Robert Mugabe as an African traditional religious fundamentalist

Taringa, Nisbert Taisekwa; Museka, Godfrey

doi:10.4324/9781003026280-5

Cited by 2 publications

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“…On the other hand, some studies have examined how Mugabe deployed African traditional religion ideals to gain political expediency. Taringa and Museka (2021) posit that Mugabe retrieved and appropriated the following African traditional religion elements into his leadership: domestication of the ancestral tradition, chieftainship tradition, scapegoating through witchcraft, rituals in honour of the dead, and revival of traditional religio-cultural festivals. Chitando (2015) demonstrates how Mugabe deployed the Nehanda tradition to defy real or imagined forces he thought were opposing the land reform programme in the 2000s.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Is Mugabe Also Among the National Deities and Kings?’: Place Renaming and the Appropriation of African Chieftainship Ideals and Spirituality in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe

Mamvura

2021

Journal of Asian and African Studies

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This article examines the elite construction of cultural landscapes in Harare. Since assuming the reins of power in the Zimbabwe African Nation Union (ZANU) in 1977, Robert Mugabe invented a political culture that conflated him with spirit mediums whom the nationalist movement had elevated to national deities and dead kings. Mugabe continued to cultivate this political culture in the post-colonial era using different discourses of self-presentation. The place-renaming exercise that the Mugabe regime implemented immediately after independence was part of Mugabe’s self-legitimating efforts. This article establishes that the place-renaming system in Harare projected Mugabe as a divine king.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%