Making sense of Mugabeism in local and global politics: 'So Blair, keep your England and let me keep my Zimbabwe'

Third World Quarterly

Volumn 30, Issue 6, 2009, Pages 1139-1158

  Ndlovu Gatsheni, Sabelo J ^a  

^a OPEN UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AUTHORITARIANISM; COLONIALISM; DEMOCRACY; GOVERNANCE APPROACH; HUMAN RIGHTS; NATIONAL POLITICS; NATIONALISM; NEOLIBERALISM; POLITICAL IDEOLOGY;

AFRICA; SOUTHERN AFRICA; SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA; ZIMBABWE;

EID: 70449506886     PISSN: 01436597     EISSN: 13602241     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01436590903037424     Document Type: Article

References (128)

1. See New African Magazine: Zimbabwe Special Issue, Summer 2007, pp 5-6. Mugabeism took an openly anti-British and anti-Blair format mainly after 1997 when the British Secretary for International Development, Clare Short, wrote a letter to Zimbabwe's Minister of Agriculture, Kumbirai Kangai, in which she stated that the UK did not have any responsibility for redressing material inequalities that were created by colonialism in Zimbabwe. In this letter Short had written that: 'I should make it clear that we do not accept that Britain has a special responsibility to meet the costs of land purchase in Zimbabwe. We are a new Government from diverse backgrounds without links to former colonial interests. My own origins are Irish and as you know we were colonised not colonisers.' For the full letter, see 'Short, Clare, how it all started', New African Magazine, March 2002. The fallout between Mugabe and Blair was further exacerbated by the British imposition of an arms embargo against Zimbabwe in May 2000. This was accompanied by the UK's decision to stop supplying Land Rovers to the Zimbabwe Republic Police, withdrawal of the British Military Advisory Training Team, and cutting of aid to Zimbabwe by one-third. Mugabe was further angered by Blair's active role in the decision of the European Union to implement 'targeted sanctions' against the government of Zimbabwe on 18 January 2002. This included the imposition of an asset freeze and travel ban on Mugabe and his senior party officials; an embargo on the sale or transfer of arms and technical advice. Blair further infuriated Mugabe through his close relationship with George Bush, who in December 2001 had signed into law the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Bill that introduced sanctions against senior Zimbabwe government officials. Mugabe blamed Blair for having played a central role in making sure Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth in March 2002. Finally Mugabe accused Blair's government of being the brains behind the creation and sponsorship of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change as its running dog of imperialism, aimed at achieving 'regime change' and facilitating the re-colonisation of Zimbabwe.
2. The Herald, 6 December 1997.
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57. Mbembe, 'African modes of self-writing', pp 240-241.
58. Mbembe, 'African modes of self-writing', p 241.
59. Mbembe, 'African modes of self-writing', p 241.
60. Mbembe, 'African modes of self-writing', p 241.
61. R Mugabe, Inside the Third Chimurenga, Harare: Government Printers, 2001, pp 92-93.
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63. Mbembe, 'African modes of self-writing', p 242.
64. Mbembe, 'African modes of self-writing', p 243.
65. SJ Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 'Putting people first-from regime security to human security: a quest for social peace in Zimbabwe, 1980-2002', in AG Nhema (ed), The Quest for Peace in Africa: Transformations, Democracy and Public Policy, Utrecht & Addis Ababa: International Books with OSSREA, 2004, pp 297-322.
66. Mbembe, 'African modes of self-writing', pp 243-244.
67. Mbembe, 'African modes of self-writing', p 244.
68. Mbembe, 'African modes of self-writing', p 250.
69. Mbembe, 'African modes of self-writing', p 251.
70. Mbembe, 'African modes of self-writing', p 251.
71. Mbembe, 'African modes of self-writing', p 251.
72. KC Dunn, "'Sons of the soil" and contemporary state making: autochthony, uncertainty and political violence in Africa', Third World Quarterly, 30 (1), 2009, p 115.
73. Mbembe, 'The power of the false', p 635.
74. Dunn, "'Sons of the soil"', pp 114-115.
75. N Kriger, 'From patriotic memories to "patriotic history" in Zimbabwe, 1990-2005', Third World Quarterly, 27 (6), 2006, p 1154.
76. A Appadurai, 'Dead certainty: ethnic violence in the era of globalisation', in B Meyer & P Geschiere (eds), Globalisation and Identity: Dialectics of Flow and Closure, Oxford: Blackwell, 1999, p 322.
77. R Muponde, 'The worm and the hoe: cultural politics and reconciliation after the third chimurenga', in B Raftopoulos & T Savage (eds), Zimbabwe: Injustice and Political Reconciliation, Cape Town: Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, 2004, p 176.
78. R Muponde, 'The worm and the hoe: cultural politics and reconciliation after the third chimurenga', in B Raftopoulos & T Savage (eds), Zimbabwe: Injustice and Political Reconciliation, Cape Town: Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, 2004, p 176.
79. Mbembe, 'African modes of self-writing', p 252.
80. Mbembe, 'African modes of self-writing', p 252. Emphasis in the original.
81. D Blair, Degrees in Violence: Robert Mugabe and the Struggle for Power in Zimbabwe, London & New York: Continuum, 2002.
82. Mbembe, 'Africa modes of self-writing', p 268.
83. D Blair, Degrees in Violence: Robert Mugabe and the Struggle for Power in Zimbabwe, London & New York: Continuum, 2002.
84. Mbembe, 'Africa modes of self-writing', p 260.
85. D Blair, Degrees in Violence: Robert Mugabe and the Struggle for Power in Zimbabwe, London & New York: Continuum, 2002.
86. Mbembe, 'Africa modes of self-writing', p 267. Emphasis in original.
87. This is no to ignore the fact that ZANU-PF is not a monolithic political movement; it has conservatives, radicals, reformers, modernists as well as cosmopolitans. However, the position described above is well articulated in S Moyo, The Zimbabwe Crisis and Normalisation, Centre for Policy Studies: Issues and Actors, 18 (7), 2005, Johannesburg, p 5.
88. E Chitando, 'In the beginning was the land: the appropriation of religious themes in political discourse in Zimbabwe', Africa: Journal of the International Studies Institute, 75 (2), 2005, pp 220-239.
89. The Zimbabwean nativist revolution has been reduced to the Fast-Track Land Reform Programme that ensued at the turn of the millennium. See Mugabe, Inside the Third Chimurenga.
90. Terence Ranger, 'Nationalist historiography, patriotic history and history of the nation: the struggle over the past in Zimbabwe', Journal of Southern African Studies, 30 (2), 2004, pp 215-234.
91. See also L Bull-Chrisstiansen, Tales of the Nation: Feminist Nationalism or Patriotic History? Defining National History and Identity in Zimbabwe, Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 2004.
92. Muponde, 'The worm and the hoe', p 177.
93. Chitando, 'In the beginning was the land', p 224.
94. Chitando, 'In the beginning was the land', p 224.
95. Quoted in B-M Tendi, 'Patriotic history and public intellectuals critical of power', Journal of Southern African Studies, 34 (2), 2008, p 386.
96. E Worby, 'The end of modernity in Zimbabwe? Passages from development to sovereignty', in A Hammar, B Raftopoulos & S Jensen (eds), Zimbabwe's Unfinished Business: Rethinking Land, State and Nation in the Context of Crisis, Harare: Weaver Press, 2003, p 70.
97. Muponde, 'The worm and the hoe', p 191.
98. Worby, 'The end of modernity in Zimbabwe?', p 71.
99. Chitando, 'In the beginning was the land', p 229. Emphasis in original.
100. Quoted in Chitando, 'In the beginning was the land', p 229.
101. See also E Chitando, "'Down with the Devil, forward with Christ!" A study of the interface between religious and political discourses in Zimbabwe', African Sociological Review, 6 (1), 2002, pp 1-16.
102. Ambuya Nehanda and Chaminuka were pre-colonial religious figures who were renowned for predicting and seeing into the future. Nehanda was accused and hanged by the British colonialists for having been the brains behind the Shona uprising of 1896-97.
103. Among traditional religious politics there is a pervasive belief that Ambuya Nehanda prophesised that her bones would arise and fight for the liberation of Zimbabwe when she was about to be hanged in the 1890s.
104. JG Todd, Through the Darkness: A Life in Zimbabwe, Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2007, p 424.
105. Citizenship of Zimbabwe Amendment Act, 2003.
106. Phineas Chihota, Deputy Minister of Industry and International Trade, 'Urban dwellers not Zimbabwean-MP', The Zimbabwean Independent, 1 July 2005.
107. Quoted in the Daily News, 14 October 2002.
108. Operation Murambatsvina took place in 2005 and left about 70 000 people homeless.
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111. J Muzondidya, "'Zimbabwe for Zimbabweans": invisible subject minorities and the quest for justice and reconciliation in post-colonial Zimbabwe', in Raftopoulos & Savage, Zimbabwe, pp 225-226.
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113. Moyo, The Zimbabwe Crisis and Normalisation, p 6.
114. Muponde, 'The worm and the hoe', p 178.
115. Muponde, 'The worm and the hoe', p 178.
116. Muponde, 'The worm and the hoe', p 178.
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119. J Nhongo-Simbanegavi, For Better or Worse? Women and ZANLA in Zimbabwe's Liberation Struggle, Harare: Weaver Press, 2000.
120. C Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990, p 45.
121. SJ Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 'Patriarchy and domestication of women in Zimbabwe: a critique of female-tofemale relations of oppression', Zambezia, XXX (ii), 2003, pp 229-245.
122. The Herald, 16 February 2002.
123. Sunday Mail, 16 March 2003.
124. This line of thinking was depicted in Tafataona Mahoso's column in the Sunday Mail, 19 July 2008.
125. R Desai, 'The Political Economy and Cultural Politics of Nationalisms in Historical Perspective', Third World Quaterly, 29 (3), 2008, p 663.
126. See also R Desai, 'From national bourgeoisies to rogues, failures and bullies: 21st century imperialism and the unravelling of the Third World', Third World Quarterly, 25 (1), 2004, pp 169-185.
127. Desai, 'The Political Economy and Cultural Politics of Nationalisms', p 668.
128. See also R Desai, 'Nation against democracy: the rise of cultural nationalism in Asia', in F Quadir & J Lele (eds), Democracy and Civil Society in Asia, Vol 1, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, pp 81-110.