrowed, ZANU(PF)-backed nationalist narrative, which some have called 'patriotic history' (Ranger 2004), through which distinctions have been drawn between those who can and those who cannot legitimately lay claim to Zimbabwe's nationalist history. This has elevated and valorised the anti-colonial guerrilla war and the roles of ex-guerrillas, and marginalized other historical subjects in Zimbabwe's nationalist past. The effectiveness with which this new historical rhetoric was been deployed means it is critically important to disrupt and debunk such renderings of Zimbabwe's nationalist history. This article argues that it is important that we continue to engage with the diverse, multiplicity of histories of Zimbabwean nationalism, which scholarly historians began to do in the 1990s, and particularly to insist upon re-inscribing multiple, diverse and complex historical subjects into Zimbabwe's nationalist history. Doing so might help to undermine the efficacy of 'monopoly nationalism' - that is, the tendency to monopolize Zimbabwe's evidently plural, diverse and broad nationalist histories.