White narratives: the depiction of post-2000 land invasions in Zimbabwe by Irikidzayi Manase TERMS of USE TheAfrican Humanities Program has made this electronic version of the book available on the NISC website for free download to use in research or private study. It may not be re-posted on book or other digital repositories that allow systematic sharing or download. For any commercial or other uses please contact the publishers, NISC (Pty) Ltd. Print copies of this book and other titles in the African Humanities Series are available through the African Books Collective. © African Humanities Program Dedication For my late father to whom I dedicate this book About the Series The African Humanities Series is a partnership between the African Humanities Program (AHP) of the American Council of Learned Societies and academic publishers NISC (Pty) Ltd*. The Series covers topics in African histories, languages, literatures, philosophies, politics and cultures. Submissions are solicited from Fellows of the AHP, which is administered by the American Council of Learned Societies and financially supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The purpose of the AHP is to encourage and enable the production of new knowledge by Africans in the five countries designated by the Carnegie Corporation: Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda. AHP fellowships support one year’s work free from teaching and other responsibilities to allow the Fellow to complete the project proposed. Eligibility for the fellowship in the five countries is by domicile, not nationality. Book proposals are submitted to the AHP editorial board which manages the peer review process and selects manuscripts for publication by NISC. In some cases, the AHP board will commission a manuscript mentor to undertake substantive editing and to work with the author on refining the final manuscript. The African Humanities Series aims to publish works of the highest quality that will foreground the best research being done by emerging scholars in the five Carnegie designated countries. The rigorous selection process before the fellowship award, as well as AHP editorial vetting of manuscripts, assures attention to quality. Books in the series are intended to speak to scholars in Africa as well as in other areas of the world. The AHP is also committed to providing a copy of each publication in the series to university libraries in Africa. *early titles in the series was published by Unisa Press, but the publishing rights to the entire series are now vested in NISC AHP Editorial Board Members as at January 2019 AHP Series Editors: Professor Adigun Agbaje*, University of Ibadan, Nigeria Professor Emeritus Fred Hendricks, Rhodes University, South Africa Consultant: Professor Emeritus Sandra Barnes, University of Pennsylvania, USA (Anthropology) Board Members: 1 Professor Akosua Adomako Ampofo, Institute of African Studies, Ghana (Gender Studies & Advocacy) (Vice President, African Studies Association of Africa) 2 Professor Kofi Anyidoho, University of Ghana, Ghana (African Studies & Literature) (Director, Codesria African Humanities Institute Program) 3 Professor Ibrahim Bello-Kano, Bayero University, Nigeria (Dept of English and French Studies) 4 Professor Sati Fwatshak, University of Jos, Nigeria (Dept of History & International Studies) 5 Professor Patricia Hayes, University of the Western Cape, South Africa (African History, Gender Studies and Visuality) (SARChI Chair in Visual History and Theory) 6 Associate Professor Wilfred Lajul, College of Humanities & Social Sciences, Makerere University, Uganda (Dept of Philosophy) 7 Professor Yusufu Lawi, University of Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania (Dept of History) 8 Professor Bertram Mapunda, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (Dept of Archaeology & Heritage Studies) 9 Professor Innocent Pikirayi, University of Pretoria, South Africa (Chair & Head, Dept of Anthropology & Archaeology) 10 Professor Josephat Rugemalira, University of Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania (Dept of Foreign Languages & Linguistics) 11 Professor Idayat Bola Udegbe, University of Ibadan, Nigeria (Dept of Psychology) *replaced Professor Kwesi Yankah, Cental Univerity College, Ghana, co-editor from 2013–2016 Published in this series Dominica Dipio, Gender terrains in African cinema, 2014 Ayo Adeduntan, What the forest told me: Yoruba hunter, culture and narrative performance, 2014 Sule E. Egya, Nation, power and dissidence in third-generation Nigerian poetry in English, 2014 Irikidzayi Manase, White narratives: The depiction of post-2000 land invasions in Zimbabwe, 2016 Pascah Mungwini, Indigenous Shona Philosophy: Reconstructive insights, 2017 Sylvia Bruinders, Parading Respectability: The Cultural and Moral Aesthetics of the Christmas Bands Movement in the Western Cape, South Africa, 2017 Michael Andindilile, The Anglophone literary-linguistic continuum: English and indigenous languages in African literary discourse, 2018 Jeremiah Arowosegbe, Claude E Ake: the making of an organic intellectual, 2018 Romanus Aboh, Language and the construction of multiple identities in the Nigerian novel, 2018 Bernard Matolino, Consensus as Democracy in Africa, 2018 Babajide Ololajulo, Unshared Identity: Posthumous paternity in a contemporary Yoruba community, 2018 White Narratives The Depiction of Post-2000 Land Invasions in Zimbabwe IRiKidZaYi MaNase Originally published in 2016 by Unisa Press, South Africa under ISBN: 978-1-86888-825-2 This edition published in South Africa on behalf of the African Humanities Program by NISC (Pty) Ltd, PO Box 377, Grahamstown, 6140, South Africa www.nisc.co.za NISC first edition, first impression 2019 Publication © African Humanities Program 2016, 2019 Text © Irikidzayi Manase 2016, 2019 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. ISBN: 978-1-920033-47-7 (print) ISBN: 978-1-920033-48-4 (PDF) ISBN: 978-1-920033-49-1 (ePub) Book Designer: Lubabalo Qabaka Project Editor: Tshegofatso Sehlodimela Copyeditor: Kathryn-Jean Gibbs Typesetting: Thea Bester-Swanepoel Cover Image: Janaka Dharmasena, used under license from Shutterstock.com The author and the publisher have made every effort to obtain permission for and acknowledge the use of copyright material. Should an inadvertent infringement of copyright have occurred, please contact the publisher and we will rectify omissions or errors in any subsequent reprint or edition. Contents Dedication i Acknowledgements ix 1. Introduction: Imaginaries of Land and Belonging 1 2. The Post-2000 Zimbabwe Crisis and the Writings 9 about the Land 3. Witnessing the Land Invasions in African Tears 30 and Beyond Tears 4. Memory-making and the Land in Graham Lang’s Place of Birth 52 5. Divided Worlds in House of Stone 70 6. Vulnerable Identities and Child-parent Relations 93 in The Last Resort 7. The Crisis, Animals and Activism in Innocent Victims 107 8. White Belonging and Identity in Zimbabwe in the 129 Twenty-fi rst Century References 137 Index 145 vii Acknowledgements I benefi ted from assistance and support from institutions, friends and colleagues in writing this book. I would like to especially acknowledge the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) African Humanities Program (AHP) for the Postdoctoral Fellowship grant that assisted me in writing this book. I also thank the ACLS AHP team for inviting me to a manuscript-writing workshop in Ghana, for their rigorous manuscript publishing competition and their awarding of funds to publish this book, and I would especially like thank Barbara van der Merwe, the AHP Secretariat at the Johannesburg offi ce, for all the logistical support, encouragement and quick responses to my emails. A number of individuals played an important role in the writing of this book. I thank my brother-in-law, Edwin Mungadzi, for giving me Cathy Buckle’s memoirs in 2003; this opened my eyes to the growth of the body of white narratives about the post-2000 land invasions. A number of colleagues read the manuscript and offered valuable criticism. I want to thank Robert Muponde in particular for his insightful criticism. I also thank Michael Wessels, Francis Garaba, Terrence Musanga and Tendai Mupanduki for their assistance in different ways as well as encouraging me to soldier on with the writing of the book. My special thanks to Wendy Willems and Rory Pilossof for sharing some of their work which added value to my research and writing. Finally, I would like to thank my wife and children for the support they gave me during the period of researching and writing this book. ix 1 Introduction Imaginaries of Land and Belonging In this book I draw on Alexander’s (2007:183) view which links land with the construction of identities, the formation of classes and the crafting of artistic principles and spiritual meanings. Through a literary analysis of selected memoirs, fi ctional and non-fi ctional texts I describe the nature and effects of the post-2000 Zimbabwe land invasions, referred to as the ‘fast track land reform programme’ by the Zimbabwe government. The book examines the diverse nature of the narratives and perceptions about land, belonging and the way in which the Zimbabwe government infl uenced the politics of identities through a revision of identifi cation and race categories (Brubaker and Cooper 2000) during this turbulent post-2000 period. It also considers