Interpreting Zimbabwe's Third Chimurenga Through Kongonya: Representations of Post-2000 Zimbabwean Dance in Buckle's Beyond Tears: Zimbabwe's Tragedy and Mtizira's Chimurenga Protocol

Abstract

The Zimbabwean writers Catherine Buckle and Nyaradzo Mtizira reimagine kongonya dance in their works Beyond Tears: Zimbabwe's Tragedy (2002) and The Chimurenga Protocol (2008), respectively. Both the European-born Buckle and the black Zimbabwean Mtizira harness the dance to evoke the post-2000 jambanja experiences associated with Zimbabwe's controversial “Third Chimurenga,” or the fast-track land reform program, beginning in 2000. Their contrasting depictions of dance epitomize the differing views on Zimbabwe's land reform program. Largely, whereas Buckle's novel is a memoir which personalizes a farmer's encounters with dancing African/Zimbabwean “land invaders,” Mtizira's is a panegyric that collectively reimagines a nation's defiant revolution against purported forces of Western imperialism. Both writers’ representations of the post-2000 Zimbabwe's dance performances are therefore colored and compromised by racial subjectivity.