Nationalists with no nation: oral history, ZANU(PF) and the meanings of Rhodesian student activism in Zimbabwe

Abstract

In Zimbabwe after 2000, ZANU(PF) leaders’ past experiences of student activism in Rhodesia were celebrated by the state-owned media as personifications of anti-colonial, nationalist leadership in the struggle to liberate the country. This article examines the history behind this narrative by exploring the entangled realities of student activism in Rhodesia throughout the 1960s and 1970s and its role as a mechanism of elite formation in ZANU(PF). Building on the historiography of African student movements, I show how the persistence of nationalist anti-colonial organizing and liberal traditions on campus made student activism in Rhodesia distinct from that in South Africa and independent African countries to its north. The article then examines how and why three former activists, who took up elite political careers in the party that they subsequently left, contested the ruling party's anti-colonial, ‘patriotic’ rendering of these experiences. These three men's stories invoked imagined and older forms of nationalism or institutional ethic that had been abandoned by the party as it turned to more authoritarian rule. Stories of Rhodesian student activism thus provided space for justifying alternative political possibilities of nationalism, which implicitly critiqued the ruling party's ‘patriotic’ narrative, as well as for nostalgic anecdotes of life on campus, their journeys into adulthood, and the excitement of being part of a dynamic, transformational political project.

What Now for the Zimbabwean Student Demonstrator? Online Activism and Its Challenges for University Students in A COVID-19 Lockdown

“…Activism can be violent and destructivelike the 1973 Chimukwembe demonstration, where the mass mobilization of students resulted in violence and destruction of property. Hodgkinson (2019) agrees with Mlambo (1995) and Makunike (2015) that universities are a breeding space for student activism. He argues that universities groom student leaders, who later become national icons -Simba Makoni and Witness Mangwende are some of the examples (see Hodgkinson 2019;Mlambo 1995).…”

“…Hodgkinson (2019) agrees with Mlambo (1995) and Makunike (2015) that universities are a breeding space for student activism. He argues that universities groom student leaders, who later become national icons -Simba Makoni and Witness Mangwende are some of the examples (see Hodgkinson 2019;Mlambo 1995). Activism could be right or left-leaning, peaceful or violent, but, in the end, it is about fighting injustice.…”

“…In Zimbabwe, the history of student activism has been documented by scholars such as Mlambo (1995), Zeilig (2008), Makunike (2015) and Hodgkinson (2019). These scholars agree that student activism is characterized by organized student councils at tertiary learning institutions.…”

Nation branding in Zimbabwe: Archaeological heritage, national cohesion, and corporate identities

“…Although Great Zimbabwe has largely influenced corporate identities in postcolonial Zimbabwe, for this article we only focus on the higher education sector. This is mainly because higher education institutions played a critical role in the rise of anti-colonial African nationalism and continue to influence national politics (Hodgkinson, 2019; Nicol, 1963). It is interesting to establish how these institutions have responded to and embraced national and state iconography.…”