Patriotic history and the politicisation of memory: manipulation of popular music to re-invent the liberation struggle in Zimbabwe

This paper investigates how the music nationalism promulgated by the ZANU-PF regime's former Minister of Information and Publicity, Jonathan Moyo, appropriated history and culture in its relentless effort to convince the citizenry that the on-going crisis in Zimbabwe is a continuation of the liberation struggle. It documents how Moyo's propagandised ‘patriotic history’ was written into song lyrics and used in frequently televised propaganda videos and CD/cassette releases to create a music nationalism that appropriated the music of the 1970s Second Chimurenga struggle, then performed to resist colonial oppression, and used it as propaganda intended to maintain the current oppressive regime's grip on political power. It argues that the appropriation of indigenous song/dance forms and the ‘chimurenga music’ of the liberation war has failed to achieve unification of the nation; and that rather, the propaganda's manipulation of memory has offended the Shona cultural aesthetic that requires songwriters to speak the truth of their experience in their music