Names, labels, the Zimbabwean Liberation War veteran and the third Chimurenga: the language and politics of entitlement in post-2000 Zimbabwe

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article investigates the Zimbabwean Liberation War veterans’ naming and labelling of individuals and groups opposed to the Fast Track Land Reform Program (FTLRP) in post-2000 Zimbabwe. As instruments of political coercion, the two processes participated in the production of images of individuals and groups opposed to land expropriation, particularly white farmers and political opponents in the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), that were at once grotesque and indicative of the polarized nature of political discourse in post-2000 Zimbabwe. The article evinces that naming and labelling participated in the articulation of the Zimbabwean Liberation War veterans’ sense of entitlement to land, resources and preferential treatment by the post-2000 Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) government of Robert Mugabe. Using the Zimbabwean Liberation War context in which post-2000 Zimbabwean political culture of framing reality in exclusionary terms finds its roots and inspiration, the article explores how veterans of the Zimbabwean Liberation War used names and labels to categorize people and phenomena, separating so-called patriots from exploiters and sell-outs. The discussion also explicates how the Zimbabwean Liberation War veterans held themselves up as yardsticks of commitment to patriotic citizenship in the context of a perceived ZANU-PF war against neo-colonialism.