‘Land Grab’ or ‘Taking Back Stolen Land’: The Fast Track Land Reform Process in Zimbabwe in Historical Perspective

Abstract

This article seeks to place the current land crisis in Zimbabwe in its proper historical context by tracing the origins of the problem of the land question from the early years of British colonization at the turn of the twentieth century, through the anti-colonial struggles of the 1960s and 1970s, the first twenty years of independence, to the farm invasions of 2000 and beyond. It argues that the tendency in debates over the land question to cast it in terms of good versus evil oversimplifies a rather complex issue and does not advance understanding of the forces that helped shape the trajectory of the country's recent experience relating to land tenure and appeals for a more historically-informed approach to the issue. Finally, the article suggests that the colonial system, the Lancaster House constitution, the British and Zimbabwean governments and white commercial farmers are all to blame for the current land crisis in Zimbabwe.