Rhodesia” Was Zimbabwe’S Colonial Name from 1890 to 1979, in Recognition of Cecil Rhodes Who Engineered British Settlers’ Occu- Pation of the Country
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Notes 1 Introduction: Suffering for the Nation: The Prison as a Site of Struggle during Zimbabwe’s Liberation War 1. “Rhodesia” was Zimbabwe’s colonial name from 1890 to 1979, in recognition of Cecil Rhodes who engineered British settlers’ occu- pation of the country. After the end of settler colonial rule in 1980, the country’s name became Zimbabwe, in recognition of one of the country’s pre-colonial empires, Dzimbahwe. 2. See Peter Zinoman, The Colonial Bastille: A History of Imprisonment in Vietman, 1862–1940, University of California Press, Los Angeles, CA, 2001, pp. 2–3. 3. For an important discussion on this, see Terence Ranger, “Historiography, Patriotic History and the History of the Nation: The struggle over the past in Zimbabwe,” Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2, 2004, pp. 215–234. In this paper, Ranger reflects upon a certain nationalist rendering of Zimbabwe’s past that has seen a “narrow historical narrative gain[ing] a monopoly and [has been] endlessly repeated.” See p. 3. Here Ranger refers to a particular post-independence nationalist history that has mutated into what he calls “patriotic history” that is driven by the urge to laud a narrowly defined group of “liberation war heroes” whilst at the same time excluding people who are perceived to have not contributed anything to the struggle for independence. 4. Here I am referring to the obsession by most liberation war schol- ars to either concentrate on the histories of guerrillas or guerrilla movements, without providing space for other historical actors such as Rhodesia’s hostages—most of whom were neither guerrillas nor involved in guerrilla movements. See David Lan, Guns and Rain: Guerrillas and Spirit Mediums in Zimbabwe, James Currey, London, 1985; Ngwabi Bhebhe and Terence Ranger (eds.), Soldiers in Zimbabwe’s Liberation War, James Currey, London, 1995; and most recently, Norma Kriger, Guerrilla Veterans in Post-War Zimbabwe, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, 2003. 5. For works on pre-1960s African anti-colonial struggle see: Terence Ranger, Revolt in Southern Rhodesia, 1896–7: A Study in African Resistance, HEB, London, 1967; Terence Ranger, The African Voice in Southern Rhodesia, 1898–1930, Northwestern University Press, 234 NOTES Evanston, 1970; Tsuneo Yoshikuni, “Strike Action and Self-Help Associations: Zimbabwean Worker Protest and Culture after World War 1,” Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 15, No. 3, 1989; Brian Raftopolous and Ian Phimister, “‘Kana sora ratsva ngaritsve’: African Nationalists and Black Workers—The 1948 General Strike in Colonial Zimbabwe,” Journal of Historical Sociology, Vol. 13, No. 3, 2000; and M. Green, “The Salisbury Bus Boycott, 1956,” Journal of the Historical Association of Zambia, Vol. 11, No. 13, 1968, pp. 1–17. 6. The participation of ordinary men and women in nationalist strug- gles is what is referred to as “mass nationalism.” 7. Zimbabweans still revere these places today as the birthplaces of Zimbabwean nationalism. 8. See David Lan, Guns and Rain: Guerrillas and Spirit Mediums in Zimbabwe, James Currey, London, 1985. 9. Rhodesian authorities branded the guerrillas “terrorists.” Anyone, therefore, who aided and abetted the military operations of the guer- rillas, was guilty of working in tandem with “terrorists.” The LOMA was specifically amended to impose jail terms on people accused of coming into contact with and helping “terrorists” in any way. 10. See Caroline Elkins, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya, Henry Holt & Co., New York, 2005. 11. See R. Maran, Torture: The Role of Ideology in the French-Algerian War, Praeger, New York, 1989. 12. See Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, Madonald Purnell, South Africa, 1994. 13. Jurgen Habermas, quoted in Ines Izaguirre, “Recapturing the Memory of Politics,” NACLA Report on the Americas, Vol. 31, No. 6, May/June 1998. 14. David Martin and Phyllis Johnson, The Struggle for Zimbabwe, Faber & Faber, London, 1981. 15. Donald Moore, quoted in Ngwabi Bhebhe and Terence Ranger, Soldiers in Zimbabwe’s Liberation War, James Currey, London, 1991, p. 6. Teresa Barnes also added to the criticism of the book by characterizing it as a “quasi-official history which depends solely on official accounts and the recollections of national leaders.” (Barnes, quoted in Bhebhe and Ranger, Soldiers in Zimbabwe’s Liberation War, p. 6.) Brian Raftopoulos scathingly dismissed the same book as a “little more than a hagiography for the ruling party (ZANU), an unashamed apologetic justifying the coming to power of a section of the liberation movement.” See Brian Raftopoulos, “Problematizing Nationalism in Zimbabwe: A Historiographical Review,” Zambezia, Vol. XXVI, No. II, 1999, p. 121. 16. See Terence Ranger’s Peasant Consciousness and Guerrilla War in Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Publishing House, Harare, 1988; and David Lan’s Guns and Rain: Guerrillas and Spirit Mediums in Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Publishing House, Harare, 1988. NOTES 235 17. Norma Kriger, Zimbabwe’s Guerrilla War: Peasant Voices, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992. 18. One Zimbabwean historian dismissed Kriger’s work as a “gross distor- tion of the Zimbabwean [liberation struggle] reality” for her refusal to submit to a liberation war narrative that stresses collective peasant grievances and consciousness. See Alois Mlambo, “Out on a Limb: Review of Zimbabwe’s Guerrilla War by Norma Kriger,” The Zimbabwe Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, January/March 1997, pp. 8–9. Another reviewer, Angela Cheater, characterized Kriger’s book as a “badly flawed contri- bution to the literature on Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle.” See Angela Cheater, “Review: Zimbabwe’s Guerrilla War,” Man, New Series, Vol. 27, No. 4, December 1992, pp. 888–889. For other useful reviews of Kriger’s book, see Terence Ranger, “Zimbabwe’s Guerrilla War by Norma Kriger,” African Affairs, Vol. 93, No. 370, January 1994, pp. 142–144; S. Robins, “Heroes, Heretics and Historians of the Zimbabwe Revolution: A Review Article of Norma Kriger’s ‘Peasant Voices,’” Zambezia, Vol. VVIII, No. i, 1996, pp. 73–91. 19. See Josephine Nhongo-Simbanegavi, “Zimbabwe Women in the Liberation Struggle: ZANLA and Its Legacy, 1972–1985,” PhD Thesis, University of Oxford, Oxford, 1997; and her subsequent book, Josephine Nhongo-Simbanegavi, For Better or Worse: Women and ZANLA in Zimbabwe’s Liberation Struggle, Weaver Press, Harare, 2000. 20. Tanya Lyons, Guns and Guerilla Girls: Women in the Zimbabwean Liberation Struggle, Africa World Press, Trenton, 2004. 21. Joyce Chadya, “The Unrecognized and the Invisible: Gender and Internal Displacement during Zimbabwe’s Liberation Struggle, Harare, 1965–1980,” Ph.D. Thesis, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, 2004. 22. Timothy Scarnecchia, The Urban Roots of Democracy and Political Violence in Zimbabwe: Harare and Highfield, 1940–1964, University of Rochester Press, Rochester, NY, 2008. 23. Florence Bernault (ed.), Translated by Janet Roitman, A History of Prison and Confinement in Africa, Heinemann, Portsmouth, NH, 2003. 24. See David Killingray’s chapter, “Punishment to Fit the Crime? Penal Policy and Practice in Colonial Africa,” in Florence Bernault (ed.) A History of Prison and Confinement in Africa, Heinemann, Portsmouth, NH, 2003 p. 97. 25. See Fran Lisa Buntman, Robben Island and Prisoner Resistance to Apartheid, University of Cambridge Press, Cambridge, 2003. 26. ZANU-PF is an acronym for the Zimbabwe African National Union- Patriotic Front party, which has ruled Zimbabwe for the past 33 years, that is, since 1980. 27. In 1997, before the plummeting of the Zimbabwean economy, Z$50,000 was a lot of money. The average yearly income for a Zimbabwean worker was by then Z$8,000. 236 NOTES 28. Due to my work on this history, I actually ended up writing tes- timonial evidence in support of asylum applications made by some former Rhodesian political prisoners seeking asylum in the United Kingdom. 29. Interview with Lucas Jonasi, Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe, July 28, 2007. 30. Ian Smith was the ultra-reactionary Prime Minister of Rhodesia, who, in 1965, declared Rhodesia to be an independent white settler colony and severed all ties with the Britain, the metropolitan colonial ruler of Rhodesia. 31. Interview with Enos Nkala, Central Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, November 30, 2006. 32. Michele Rolph-Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History, Beacon Press, Boston, MA, 1995, p. 15. 33. See also Joyce Chadya on victims of guerrilla and state violence, “The Unrecognized and the Invisible: Gender and Internal Displacement during Zimbabwe’s Liberation Struggle, Harare, 1965–1980,” PhD Thesis, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2004. 34. Interview with Refina Ratidzai Siniwa, Central Harare, September 21, 2006. 35. Interview with Mai Kadengu, Central Harare, September 20, 2006 (MK for “Mai Kadengu” and MBM for Munya Bryn Munochiveyi). 36. According to the standard psychologists’ definition, a “repressed memory” is the memory of a traumatic event unconsciously retained in the mind, where it is said to adversely affect conscious thought, desire, and action. For references to the debates on “repressed memo- ries” see, http://skepdic.com/repressedmemory.html. 37. See these autobiographies: Mordikai Hamutyinei, Zvakange Zvakaoma muZimbabwe, Mambo Press, Gwelo, 1984; Joshua Nkomo, The Story of My Life, Methuen, London, 1984; Edgar Tekere, A Lifetime of Struggle, SAPES, Harare, 2007; Maurice Nyagumbo, With the People: An Autobiography from the Zimbabwean Liberation Struggle, Allison