Interface of history and fiction : the Zimbabwean liberation war novel

The research examines the interface of history and fiction. It predominantly focuses on historical fiction on the Zimbabwean liberation war written in Shona, Ndebele and English and published after the attainment of political independence in 1980. Historical fiction on the liberation war is both biographical and autobiographical. Consequently, the study comes to the conclusion that historical fiction is a veritable stakeholder in the history issue in Zimbabwe. It becomes another type or source of history that cannot be papered over when dealing with the nation’s history. In a nation where liberation war history is not only taken seriously, but is also a vigorously contested terrain, historical fiction becomes part of those discursive contestations, particularly on nation and nationalism. It is in this regard that the study problematises the interface of history and fiction by reasoning that historical fiction published in the early 1980s largely advances a state-centered perspective which views history, nation and nationalism in positive terms. This discourse uses history in order to argue for a single nation that derives its identity from the heroic and symbolic guerrilla characters. Nationalism is exclusively presented as humanising and as being the sole legitimate political brand capable of leading the nation. On the other hand, historical fiction written in English and published in the late 1980s onwards represents alternative historical truths that contest nationalism and debunk official definitions of nation. This discourse leads to the pluralisation of perspectives on nation and nationalism. The focus on historical fiction published in three languages used in Zimbabwe is a conscious attempt to transcend ethnicity in critical scholarship. Discussing novels in Shona, Ndebele and English, which are the three main languages in Zimbabwe, makes it possible for the study to draw reasoned conclusions on the bearing of time, language, region and background among others on historical representation. This undertaking brings to the fore how literature responding to similar historical processes appears moderately conjunctive and principally disjunctive. Correspondingly, it also shows various trends in the development of liberation war fiction in Zimbabwe.African LanguagesD. Litt. et Phil. (African Languages

Representations of the body as contested terrain: The Zimbabwean liberation war novel and the politics of nation and nationalism

The article raises insights on the politics of representation, nation and nationalism in Zimbabwe, as these are linked to the 1970s war against colonial settlerism. They are also at the centre of the contest for political power. In this endeavour, it particularly discusses fictive representations of the body, both male and female, as embodiments of the ideas of  nation and nationalism and the uses to which history is put in Zimbabwean politics today. The article shows that the liberation war historical narratives invest in the geography of the body, which is a vital resource for any given people’s visibility. In the early 1980s, a time when Zimbabwe attained political independence, the narratives cast the  body as larger-than-life, healthy and steely. Narratives published in the late 1980s and beyond depict the body as tormented and vulnerable turf as a result of what the authors identify as the excesses of nationalism. The argument is made that the liberation war historical narratives, which are published in different historical epochs purposefully  engage in selective forgetting and remembering. They ingeniously instrumentalize and operationalize the body as a slate for inscribing historical content and ideology. Thus, the contesting uses to which the body is put in historical narratives on the war evince that historical narratives are a veritable stakeholder in the politics of history and the  politics of contested hegemony in Zimbabwe recent politics.S.Afr.J.Afr.Lang., 31(2) 201

Contesting ‘Patriotic History’: Zimbabwe’s liberation war history and the democratization agenda

The article is an exegesis of the interface of liberation war history and democracy in the Zimbabwean polity. It draws corroborative evidence from an exclusively women authored historical narrative, Women of resilience: The voices of women ex-combatants (2000) published by Zimbabwe Women Writers (henceforth ZWW). Remarkably, the article observes that the exclusively women authored anthology on liberation war history offers an inventory of a gender based trajectory of memory, thus making gender one of the vital political resources in the nation’s democratization agenda as well as in contesting historical authoritarianism and reconfiguring historical and political discourse. The women’s voices use the gender card to discursively destabilize and delegitimate official memory reconstructions, particularly at a time when liberation war history in Zimbabwe is being brazenly and aggressively deployed as a political resource. Seen in this light, the article further lays it down that renditions of Zimbabwe’s liberation war history and the meanings/interpretations of and contestations for democracy in Zimbabwe’s violent politics of contested hegemony are inalienable, inextricable and even fungible. The various contesting categories in the nation use and interpret history for different purposes. The state, represented by the nationalist party (ZANU [PF]) largely operationalizes history as legitimating discourse. On the other hand, the sidelined demographic categories contest narrow ‘patriotic history’ by engineering counter discursive historical accounts.S.Afr.J.Afr.Lang., 30(2) 201

Children’s songs and human factor development: A comparative analysis of Shona children’s songs and imported English nursery rhymes

The article juxtaposes Shona children’s songs and English nursery rhymes in order to unravel the contesting human factor values and epistemological codes and modes of socialisation. It largely approaches the songs as cultural texts that are quintessentially an expression of the ethos and culture of a people. These cultural texts embody a set of values that underpin consciousness and performance. Anchoring the discussion on the fundamentals of the human factor approach, and within the broader matrix of Afrocentricity, the article contends that in neocolonial Africa, children’s socialisation is a contested site. The exposure of children to cultural texts from disparate cultural zones creates a fundamental human crisis. This is precisely the case because the two categories of songs advance diametrically variant and irreconcilable codes of cognitive enrichment. For instance, English nursery rhymes are part of the discursive infrastructure for solidifying European hegemony. They impose a foreign and alien memory which potentially dislocates children’s consciousness. This is manifest in the manner in which ‘London’ and other symbols of the Western order are canonised. On the other hand, indigenous Shona children’s songs provide a functional and value-laden curriculum of life and instruction. The symbolism is drawn from the Shona people’s lived and livable experiences

Woman with voice: An analysis of female agency in Dino Mudondo’s song, ‘Jatirofa’ and Josphat Somanje’s ‘Handibvume’

The article is an exegesis of Shona songs which canonise the mother as a centrepiece of agency and family-centred commitments in times when family integrity comes under threat. Remarkably, the woman is privileged with a voice in a manner that thoroughly debunks stereotypical identities of the Shona/African woman as a personification of victimhood, non-participation, frailty and marginality as epitomised by Eurocentric feminist conceptualisations of women. The songs advance a lyrical agenda which contours musha (home) as a major performance space among the Shona people in which the man, woman and child are judged on the basis of their ability to contribute and participate responsibly. Within this spatial-cultural zone, the woman is cast as a significant life force, courageously vocalising her position in re-arranging, reshaping, challenging and re-ordering familial dynamics. The ownership of voice is critical in human affairs as it is coterminous with the enlargement of options and possibilities in life, something that remains indispensable to human growth and survival. As argued in the article, this participatory inclination by the mother together with the unbridled ownership of voice in the affairs of the family is consistent with Shona epistemological and ontological assumptions. For that reason, the discussion pivots on Africana Womanism, an African-centred paradigm on gender