Response to Maurice T. Vambe's ‘Zimbabwe genocide: voices and perceptions from ordinary people in Matabeleland and the Midlands provinces, 30 years on’

Abstract

This response to Vambe's paper is partly inspired by Macaphulana (“New Zimbabwe” 25 February, 2013), a newspaper columnist who refers to Vambe's article as ‘scholarship of grudge’ (2012). Macaphulana is angered by what he perceives as shocking scholarship that characterises Vambe's article. However, Macaphulana is wrong to attribute this to some grudge that Vambe may have against the Ndebele people of Zimbabwe. For reasons best known to himself, Vambe simply fails to abide by ethical and moral biddings that should be a feature of all academic endeavours. While the writer's apparent intention is to capture the ‘voices and perceptions [of] ordinary people’, the entire article fails to document evidence to this effect. From a methodological and theoretical point of view, Vambe's findings raise disturbing questions. In the light of the above comments, this response will address the theoretical and methodological issues and ideological, ethical and moral problems raised by Vambe's article.