Strugglers and Stragglers
Imagining the “War Veteran” from the 1890s to the Present in Zimbabwean Literary Discourse
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20156735 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Muchativugwa Liberty Hove (0000-0002-6021-4639, North-West University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2011 |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 38-57 |
| Publication date | 2011-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Literary Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0256-4718 • E-ISSN: 1753-5387 |
| Publisher | Unisa Press (PUBLISHER • ZA) |
| DOI | 10.1080/02564718.2011.580653 |
| OpenAlex | W2099386356 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 5 |
This article interrogates the diverse images of the combative participant in the struggle for Zimbabwean independence. The war for independence took close to a century – from 1890 to 1980. The numerical inversion in the dates ironically mirrors the radical transformation in the perceptions of the hero. The article makes a historical survey of the rifts and shifts in the cultural memory and literary configurations of the African armed combatant. It deals with three genealogical periods of conceptualisation: the participant in the First Chimurenga, the guerrilla in the Second Chimurenga, the Ndebele “dissidents” and the “war veterans” in the “Third Chimurenga”. Genocide, xenophobia and massacre, too much, are unspeakable in the discourse of modernity because such crimes against humanity defy description and, as Adorno (1955: 34) submits, are impossible to write after Auschwitz. But to remain silent over the flare of systematised and authorised purging of dissenting chromatic configurations in the Zimbabwean situation is to be complicit in the enactment of both past and current horrors. Dialogue between Zimbabwe and the West, aid and media houses, is charged and polarised. Zimbabwe is sceptical about the purity and altruistic character of the West, global media and humanitarian workers, while the West imagines Foucaldian “biopolitics” (the ability to control populations) has contributed to the implosion in (an)other African state
Art · Democracy · Dictatorship · Gulag · HERO · Literature · Media studies · Modernity · Political science · Sociology · War of independence · African history and culture studies · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Gender Studies · History · Law
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,33 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2023 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |