Abstract
Zimbabwe’s land revolution at the turn of the millennia cast the country on the international spotlight for a myriad of reasons, ranging from laudatory admiration to negative criticism and bad publicity. Narratives and doomsday predictions of economic disaster, social upheaval and ultimately internal implosion were awash and not off the mark given the manner in which the political economic status quo was shaken and restructured. The Fast Track Land Reform (FTLRP) was hailed in some quarters as the long overdue corrective measure against historical injustices while other sections castigated it as chauvinistic and fascist machinations of a capricious regime battling for political survival. These ensuing contestations around land expropriation are not an aberration in that they form part of a repertoire of the languages of life and/or the teleology in the history and transition of post colonies with settler heritage. Land reform continues to gain policy traction in much of the developing South with a colonial history where the economic logic of settlerism was the dominant mode of exploitation, expropriation and accumulation. Widening inequality in much of the developing South particularly in post settler economies in southern Africa has heightened demands for greater access to land and other productive sectors putting land as another new frontier of conflict. Therefore the question remains, is land reform being driven by a genuine desire for restitution and a progressive redress of colonial wrongs or whether it is just another pretext for populist demagoguery and patronage politics? This paper posits that these two dominant tropes are deeply interwoven within Zimbabwe’s political economics fabric within its transition as a post colony and the matter is much more complex and cannot be reduced to such binary terms of reference. The paper therefore traces the trajectory of land reform in Zimbabwe since independence until the turn of the millennia and the attendant policy contradictions, constraints and rationalities that undergird land expropriation and redistribution.
Highlights
Events at the turn of the millennia in Zimbabwe and the broader socio, economic and political context in which they have manifested themselves have been transformational, revolutionary and dramatic
The question remains, is land reform being driven by a genuine desire for restitution and a progressive redress of colonial wrongs or whether it is just another pretext for populist demagoguery and patronage politics? This paper posits that these two dominant tropes are deeply interwoven within Zimbabwe’s political economics fabric within its transition as a post colony and the matter is much more complex and cannot be reduced to such binary terms of reference
Because of the importance of land reform in post settler economies, this paper provides insights into the overarching question of whether land reform is for restitution or political mileage?; what role does land reform play in post settler economies?; why was land reform important in Zimbabwe?, what were the rationalities and contradictions that influenced redistribution in Zimbabwe?, who were the beneficiaries of the redistributive exercise among others
Summary
Events at the turn of the millennia in Zimbabwe and the broader socio, economic and political context in which they have manifested themselves have been transformational, revolutionary and dramatic. From the neo Europes of North America, the Antipodes and to the Spanish colonies of Mexico, the Andean Cordillera and the rest of South America, colonialism was never a terrain for democracy, racial inclusion or tolerance. Land policy in post colonial Zimbabwe eschewed the need to open access for the indigenous blacks, to the productive sectors of the economy from whence they had hitherto been physically and emotionally marginalized. It was a way of fighting poverty and improving rural livelihoods as it was a way of providing restitution against the enduring vestiges of colonialism. The ensuing racially invoked affluence gap where white agrarian interests hamstrung the whole economy pointed to the unchanged legacies of colonial heritage, stark reminders of a dark age, and living memories of the deep scars that were indelibly engraved on native conscience that had to be erased [13]
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