RECONCILIATION WITHOUT JUSTICE? AN ANALYSIS OF THE FILM, RECONCILIATION IN ZIMBABWE, THE FIRST TEN YEARS

Abstract

The aim of this article is to explore the idea of reconciliation and justice in the documentary film, Reconciliation in Zimbabwe, the first ten years (1990). This film is one of the very first and few films to deal with the themes of reconciliation and justice from the perspective of the moving image. At the centre of the film narrative is how different political constituents in Zimbabwe between 1980 and 1990 think about the question of reconciliation and the possibility of ultimate justice. Coming immediately after the war, the film debates the varied and diverse expectations of Zimbabwean whites and blacks, and the role of memory in relationship to the new politics of tolerance proposed by the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, Robert Gabriel Mugabe. The article argues that the significance of the film lies in the desire to balance hotly contested perspectives on what constitutes reconciliation and justice in Zimbabwe.